Monday, November 18, 2013

Twenty-First-Century Land Grabs: Accumulation by Agricultural Dispossession

Click here to access article by Fred Magdoff from Monthly Review

The author provides profound insights on the transformation of feudalism into profit-driven industrial capitalism, insights that, no doubt, were mostly absent in your education. Following this transformation he begins his analysis of the conversion of privately owned farms into corporate agribusinesses (with special emphasis on China), and their influence on governments to remove national barriers inhibiting their accumulation of profits globally (neoliberalism).
What is going on today must be placed in the historical context of the continuous development of capitalism. .... Specific examples of the dispossession of people from the land will emphasize the various techniques used by capital (or nascent capital) that have resulted in a continuous stream of people moving to the cities. The examples discussed below are but a small sampling of the dispossessions that have occurred, and are occurring, around the world.