2018-12-29

책. 이윤에 굶주린 자들 Hungry for Profit

프레드 맥도프, 프레드릭 버텔, 존 벨라미 포스터 (엮은이), 윤병선, 박민선, 류수연 (옮긴이) | 울력 | 2006-03-15 | 원제 Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment (2000년)

정가 15,000원
판매가 13,500원 (10%, 1,500원 할인) | 무이자 할부

반양장본 | 359쪽 | 138*212mm | 467g | ISBN : 9788989485407

시장 개방의 열풍 속에 농식품 관련 초국적 거대 기업들이 지배하는 현대의 농업을 정치경제학적 입장에서 다각도로 분석했다. 현재 각국의 농업 구조와 과거 농업 경제사를 분석하고 농촌을 해체해가고 있는 세계화의 문제를 강도높게 지적한 논문들을 모은 책이다.

'이윤에 굶주린' 농업 관련 기업들이 자본과 유전자 조작 농산물 등의 발달된 기술을 무차별적으로 투입함으로써 현재 농업, 농민, 식품, 환경 등에 미치는 악영향을 역사적·이론적으로 밝히고, 구체적인 사례 제시로 주장을 뒷받침했다. 더 나아가 자본주의에 포섭된 농업이 야기한 기아와 풍요의 불균형·불평등 구조를 보여준다.

중소형 생태 농업으로도 위기를 극복한 쿠바의 사례와 농업관련 산업에 저항하는 미국 농민 노조의 사례 등을 다루어 위기에 처한 농업의 돌파구를 제시했다. 한국판에서는 2000년에 출간된 원서에 수록된 논문 13개 중 최근 논의에 부합하는 11개를 수록하고, 박민선 교수의 논문을 보론으로 추가하여 이해를 도왔다.

옮긴이 서문

서장 /프레드 맥도프, 존 포스터, 프레드릭 버텔

1. 농업 자본주의의 발생 /엘런 우드
2. 리비히, 마르크스와 토양 생산력 고갈: 현대 농업과의 관련성 /존 포스터, 프레드 맥도프
3. 농업에서의 소유와 지배의 집중 /윌리엄 헤퍼난

4. 공업적 농업이 생태계에 미친 영향과 진정으로 지속 가능한 농업의 가능성 /미구엘 알티에리
5. 자본주의적 농업의 성숙: 프롤레타리아로서의 농민 /르원틴
6. 세계의 식량 정치 /필립 맥마이클

7. 현대의 전 지구적 규모의 인클로저: 20세기 말 농민과 농민 문제 /파샤드 아라기
8. 미국 농장 노동자의 조직화: 끝없는 투쟁 /린다 마즈카, 테오 마즈카
9. 지역 식품 체계, 풀뿌리 수준부터 재건하기 /엘리자베스 헨더슨

10. 부족과 과잉: 기아에서 불평등까지
11. 쿠바: 지속 가능한 농업의 성공 사례 /피터 M. 로셋

보론. 기업의 유전자 지배와 농업 지배

글쓴이 소개
찾아보기

비상 시기의 쿠바는 농장에서 동력 기계를 가동시킬 수 없어 축력을 이용해야 하는 등 특수한 상황에 처해 있었다. 그러나 다른 국가들이 이 정도까지 기계화를 포기하고도 이런 상황에서 쿠바 같은 농업 발전을 이뤄낼 수 있을지는 미지수다. 어쨌든 쿠바는 발전을 이뤄내고자 하는 국가들에게 교훈을 주고 있다. 축력을 이용하고 있는 소규모 농장들도 기술 지원만 확실하다면, 높은 토지 생산성을 올릴 수 있다는 점이다.

