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Global Commodities: Special Issue of the Austrian Journal of Historical Studies Global Commodities: Special Issue of the Austrian Journal of Historical Studies Erich Landsteiner and Ernst Langthaler _____________ Keywords: coffee, coca, gold, soy, sugar, tea, commodity frontiers Havesting coffee, Sao Paulo, Brazil. 1923. Artemas Ward, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. he history of capitalism has gained highlighting the vulnerability of neoliberal renewed attention over the last capitalism to fundamental crises (Tooze, T decade. This renaissance has 2018). In this regard, historians and other materialized in a broad spectrum of book scholars from the social sciences and publications, ranging from short humanities have rediscovered commodities, introductions to comprehensive collections, both as an object of study and as a research monographs, and handbooks (Kocka, 2016; perspective on more comprehensive objects. Neal & Williamson, 2014). Scholarly efforts for a new history of capitalism emerged from The concept of commodity provides a developments not only within but also cornerstone for the study of capitalism. beyond the academic field – first and Classical scholars such as Adam Smith, David foremost by the Great Recession of 2008, Ricardo and Karl Marx define the commodity COMMODITY FRONTIERS 2, SPRING 2021 48 as a value-bearing product to be sold in a (semi-)peripheral world regions into a global market (Sammond, 2007). While Karl Polanyi capitalist economy. (2001) takes up these theoretical strands, he Recent approaches, most importantly global draws a distinction between genuine and commodity chains (GCCs) and global value fictitious commodities: whereas the former chains (GVCs), have shifted away from this are conceived as goods and services produced long-term, world-historical perspective – for sale on the market, the latter – most which is deeply rooted in socio-economic importantly, labor and land – are not thinking – towards more short-term and more produced for market sale. The narrowly industry- and firm-centered analyses commodification of labor (i.e. society) and (Bair, 2008; Grewe, 2019). For instance, Gary land (i.e. nature) through the implementation Gereffi’s GCC approach focuses on the of the “free market” utopia by liberal nation modes of governing buyer-supplier states in the nineteenth century is said to lead relationships, comprising several dimensions: to disaster. Once the disruptive effects of the the transformation of raw materials and other “free market” become apparent, counter- inputs into final products; the spatial movements to marketization would retreat configuration; the governance structure, from the tenets of market self-regulation which oscillates between producer-driven and (disembedding) to protect society and nature buyer-driven chains; and the institutional through regulatory institutions (re- “rules of the game” (Gereffi, 1994, 1995). embedding). The GVC approach has further differentiated this typology into five governance structures Polanyi’s Great Transformation, centered on (hierarchy, captive, relational, modular, and the “double movement” of liberal market) and regards these as determined by marketization and protective counter- three variables: the complexity of movements, can be read as a history of transactions; the ability to codify transactions; capitalist globalization avant la lettre, of what and the capabilities of the supply base is usually termed the “first wave of (Gereffi, Humphrey & Sturgeon, 2005; globalization” (Osterhammel & Petersson, Humphrey & Schmitz, 2000). Moreover, 2007). Since the underlying conceptualization economic geographers have argued for a re- of commodity lacks any notion of embedding of commodity chain research transnational relations, further waves of under the label of global production networks global connection – reflected by the (GPN). In contrast to GCC and GVC introduction of the term “globalization” in approaches, GPN scholarship emphasizes the the 1990s – have called for a world-historical multi-scalar dynamics of globalization, i.e. the notion of commodification. The concept of embeddedness of global networks in national, commodity chain, introduced by Terence regional, and local contexts, including state Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein, offers a and non-governmental actors (Hess & Coe, response to this challenge: 2006). What we mean by such chains is the The sheer size of this flourishing literature following: take an ultimate highlights the appeal of chain and network consumable item and trace back the metaphors as tools for conceptualizing set of inputs that culminated in this globalization in the field of commodity item, including prior transformations, the raw materials, the transportation studies. However, some critiques of these