The Social Organization of Industrial Agriculture

Thomas, Robert J.

doi:10.1177/089692058101000302

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The first food regime was centred on European imports of wheat and meat from the settler states between 1870 and 1914. In return, settler states imported European manufactured goods, labour, and capitalespecially for railways (Thomas 1973). These inter-nationaland multi-lateraltrade relations were qualitatively different from the exclusive trading monopolies of the European colonial system, which integrated colonial export production into metropolitan economies through direct political administration by colonial branches of European states.…”

Section: The First Food Regimementioning

confidence: 96%

AGRICULTURE AND THE STATE SYSTEM: The rise and decline of national agricultures, 1870 to the present

1989

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper explores the role of agriculture in the development of the capitalist world economy, and in the trajectory of the state system. At present, when food security and foreign debt command policy attention, it is useful to examine the assumptions behind attempts to build up national agricultures in Third World countries. We maintain that these assumptions, when considered from a world-historical perspective, have certain shortcomings in theory and real obstacles in practice. Our argument is that contrary to the prevailing development model of the ideal national economy in which agriculture and industry complement one another dynamically (Rostow 1960;Johnston & Kilby 1975;Senghaas 1988), the historical relations between 'agriculture' and 'industry' have been rather more fluid and global in scope.The very distinction between advanced capitalist and underdeveloped or peripheral economies assumes that the former, in contrast to the latter, are articulated, that is, the main growth dynamic derives from intersectoral exchanges within the national economy (Amin 1974; de Janvry 1981). We argue, however, that this unexamined assumption applies possibly to one nation-state only, and then only for a brief historical period in a context of growing transnational capital movement that has increasingly precluded the model's extension to other countries. This case is the United States, in which agriculture was a source of demand for domestic industry during the period of protectionism accompanying late nineteenth century British hegemony and its decline through to the end of the Second World War. Yet even then US agriculture was principally export-oriented. The ideal of national inter-sectoral balance nevertheless stems from this historical conjuncture, and gained currency with the rise of American hegemony and the proliferation of modernization and dependency theories that generalized the American model.Our goal, then, is to reconstruct a preliminary history of agriculture to shed light on its impact on the state system, and thereby to offer a critique

show abstract

Section: The First Food Regimementioning

confidence: 96%

AGRICULTURE AND THE STATE SYSTEM: The rise and decline of national agricultures, 1870 to the present

1989

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…First, it identified citizenship status (immigrant vs. non-immigrant, and documented vs. undocumented) as a dimension of labor market segmentation along with race, class, and gender (Burawoy, 1976;Castles & Kosak, 1973;Piore, 1979;Thomas, 1981). Second, it offered a structural analysis of undocumented labor in terms of a demand for vulnerable workers.…”

Section: Towards a Work -Citizenship Matrixmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…1 As a result of the complex ways in which these processes overlap in the terrain of everyday life, people's lived experiences of precariousness are compounded. Migrants are particularly vulnerable to intersections of precarious work and precarity associated with non-citizenship Sharma, 2006), together with other dimensions of social location, including racialization, gender, and class (Galabuzi, 2006;Li, 1998;Thomas, 1981). The notion of a work -citizenship matrix allows us to reframe questions about regularization and irregularization as related and dynamic trends that intersect with job precarity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Caught in the Work–Citizenship Matrix: the Lasting Effects of Precarious Legal Status on Work for Toronto Immigrants

2011

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article explores the relationship between precarious employment and precarious migrant legal status. Original research on immigrant workers' employment experiences in Toronto examines the effects of several measures including human capital, network, labor market variables, and a change in legal status variable on job precarity as measured by an eight-indicator Index of Precarious Work (IPW). Precarious legal status has a long-lasting, negative effect on job precarity; both respondents who entered and remained in a precarious migratory status and those who shifted to secure status were more likely to remain in precarious work compared to respondents who entered with and remained in a secure status. This leaves no doubt that migrant-worker insecurity and vulnerability stem not only from having 'irregular' status. We introduce the notion of a work-citizenship matrix to capture the ways in which the precariousness of legal status and work intersect in the new economy. People and entire groups transition through intersecting work -citizenship insecurities, where prior locations have the potential to exert long-term effects, transitions continue to occur indefinitely over the life-course, and gains on one front are not always matched on others.

show abstract

“…(1945), Morin (1952), Fisher (1953), andMcWilliams (1971). Among the more recent published studies of the Western farmworker movement are Brubbs (1975), Jenkins and Perrow (1977), Calarza (1977), Weiner (1978), Walsh (1978), Walsh and Craypo (1979), Walsh and Snyder (1979), Pfeffer (1980), Thomas (1981), Fugita and O'Brien (1981), L. Majka (1981), T. Majka (1991), Daniel (1981), and Friedland, Barton and Thomas (1981). On farm labor on the East Coast see Friedland (1969), Friedland and Nelkin (1971), Nelkin (1971), Young and John (1978), and Foner and Napoli (1978).…”

Section: Farmworker Marion Indianamentioning

confidence: 97%

“…10. Robert Thomas (1981) convincingly argues that "citizenship" not only "undermines the development of organizational solidarity among workers," but also affects the particular form of the organization of labor.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor. Immigration, Mechanization and Unionization in the Midwest

Terry¹

1983

Insurgent Sociologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Social Organization of Industrial Agriculture

Cited by 6 publications

References 6 publications

AGRICULTURE AND THE STATE SYSTEM: The rise and decline of national agricultures, 1870 to the present

AGRICULTURE AND THE STATE SYSTEM: The rise and decline of national agricultures, 1870 to the present

Caught in the Work–Citizenship Matrix: the Lasting Effects of Precarious Legal Status on Work for Toronto Immigrants

The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor. Immigration, Mechanization and Unionization in the Midwest

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About