(...) 쿠바의 경험은 생태학적 농업 기술에 바탕을 둔 중·소형 농장들로 국가 전체의 국민들을 먹여 살릴 수 있으며, 그렇게 됨으로써 보다 자급적인 먹을거리 생산이 가능해진다는 점을 시사한다. 농민들은 자신이 생산한 농산물에 대해 높은 대가를 받아야만 하고, 그렇게 되어야만 생산 의욕도 높아진다. - 본문 319~320쪽에서

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이윤에 굶주린 자들 l 울력 해선문고 1

프레드 맥도프, 프레드릭 버텔, 존 벨라미 포스터 (엮은이), 윤병선, 박민선, 류수연 (옮긴이) | 울력 | 2006-03-15 |

원제 Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment (2000년)

-----------------
반양장본 | 359쪽 | 138*212mm | 467g | ISBN : 9788989485407

Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food and the Environment

Edited by Fred Magdoff, John Bellamy Foster and

Frederick H. Buttel

New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000 ISBN 1583670165

Reviewed by Corie Hammers

Department of Sociology

University of Oklahoma

Hungry for Profit is an expose of the agro-industrial apparatus and the myriad ways in which our food supply has fallen prey to capitalism and corporate hegemony. This book is a compilation of articles, each dealing with the social, scientific and environmental aspects of agribusiness, with a common contention woven throughout that our food supply in is danger; it is becoming increasingly insecure due to corporate control and its consequent concentration. What follows is an undemocratic agricultural system in which the public has little say or knowledge about the production process(es). Such social closure includes the introduction of new technologies (e.g., biotechnology) that putatively offer solutions to present day concerns such as global hunger, but whose risks to human health and the environment are either glossed over or ignored. Hungry for Profit offers a new discourse wherein the political is inextricably tied to the agricultural. This is articulated in Middendorf et al. when they assert that “technical choices [within the agricultural industry] are simultaneously political choices...” (see 116). As a result, the ultimate goal comes to be profit-maximization at the expense of human and environmental well-being.

This examination begins with Wood’s historical analysis involving the evolution of capitalistic domination within agriculture, wherein she debunks the notion that the embryonic form of capitalism (i.e., agrarian capitalism) got started in the cities. Rather, capitalistic principles arose in the countryside where new conceptions of “property” and the transformation of property relations emerged — communal property and use-rights came to be privatized and based on exclusivity. As a result, the peasants were dispossessed and their labor power appropriated by the owners of production. In addition, the emergence of the market as sole regulator of production turned both the direct producers and capitalists into marketdependent actors—a dependence fundamental to a capitalistic society. Thus, it was here that the very tenets of capitalism (i.e., competition, accumulation and profit-maximization) were first realized. These conditions in turn gave rise to the mass migration of the direct producers (i.e., peasants) to the cities in search of work. Foster and Magdoff build upon Wood’s historical analysis by making reference to this rural exodus as the separation of town and country or what Marx calls the “metabolic rift” in relation to food production. That is, no longer were people (and society in general) producing for themselves and thus connected to the land; rather, the production of food came to be controlled and consolidated by capitalists, thereby becoming removed from the very consumers of these products. Such “distancing” helped promote the concentration of capital and the consolidation of corporate power within the agricultural industry.

The techniques associated with capitalism’s “treadmill of production” (e.g., Schnaiberg and Gould 1994) coupled with the removal of sustainability from production has brought with it serious and in some cases irreversible environmental degradation. Altieri exposes this corporate-agricultural nexus and its link to the deterioration of our ecosystems. For instance, with specialization and monocropping (the large-scale production of a single crop) has come the development of a more genetically uniform milieu as well as increased dependence on synthetic chemicals. Not only is our food supply more vulnerable to disease (since genetic diversity provides protection against pests), but it is also being contaminated with these chemicals. Altieri refers to this increasing use of such toxins as the “pesticide treadmill” (82). Such exposure (to these pesticides) is harmful, but the actual “risks” (c.f., Beck 1992) associated with this contact in terms of human health are not fully known.

