Land grabs in contemporary China
Submitted by Nao on Jan 6 2015 04:40
Translation of article summarizing original research about land grabs in China since the 1990s, concluding that this ongoing expropriation of peasants is more severe and violent than the peak of Britain's enclosures in the early 19th century.
Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden Transcripts – James C. Scott
In this book, renowned social scientist James C. Scott offers a penetrating discussion both of the public roles played by the powerful and powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display off stage—what he terms their public and hidden transcripts.
The political economy of hunger
Submitted by Out of the Woods on Nov 17 2014 19:03
Why is there hunger? It’s nothing to do with a lack of food.
Radical agriculture - Murray Bookchin
An essay in which Murray Bookchin outlines his ideal system of food cultivation and criticizes the existing, capitalistic system. Appeared in Radical Agriculture (1972), ed. Richard Merrill.
Class struggles, climate change, and the origins of modern agriculture
Submitted by Out of the Woods on Aug 18 2014 09:54
Class conflicts and colonial expansion in the context of the Little Ice Age lead to the emergence of capitalist agriculture and the transformation of social relations on a world scale.
History of "400": AWO, the one big union idea in action
A 1939 pamphlet by E.Workman about the Agricultural Workers Organization of the IWW. He maintains that the AWO represented 'class unionism', which was more effective and in the spirit of the IWW's revolutionary aims than industrial unionism.
Chinese peasant struggles from 1959 to 2013
Submitted by Nao on Jun 23 2014 05:02
Overview of the main forms of peasant collective action against capital and the state in China from 1959 to 2013, with a focus on the past two decades.
Climate, class, and the Neolithic revolution
Submitted by Out of the Woods on Jun 9 2014 13:11
Climate change helped make human civilisation possible. Does it now threaten its existence?
Fields, factories and workshops - Peter Kropotkin
Fields, factories and workshops: or industry combined with agriculture and brain work with manual work is Peter Kropotkin's landmark anarchist text laying out possible foundations for anarchist society. While somewhat dated today, it still contains much of relevance.
Thais failed effort to corner rice market
Submitted by Empire Logistics on Feb 25 2014 03:18
As late as 2010, Thailand was the biggest exporter of rice, but in 2008 an attempt to corner the world rice market (much like the Hunt Brothers had tried to do with silver in the 1970s) failed miserably. Part of the current crisis in Thailand is due to Yingluck Shinawatra's role in this scheme.
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