Political Economy, Rural Change, and Peasant Struggle in 21St Century Paraguay
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The Agrarian Question of Extractive Capital: Political Economy, Rural Change, and Peasant Struggle in 21st Century Paraguay By Arturo Ezquerro-Cañete A Thesis Submitted to Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in International Development Studies. September, 2020, Halifax, Nova Scotia Copyright Arturo Ezquerro-Cañete, 2020 Approved: ________________________ Dr. Henry Veltmeyer Supervisor Approved: ________________________ Dr. Darcy Tetreault Co-supervisor Approved: ________________________ Dr. Leandro Vergara-Camus Examiner Approved: ________________________ Dr. Gavin Fridell Reader Date: August 26, 2020 The Agrarian Question of Extractive Capital: Political Economy, Rural Change, and Peasant Struggle in 21st Century Paraguay By Arturo Ezquerro-Cañete Abstract This dissertation examines the impact of contemporary capitalist globalization on class relations, class conflict, and economic development in the Paraguayan countryside. It offers a political economy analysis of agrarian change, situating this analysis in the wider historical context of the protracted transition to democracy between 1989 and 2008, the rural class structure of the country, the changing character of contemporary agro-extractive capitalism, and the long‐standing class struggle for redistributive land reform. Particular focus is placed on the combative but still highly fragmented peasantry and on the “parliamentary coup” that took place in June 2012, as this event reveals the major fault lines of the balance of class forces in the countryside, in particular the commitment of a compact and coalesced, dominant agrarian class and political elite in Congress to preserving the country’s unequal distribution of land and wealth. By examining the Paraguayan land reform impasse under the short‐lived government of Fernando Lugo (2008–2012) through an interactive state-society framework, this dissertation attempts to locate the sources of current social and political conflict in the country, and the demands of rival social groups. In doing so, it argues that the rise and fall of Lugo occurred in the context of structural legacies from the Stroessner era (1954–1989) that have remained largely unchanged and that coexist today with an expanding agro‐ extractivist development model. This dissertation also challenges the recent hailing of agricultural biotechnology as a panacea for food insecurity and rural poverty in countries of the global South. Based on an empirical investigation of the neoliberal soy regime in Paraguay, the present study documents how the profound transformation of this country’s agricultural mode of production over the past two decades, spurred by the neoliberal restructuring of agriculture and the bio-revolution, has jeopardized rural livelihoods. Drawing on the concept of “agrarian extractivism”, the study demonstrates how the transgenic soyization of Paraguay’s agriculture has led to an increased concentration of landholdings, as well as the displacement and disempowerment of peasants and rural labourers who have been rendered surplus to the requirements of agribusiness capital. At the same time, the consolidation of this new agro-industrial model has fostered a growing dependence on agrochemicals that compromise environmental quality and human health. Agrarian extractivism has also reshaped the political terrain of the countryside; the class struggle for land and agrarian reform has now expanded to include struggles against the deleterious operations of extractive capital. Date: August 26, 2020 1 Acknowledgements I have accrued many debts writing this dissertation. First and foremost, a heartful thank you to my supervisor Henry Veltmeyer. You have been a committed advisor and important mentor for me. I am extremely grateful for the intellectual guidance and inspiration you have provided throughout the doctoral process—as well as the many great restaurants you have introduced me to in Halifax and Zacatecas. Thanks to the Paraguayan scholars and social researchers who spent hours helping me navigate through Paraguay’s incredibly complex history: Ramón Fogel, Luis Rojas, Guillermo Ortega, Quintín Riquelme, Marielle Palau, and Sintya Valdez. Thanks also to my many teachers and mentors in Canada, Mexico, the UK, and across Europe who all helped in significant ways, including Darcy Tetreault, Cristóbal Kay, Leandro Vergara-Camus, Raul Delgado Wise, Guillermo Foladori, Carlos Mallorquín, and Gavin Fridell. On the personal side, I benefited from the love and support of my family. In Paraguay, Cesar and Raquel opened their home to me and allowed me to turn their dining table into a temporary office space. My parents, Arturo and Maria, have always given me their unconditional love and support, and helped me in innumerable ways to finish this dissertation when I needed it the most. Finally, I thank my wife and life partner Likda Morash for all her love and patience, understanding and self-sacrifice during the long years of my doctoral studies. 