The Centrality of Agriculture: History, Ecology And Feasible Socialism

Abstract

While most socialists now more or less habitually make reference to what is called 'the environment', very few have yet fully confronted the immensity of the change in our thinking that is really called for if we seriously acknowledge humankind's historic and ongoing dependence on the rest of nature. But any honest attempt to conceive of a socialist future must acknowledge it; the argument of this essay is that doing so involves reversing the tendency of a hundred and fifty years of socialist thought. To anticipate the conclusion, in any desirable socialism agriculture would be culturally and technically central because industry has to be reduced back to the margins. The time is ripe for reinverting the relationship between humankind and the rest of nature: the accelerating threat posed by capital-oriented growth to ecological integrity, even to the very survival of our species, is becoming more and more obvious to everyone (except, of course, capitalist ideologues). Too few socialists, however, have been very well placed to point this out. Indeed the failure of most socialists to respond effectively to the assertions of the self-styled 'neoliberals' of the last quarter of the twentieth century is not unconnected with a long-standing weak grasp of ecological matters. Certainly we must now rethink our conception of the socialist project in light of them.