From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Tue Feb 07 2006 - 12:34:00 EST
> Do the landless impoverished peasants continue to produce soy for > the world market or can they only survive by subsistence rathern > than export based farming? Hi again Paul C, Good question. I guess soy was a bad example. So, I'll pick two more examples of agricultural products which are produced for local consumption and export by both capitalist enterprises, poor landowning peasants, and landless peasants: -- marijuana -- coca You might object and say these are special commodities. So they are, but the market for these agricultural products has an impact on what agricultural producers produce and whether they continue to produce agricultural products and/or own land at all. I.e. these are substitute goods which can be produced with the same land and labor. Indeed, in the case of marijuana, it can be successfully cultivated on even more marginal land than that required for soy cultivation. Recall that a popular name for marijuana is "weed". No one would say that the price of marijuana or coca is determined by the conditions of production of the least efficient marijuana or coca producers, would they? Even assuming that marijuana was legalized (as is the case in the more enlightened nation of the Netherlands) there is no reason to assert that the costs of production of the least efficient marijuana producers would govern the price of marijuana on world markets, is there? OK, you don't like the examples of marijuana or coca. How about a legalized drug -- coffee? Coffee is both locally consumed and exported. I think it would be absurd to claim that the conditions for the landless peasant who is the least efficient producer of coffee governs the price of coffee on world markets. In solidarity, Jerry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Feb 08 2006 - 00:00:01 EST