1 2 Table of Contents Chapter 1 – Introduction Chapter 2 – The Neoliberal Corporate Food Regime: Agrarian Change in Latin America Chapter 3 – Land for the Few: Paraguay’s Agrarian Class Structure Chapter 4 – A “Coup” Foretold: The Politics of Agrarian Change under Fernando Lugo Chapter 5 – From “White Gold” to “Green Deserts”: Agrarian Extractivism and the Peasantry Chapter 6 – Biting the Hand that Starves You: Peasant Resistance and the Class Struggle for Land Chapter 7 – Conclusion 2 3 List of Tables and Figures Tables 2.1 Latin America and the Caribbean: 10 main agricultural products exported to the world, 2000 and 2016 (Billions of dollars and percentages of total agricultural exports) 2.2 Indices of prices of soybeans and derivatives, 2001–2018 (Index 2000 = 100) 2.3 Soybean area, volume and share of global production and exports, 2015 3.1 Foreign capital participation that settled in Paraguay, 1886–1917 3.2 Individual beneficiarias of tierras malhabidas (ill-gotten lands) 3.3 The top seven agribusiness companies and their export sale (US$ million), 2010-2019 3.4 Distribution of farms and land by farm size, 1956–2008 3.5 The 15 Largest landowners in Paraguay 4.1 Distribution of seats in Congress, April 2008 5.1 Evolution of soybean export infrastructure in MT (% of total export), 1992–2018 5.2 Farms and land surface dedicated to soy production, 1991–2008 5.3 Permanent and temporary rural wage labour, 1991–2008 6.1 Paraguayan-born Argentine residents by place of residence, 1869-2010 6.2 Campesino organisations in Paraguay 6.3 Land occupations by department, 2008–2018 Figures 1.1 Scholar-Activists 3.1 Percentages of hectares cultivated with soy, by nationality of producers and farm size, 2008 3 4 3.2 Foreign direct investment inflows (millions of dollars), 1990-2018 3.3 Asset declaration for Horacio Cartes, August 2013 5.1 Share of food crop usage in world bio-based economy (2009) 5.2 Total area and production of soybeans, 1996–2019 5.3 Main importers of harvesters, 2018 5.4. Main importers of tractors, 2018 (tractors non-capital) 5.5 Impacts of growth in agriculture exports on the rural poor in Latin America 5.6 Soy = Glyphosate + Paramilitary 5.7 Police guarding a soybean field in Paraguay, 2013 5.8 “Paraguay Agroindustrial Power to Feed the World” 5.9 Food imports (US$ million), 1995-2018 6.1 Land occupations in Paraguay, 1990–2019 4 5 Chapter 1 Introduction Introduction 1.1 The turn of the new millennium opened a new chapter in the history of capitalist development in Latin America. On the one hand, the exclusionary and concentrating consequences of neoliberalism1 provoked massive anti-neoliberal mobilizations throughout the region— exemplified in the various mass street actions that brought down governments in Peru (2000), Argentina (2001), Bolivia (2003 and 2005), and Ecuador (2000 and 2005)—culminating in the rise to office of left and centre-left governments that were unabashedly opposed to the neoliberal trajectories mapped out by their predecessor governments.2 On the other hand, the political reorientation of the Latin America scenario occurred alongside shifts in the region’s political 1 For the purposes of this dissertation, neoliberalism ought to be understood not as “a core set of ahistorical neoclassical economic policies”, often cited as the ‘Washington Consensus’ but, rather, as “a historical, class-based ideology that proposes all social, political, and ecological problems can be resolved through more direct free-market exposure, which has become an increasingly structural aspect of capitalism” (Marois 2005: 102–103). From this class-based perspective, the purist theory of free-market economic fundamentals that provides the bedrock for neoliberal ideology should be understood as a “flexible toolkit for justifying the project for restoring capitalist class power”, rather than as aguide to the actual policy practice of states during this period (Brabazon and Webber 2014: 437; also see Harvey 2005). In the Latin American context, “neoliberalism failed miserably in terms of its declared objectives of increasing economic efficiency and improving human well-being. However, seen as a political project for the formation or restoration of capitalist class power, neoliberalism has been tremendously successful” (Webber 2011). 2 The so-called “pink tide” wave in Latin America began perhaps with the election of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (1998) and continued in Chile (2000), Brazil (2002), Argentina (2003), Uruguay