HOW DO WE CHANGE EVERYTHING?
Over the last four shareouts, we tackled these questions:
Why do foodies need to understand capitalism?
How did our capitalist food system come to be?
What are the problems with our capitalist food system?
How can we understand capitalism?
In our final shareout, we dive into the types of politics, the importance of political alliances, and how we can “change everything.”
Neoliberal vs. Reformist vs. Progressive vs. Radical Politics
The capitalist economic system fluctuates between periods of liberalization and reform. Governments “liberalize” markets by lifting restrictions on them. As capital concentrates in fewer and fewer hands in these deregulated markets, the resulting overaccumulation of wealth and goods triggers crises. These crises are followed by reformist periods where the state restabilizes the system by regulating volatile markets.
Holt-Giménez states that liberalization and reform are “two sides of the same capitalist coin,” which means both are necessary to sustain capitalism. As this cycle continues, the social and financial crises that arise as a result will heighten in intensity and force workers to bear the brunt of the burden.
The contradictions between liberalization and reform give rise to counter-movements that develop in response to social upheaval following a crisis. These counter-movements espouse a variety of politics and strategies for social transformation. The author discusses four types of politics: neoliberal, reformist, progressive, and radical. These approaches are presented in further detail in the table below:
The global food movement, for example, is a counter-movement characterized by progressive and radical politics. The progressive strain of the food movement largely focuses on institutional reforms or the development of practical alternatives to agricultural capitalism. These include farmers' markets, urban gardens, food hubs, organic agriculture production, and more. Radical approaches, on the other hand, include agrarian reforms, ending free trade agreements, and democratization of the food system more broadly.
The primary difference between progressive and radical politics is the breadth of their scope. Radical political projects address structural issues and identify solutions that will inevitably transform the way the food system currently operates. While progressive initiatives create innovative solutions in their own right, these programs only yield incremental changes and largely uphold the status quo.
These four political frameworks are important not only because they guide our study of the food system, but also because they reveal the logic of capitalist projects and how counter-movements can respond to them. Critical analysis of these trends can help us understand the limitations of reformist projects and the promise of radical ones.
The conditions facing our counter-movement today are very different than a century ago when the left had more unified power. The capitalist state has historically disrupted and undermined radical political projects, as seen through the Red Scare and the deployment of COINTELPRO. These efforts contributed to the deterioration of communist parties and radical labor unions, suppression of dissent through violent tactics, and normalization of staggering economic inequality that grows with each passing year.
Role of Philanthropy, NGOs, and Nonprofits
In addition to overt state repression, counter-movement organizations also face threats to the integrity of their politics by wealthy philanthropists and other corporate funders.
Big philanthropy plays a significant role in shaping the trajectory of the counter-movement. These organizations — with $4-40 billion in assets — deploy hefty donations through channels of global development financing to advance their ultimate goal of liberal, unregulated markets (where capital can be easily concentrated in the hands of a few).
While funders can provide the necessary financial support to keep social movement organizations afloat, the funding of certain types of projects over others (such as short-term, individualized projects over long-term, structural ones) in these spaces can also depoliticize and weaken them to an even greater degree. Holt-Giménez defines depoliticization as “the cultural process by which structural issues — like capitalism — are taken off the social change agenda."
Non-profit funding can also distort the radical character of counter-movement organizations. When a small organization is dependent on the contributions of a wealthy donor, it faces pressures to conform to the political goals set by the benefactor. Alternatively, donors can pit similar organizations against each other by making them compete for a finite number of grants.
If we recognize the dangers of financial dependence on corporations or non-profits, what then is needed to rebalance the power and accountability between counter-movement organizations and their funders? The author says that stronger labor unions, political parties, and social movements can balance the distribution of power and create a broader framework for institutional accountability by introducing more actors into the counter-movement sphere.
Alliances
Reclaiming power is no simple task. As stated earlier, the capitalist state has a long history of repressing and sabotaging radical politics. We need to forge strong alliances to resist capitalist state repression and build powerful counter-movements to take back the political territory that neoliberal capitalism has laid claim to in the last half-century.
Holt-Giménez defines two types of alliances that organizations form:
1) Strategic alliances: Organizations have a shared position or political platform.
2) Tactical alliances: Organizations converge around an action (such as a project or campaign) but don’t have a shared position or political platform.
The author states that strategic alliances are an essential building block of a strong counter-movement. However, there are circumstances when tactical alliances are needed. In the case of grant funding, sometimes organizations will work with funders who don’t share the same position but can agree to work together for a project or campaign. Tactical alliances only become detrimental when the tactic determines the strategy. This could happen if grant funding pulls the organization away from its radical work toward a service-oriented position.
The author ultimately calls on progressives and radicals to form strategic alliances to create a strong counter-movement to take back political territory. For these alliances to have a chance, we must invest in political education to study and analyze our political-economic situation and the contradictions of our food system and capitalism.
Importance of political education
Through political education, we can understand the history of our food system, why capitalism is riddled with contradictions, and the long history of resistance and struggle against colonialism, privatization, neoliberalism, and capitalism.
Holt-Giméneez includes a quote by Karl Marx: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” We are not building these understandings for the sake of doing so. Rather, our study of politics uses these understandings to form strategies that will ultimately change the capitalist food system.
Capitalist Crises
In the face of capitalist crises, liberal democracy has always failed to resolve the contradictions between capitalism and people (in the form of labor), and capitalism and the land. In the 1930s, the U.S. ushered in heavy social programs through the New Deal, whereas Italy ushered in fascism. Essentially, capitalism leads to two options: reform or fascism.
Until we have a new system, we will continue to see capitalist crises. Reforms do not and cannot address the structural issues of capitalism. When these crises arise, we must not shy away or be fearful. A political crisis allows for tremendous social convergence and politicization. We must use moments of crisis to mobilize and build powerful counter-movements.
Conclusion
To “change everything,” we must form strategic alliances between progressive and radical organizations, conduct political education, and utilize capitalist crises to build organizational momentum.
At the end of the book, the author sends us off with two main lessons:
One is that to change our food system we need to understand capitalism . . . The other, which you'll have to take on faith, is that love alone won't transform our food system, but without it we'll never change the world.
Thank you for following us throughout our five-part shareout on A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism! We hope that through your study of this book, you developed a better understanding of capitalism through the lens of food and agriculture and can apply your learning to real-life organizing.
Please stay tuned, as we will continue our political education efforts to host study groups for critical consciousness! We hope to see you at our next study group!