Agriculture and Class: Contradictions of Midwestern Family Farms Across the Twentieth Century Elizabeth Ann Ramey University of Massachusetts Amherst, [email protected]
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Open Access Dissertations 2-2012 Agriculture and Class: Contradictions of Midwestern Family Farms Across the Twentieth Century Elizabeth Ann Ramey University of Massachusetts Amherst, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the Economics Commons Recommended Citation Ramey, Elizabeth Ann, "Agriculture and Class: Contradictions of Midwestern Family Farms Across the Twentieth Century" (2012). Open Access Dissertations. 517. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/517 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AGRICULTURE AND CLASS: CONTRADICTIONS OF MIDWESTERN FAMILY FARMS ACROSS THE TWENTIETH CENTURY A Dissertation Presented By ELIZABETH ANN RAMEY Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment Of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2012 Economics © Copyright by Elizabeth Ann Ramey 2012 All Rights Reserved AGRICULTURE AND CLASS: CONTRADICTIONS OF MIDWESTERN FAMILY FARMS ACROSS THE TWENTIETH CENTURY A Dissertation Presented By ELIZABETH ANN RAMEY Approved as to style and content by: __________________________________________________ Stephen A. Resnick, Co-chair __________________________________________________ Richard D. Wolff, Co-chair __________________________________________________ Gerald Friedman, Member __________________________________________________ Laura L. Lovett, Member ________________________________________________ Michael Ash, Department Head Economics DEDICATION To my grandmother ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation has been the overdetermined result of the wisdom, guidance, faith, and friendship of countless individuals. I thank all teachers, colleagues, and friends who contributed. You know who you are. This dissertation would have never been possible without the insight and support of my committee, Richard Wolff, Stephen Resnick, Gerald Friedman, and Laura Lovett. My long and challenging journey toward achieving my professional goals has benefitted in so many ways from your example and advice. Rick and Steve, you have been my intellectual inspirations since I arrived at the University of Massachusetts, and you will always be my teachers and role models. Thank you for your patience and confidence in me. Thank you, Jerry, for always finding the time to offer helpful advice, to push me forward, and in the process, to become my friend. And to Laura I am forever in your debt for guiding me to the treasure trove of research that informs this work, as well as to the community of scholars responsible for it. I want to also thank the many friends and colleagues who have supported me in so many ways. To George DeMartino, my life coach, shrink, and person-who-buys-me- dinner, this is all your fault. Max Fraad Wolff was there at the beginning, and has been a constant source of creative insights. The ladies from my dissertation support group, my adopted sisters, Babette Faehmel and Liane Jeschull, have provided me with invaluable support for this project and for life in general. Many thanks as well to my writing coach, Gina Hiatt, and the members of my writing group for teaching me how to write through almost anything and seeing me through to the end. I would not have been able to finish this project without the support of my new colleagues at Hobart and William Smith v Colleges. In particular, I want to thank Jo Beth Mertens for believing in me. Thank you, Bernie Gee, for pushing me, dragging me, and finally carrying me across the finish line. To my dear friend, Gül Ünal, I couldn’t have done it without you. I am eternally grateful for the intellectual “comraderie” I have found in the members of AESA. I would like to thank the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) of Amherst, which generously provided a dissertation fellowship to support my work. Finally, I thank my grandmother, the “original” farmer’s daughter, to whom I dedicate this work. vi ABSTRACT AGRICULTURE AND CLASS: CONTRADICTIONS OF MIDWESTERN FAMILY FARMS ACROSS THE TWENTIETH CENTURY FEBRUARY 2012 ELIZABETH ANN RAMEY, B.A., THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY M.A. UNIVERSITY OF DENVER Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professors Stephen A. Resnick and Richard D. Wolff In this dissertation I develop a Marxian class analysis of corn-producing family farms in the Midwestern United States during the early twentieth century. I theorize the family farm as a complex hybrid of mostly feudal and ancient class structures that has survived through a contradictory combination of strategies that includes the feudal exploitation of farm family members, the cannibalization of neighboring ancient farmers in a vicious hunt for superprofits, and the intervention of state welfare programs. The class-based definition of the family farm yields unique insights into three broad aspects of U.S. agricultural history. First, my analysis highlights the crucial, yet under-recognized role of farm women and children’s unpaid labor in subsidizing the family farm. Second I offer a new, class-based perspective on the roots of the twentieth century “miracle of productivity” in U.S. agriculture, the rise of the agribusiness giants that depended on the perpetual, technology-induced crisis of that agriculture, and the implications of government farm programs. Third, this dissertation demonstrates how the unique set of contradictions and circumstances facing family farmers during the early twentieth century, including class exploitation, were connected to concern for their ability to serve the needs of U.S. industrial capitalist development. vii The argument presented here highlights the significant costs associated with the intensification of exploitation in the transition to industrial agriculture in the U.S. The family farm is implicated in this social theft. Ironically, the same family farm is often held up as the bedrock of American life. Its exalted status as an example of democracy, independence, self-sufficiency, and morality is enabled among other things by the absence of class awareness in U.S. society. When viewed through the lens of class, the hallowed family farm becomes example of one of the most exploitative institutions in the U.S. economy. The myth of its superiority takes on a new significance as one of the important non-economic processes helping to overdetermine the family farm’s long survival, while participating in foreclosing truly radical transformations of these institutions to non-exploitative alternatives. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ v ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. xi LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... xii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 Manor Economy: A Class Analytical Framework of the Family Farm ......................... 2 Class Struggle on the Farm: Constructing the “Farm Woman Problem” .................... 13 Conclusion and Plan of Work ....................................................................................... 25 2. THE FAMILY FARM HYBRID, FEUDAL-ANCIENT SUBSIDIES AND THE FARM WOMAN PROBLEM .......................................................................................... 29 The Ancient Corn Belt Farming System and Feudal-Ancient Subsidies ...................... 37 “Unemployed” and Unpaid: What Did Farm Wives Do? ............................................ 44 Family Farm Feudalism ................................................................................................ 55 Children as Serfs ........................................................................................................... 58 Non-Class Conditions of Existence for the Family Farm Hybrid ................................. 61 Feudal-Ancient Subsidies: Making Do and Helping Out ............................................ 71 Making Do ............................................................................................................ 72 Helping Out ........................................................................................................... 81 The Farm Woman Problem Revisited ........................................................................... 91 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 103 3. TECHNICAL CHANGE, ANCIENT COMPETITION, AND THE HUNT FOR SUPERPROFITS ............................................................................................................ 106 Industrial Agriculture .................................................................................................. 109 From the “Farm Woman Problem” to the “Farm Problem” ....................................... 111 ix The Tractor Dilemma: Through