Economic concentration is also a function of vertical integration, in which a firm comes to dominate a number of stages in the agricultural industry (68-69). This has in turn fostered and perpetuated the “proletarianization of the farmer” as noted by Lewontin: “The essence of proletarianization is in the loss of control over one’s [the farmer’s] labor process ...” (97), since firms now own and control not just the output, but the input (e.g., equipment, synthetic chemicals, the seed itself, etc.) as well. Ironically, one consequence is the “modern” contract system, in which the farmer becomes essentially a “putting out” worker under contract with a major corporation. In addition, the farmer must use by law the corporation’s products throughout the entire farming process. In addition, vertical integration and thus corporate power extends into the realm of biotechnology (notably, the major players within biotechnology are those same companies that dominate both the seed and chemical industries). A function of biotechnology involves the manipulation of genetic material — in this case, the transformation of an organism (e.g., a seed) into a more “productive” variety. Thus, efficient seed and livestock varieties are the goal, with undesirable traits selected out and removed. Yet, as Hungry for Profit points out, this “standardization” leads to a reduction in genetic diversity and an intensification of market concentration, both of which make the agricultural system increasingly inefficient. Corporate hegemony vis-à-vis biotechnology is made precariously clear with what is known as “terminator technology” where the seed itself is made sterile after each harvest. As a result, growers are forced to return to seed companies every year; thus, the traditional practice of “saving seed” is rendered moot.

Once a novel entity is created (e.g., seed from this terminator technology), it becomes the property of its creators via such policies as the Plant Variety Protection Act and Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). As a result, corporate ownership now extends into the reproduction of life itself. In addition, these patents make the exchange of information illegal and exclusive (a condition I refer to as “intellectual closure”), creating additional distance between the citizenry and the scientific community. In essence, such social closure turns the corporate elite into the “monopoly owners of knowledge” (Shiva 2000). More importantly, such corporate control now extends across the globe and has been referred to as a type of “agricultural imperialism.” For instance, biotech companies have expropriated and laid claim to indigenous plants, which Shiva refers to as “biopiracy,” i.e., gene theft.

The economic liberalization and deregulation of agriculture through economic policies that favor First World nations, such as the implementation of green revolution technologies, have also worked to strengthen the agro-industrial apparatus. The green revolution following World War II focused on rapid production in the Third World at the expense of environmental health and sustainable development. One such policy as dictated by the World Bank (of which the United States is a primary participant), was the implementation of an intense agro-export strategy. Such a strategy was reinforced and perpetuated by later trade agreements such as GATT, which promotes economic liberalization via free trade and deregulation (which strengthens capital control). Such nonsustainable production leads to the degradation of land which in turn hinders future productivity. Not coincidentally, there has been increased famine, malnutrition and hunger in the Third World — problems brought about by agro-industrial practices originating in the First World which are the very problems biotechnology now purports it can “fix.”

Hungry for Profit calls for a transformation of agriculture, a radical departure from the status quo with a move towards sustainable production via environmentally sound practices. Such a direction would involve the input of the community and an opening up of information to the public. Thus, no longer would we be “blind” to current practices that are potentially risky and which compromise the public welfare. Of course, these developments can only take place in a context where profit is not pursued with such vigor. Yet, Hungry for Profit falls short in at least one way; such pro-found changes will not occur until our ideological framework itself is radically readjusted, recognizing that the planet is first and foremost our sustainer. An ideological vision wherein the contradictions of capitalism are acknowledged as a shortcoming to humanity’s future needs is necessary in this renaissance of change.

Secondly, while this book focuses on the political economy, on occasion it overlooks the central role the nation-state has in reinforcing and fostering the concentration and control corporations have in today’s society. The state as the creator of social rules and ideology is itself inextricably tied to and dependent upon capitalism (and vice versa). Given this, we need to examine in detail the state’s role and complicity within not only the agricultural industry but in society as well.

References

Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.

Harper, Charles L. 1995. Environment and Society: Human Perspectives on Environmental Issues. New Jersey: Simon & Schuster.

Schnaiberg, A., and K.A. Gould. 1994. Environment and Society: The Enduring Conflict. New York: St. Martins.

Shiva, Vandana. 2000. North-South conflicts in intellectual property rights. Peace Review 12, 501-508.

동아시아의 평화와 화해의 정치학 Scrapbook

2018-12-29

책. 이윤에 굶주린 자들 Hungry for Profit

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