The agrarian seeds of empire : the political economy of agriculture in US. state building

The Agrarian Seeds of Empire outlines the influence of agrarian movements on the process of US institutional capacity building between 1840- 1980. Out of the mix of the developing new Nation and the expanding capitalist system emerged strong farmer s movements that produced state building processes central to American political development. It will show how the forces of state building and social movements converged to produce agro-industrialization. This agro-industrial developmental project was instrumental in both the development of the industrial food system and US Empire as the institutional capacities were later used to impose the same project outside of the US. These findings link together and augment existing approaches to capitalist development, International Relations, and theories of the state and the food system." The Agrarian Seeds of Empire: The Political Economy of Agriculture in US State Building 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgements 10 List of Figures and Tables 11 Commonly Used Acronyms 12 1 Introduction 14 The Agro-Industrial Complex 16 Transcending State-Market Dichotomies 28 Overview of the Chapters 41 2 The Agro-Industrial Roots of the us Capitalist Transition through State Capacity Building: 1830–1870 45 US Land Policy in the North 46 Early Farmer Resistance to Market Expansion 52 Land, Debt and Speculation 59 Canal and Railroad Policy 61 Early State Involvement in Agriculture 64 Agro-Industrial Development 69 Conclusion 83 3 The End of Slavery and Southern Agricultural Class Structure 86 Slavery, the Civil War and the Transition 87 The Civil War and State Institutional Expansion 94 Postbellum Southern Agriculture 96 Uneven Development across the South 108 Tenancy and the Class Politics of Reconstruction 112 Conclusion 115 4 Agrarian Populism: The Rise and Fall of Populism 118 Farmers and Farming in the Late 19th Century USA 118 Late 19th Century Agrarian Political Economy 122 The Rise of Populism 124 Populist Politics 131 Populist Fractures 136 The Decline of Populism 139 The American Farm Bureau Federation 147 Conclusion 150 5 State Institutional Capacity Building of the USDA-Research Complex 153 Institutional Response to Agrarian Movements 155 The Agro-Industrial Project in Research 160 State Capacity Building in Trade and Banking 168 Agro-Industrialization through Farmer Education 171 State Responses to the Agricultural Crisis of the 1920s 181 Conclusion 185 6 The New Deal and Agricultural State Institutional Capacity Building 187 The Politics of the Agricultural Adjustment Act 188 Southern Tenants and the AAA 197 Theories of the New Deal Era State 200 Class Influences on Institutional Development 206 The Specific Case of California Agriculture 210 The Consistency of Trade Promotion 216 Agriculture, the New Deal, and World War II 221 Conclusion 225 7 Sowing the Seeds of Globalization: Post-War Food Aid, Trade and the Agricultural Roots of US Hegemony 228 Food Aid as Globalization’s Groundwork 230 Food Aid as Agro-Industrial Development Project 234 The Institutional Dimensions of Internationalization 238 The Crisis of the 1970s 244 Harvesting Free Trade 259 The Food Regimes Approach 264 Conclusion 275 8 Conclusion 279 Appendix A 286 Appendix B 291 Bibliography 293 Index 316 "The Agrarian Seeds of Empire outlines the influence of agrarian movements on the process of US institutional capacity building between 1840- 1980. Out of the mix of the developing new Nation and the expanding capitalist system emerged strong farmer's movements that produced state building processes central to American political development. It will show how the forces of state building and social movements converged to produce agro-industrialization. This agro-industrial developmental project was instrumental in both the development of the industrial food system and US Empire as the institutional capacities were later used to impose the same project outside of the US. These findings link together and augment existing approaches to capitalist development, International Relations, and theories of the state and the food system."-- Provided by publisher