mechanisms, the labor input into each approaches have recently emerged: first, they of the material processes, the food emphasize the centers of the capitalist sphere inputs into the labor. This linked set rather than the peripheries, thus neglecting of processes we call a commodity the contested incorporation of labor and chain (Hopkins & Wallerstein, 1977, nature in remote areas. Second, they tend to 128; see also Hopkins & Wallerstein, underestimate the “more than human” 1986). dimension of commodification, thus neglecting the agency of non-human entities, World-systems analysts apply the concept of both organic and inorganic. To address these commodity chain in order to reveal the issues, Jason Moore has introduced the emergence of a politically mediated division concept of commodity frontier from a world- of labor incorporating core and 49 COMMODITY FRONTIERS 2, SPRING 2021 ecological perspective. It extends far beyond benefit of combining global with regional or Frederic Turner’s classical frontier thesis, even local perspectives (Joseph, 2019). which argued that the frontier experience shaped collective identity in nineteenth- Steven Topik discusses the vast expansion of century North America (Turner, 2012). As “a coffee production in Brazil during the zone beyond which further expansion is nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a possible” (Moore, 2000, 412), the commodity case of the adaption of an external frontier to frontier directs our attention, first, to the an internal one. Coffee trees were more or less contested places of transplanted to Brazil in 1727, but the early incorporation into the space of the capitalist coffee economy catered primarily for the world economy and, second, to the internal market. External events and intersection of society and nature in the international politics such as the revolution in accumulation of value along the commodity Saint Domingue, until then the world’s chain (“world ecology”). Since capitalism foremost coffee exporter, the disbanding of depends on growth, frontier expansion is the mercantile system and British merchant inherent to capitalist development: “the capital led to the expansion of coffee extension of capitalist power to new, non- cultivation on virgin land based on slave labor. commodified spaces became the lifeblood of Topik lays particular emphasis on changing capitalism” (Moore, 2015, 19). After the labor regimes and scales of coffee production colonization of the last non-incorporated evolving from huge plantations cultivated by territories in the “golden age of resource- slaves to smaller holdings worked by based development” (1870–1914), global immigrant sharecroppers and colonists to capitalism shifted from extensive to more freeholders. Large-scale plantations and the intensive forms of incorporation (Barbier, use of slave labor were not inherent to coffee 2011, 2). With reference to Ricardian classical cultivation, but rather constituted a colonial economics, we may distinguish between heritage linked to 300 years of sugar external frontiers as zones of the extensive production. Drawing on large numbers of incorporation (i.e. “widening”) of new spaces immigrants from Europe, the colono system and internal frontiers as zones of the more that replaced slavery after abolition combined intensive incorporation (i.e. “deepening”) of aspects of peasant production and wage already commodified spaces (Willebald & labor. Families became the basic work units, Juambeltz, 2018; Carlson, 2001). his debate has recently been addressed by a special issue of the Austrian T Journal of Historical Studies 30/3 (2019) on Global Commodities, edited by ourselves (open access). Focusing on coca, coffee, gold, soy, sugar, and tea, the articles aim at tracing the emergence of commodity chains through the expansion and contraction of commodity frontiers. Frontier shifts imply complex – and potentially conflicting – interactions shaped by as well as shaping socio-natural systems. Thus, the contributions reveal commodity chains and their frontiers to be subject to negotiations between multiple actors, both human and non-human. Each of the contributions concentrates on one or more world region(s) of frontier shifts, while taking into account the transregional, transnational, and transcontinental connections via commodity chains. Thereby, these commodity-focused histories reveal the COMMODITY FRONTIERS 2, SPRING 2021 50 and former plantations began to resemble Challenges to this regime in the form of peasant villages, but the Brazilian coffee localized contingencies, inter-species economy continued its expansion. pathogens and fiscal expediency highlight its Ulbe Bosma offers a counterpoint to the inherent variability from one setting to the dominant story of sugar as an external next. plantation frontier in the Atlantic
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