(Monday, Jan. 6, 2003 -- CropChoice news) -- This book review is provided courtesy of The Agribusiness Examiner.
by Richard A. Levins
In 1792, a Scottish observer worried that the "unrestrained and universal commerce" advocated by Adam Smith would "propagate opinions as commodities". Those opinions, now propagated so widely, range from the Ricardian teachings of contemporary economics texts to the impassioned world of Vandana Shiva.
Samuelson and Nordhaus (Microeconomics, 17th Edition) put the
Ricardian case this way: "The principle of comparative advantage holds that
each country will benefit if it specializes in the production and export of
those goods that it can produce at relatively low cost. Conversely, each
country will benefit if it imports those goods, which it produces at
relatively high costs." (p. 299)
Specialization is quickly pronounced to be the "unshakable basis for international trade."
In Stolen Harvest, Shiva presents a radically different view. For
her, specialization is eminently "shakable": "Globalization has created
the McDonaldization of world food, resulting in the destruction of
sustainable food systems." (p. 70)
Elsewhere, she explains how "the myth of 'free trade' and the global economy becomes a means for the rich to rob the poor of their right to food and even their right to life". (p. 7)
How can the two views be so different, and what, if anything, can
economists learn from the strident writings of Shiva? The answers to both
questions arise from the way elementary texts present the case for
comparative advantage theory. The standard treatment involves two
countries and two goods, one of which is usually an agricultural product
and the other a manufactured good.
Samuelson, for example, has used "food" and "clothing" since the First Edition appeared in 1948. That one of the goods is produced in a biological process, and the other in a manufacturing, appears to be of no consequence.
In Shiva's world, however, the difference is everything: "food is
our most basic need, the very stuff of life". (p. 5) Stolen Harvest, I
think, is best read by economists as a solid case for the uniqueness of
those biological processes that lead to food production.
To fold a small farmer in India and a German buying a new hat into a single, simple trade
theory will lead to problems in the environment, biodiversity, animal
welfare, and culture. Our usual nod of the head to "externalities" will
not satisfy Shiva.
Take, for example, her discussion of confinement animal agriculture:
Robbing cattle of the roughage they need does not merely treat them
unethically; it also does not reduce the acreage needed to feed the cows,
since the concentrate comes from grain that could have fed people. The
shift from a cooperative, integrated system to a competitive, fragmented
one creates additional pressures on scarce land and grain resources. This
in turn leads to non-sustainability, violence to animals, and lower
productivity when all systems are assessed. (p. 63)
Shiva's thinking on the unique importance of food is also evident
throughout her book when she speaks of issues of corporate control of the
food system and what she calls "food democracy."
Democratic control over food requires the reining in of the unaccountable
power of corporations. It involves replacing the 'free trade' order of
corporate totalitarianism with an ecological and just system of production
and distribution, in which the earth is protected, farmers are protected,
and consumers are protected. (p. 117)
A broad concern for the welfare of all living things, for culturally
appropriate uses of food, and for protecting the diversity of plant and
animal genetics is seemingly impossible to fit into standard comparative
advantage analysis. Should we stay with simplifying assumptions, or listen
to Shiva?
Listening to Shiva, especially at first reading, will be difficult for many
of us. She is not an economist, and her language is a tad over-the-top in
many places: "corporate hijacking of the food system" and "food
dictatorship" are not terms from which academic articles are often
fashioned.
But she does have a significant advantage over Ricardo in that
she is a leading scientist and writes with current knowledge. Ricardo, we
must remember, lived a long time ago.
Science, like agriculture, has changed so much as to make many of Ricardo's
observations on the world around him of mere historical interest. All but
a few biographers forget his dabbling into the nature of electricity. Nor
is it widely noted that Ricardo died prematurely of a common ear infection
after treatments with leeches and poultices failed.
The environmental implications of global specialization in crop and livestock production
would have been impossible to address with early-nineteenth century science.
Modern science acknowledges that specialization in food production is
fundamentally different than specialization in manufacturing.
While Ricardo can easily be understood and forgiven, it is more difficult to
understand how his trade theory, born in a world unrecognizable to us, has
survived so well in the lore of free market economics. Perhaps Shiva will
help us to rethink the fundamental questions we ask in trade theory. We
should not argue with other economists over simplified worlds in which all
products are merely "goods". Rather, we should engage physical scientists
in a discussion of issues surrounding real-world trade in food, that most
important and unique of all goods.
Richard A. Levins teaches in the Department of Agricultural Economics at the
University of Minnesota.