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A Sustainable Food Industry for Europe (Now with poll!) | 37 comments (37 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: I'm getting old (4.00 / 2)
Farming is industrialising too, and farmers are increasingly de facto employees of their customers - dairies/grain wholesalers/retail multiples.  The whole business of subcontracting work to nominally independent self-employeed contractors is all about avoiding the legal and other obligations that socialists have established for the employer/employee relationship.

Arguably, the small self-employed operators are victims of classical Marxist "false consciousness" syndrome.  They think they are capitalists/independent and even small employers, when in reality they are more under the thumb of agribusiness than direct employees are.

notes from no w here

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Tue Jun 23rd, 2009 at 04:23:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Finland (none / 1)
The situation is a little different in Finland, where, for geological reasons (and the Forest program), small to midsize farms are the norm, as are agricultural cooperatives such as Raisio. But Raisio is now publicly quoted and no longer run as a classic cooperative.

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Tue Jun 23rd, 2009 at 04:30:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Finland (none / 0)
The same has happened to Irish agricultural cooperatives

notes from no w here
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Tue Jun 23rd, 2009 at 04:33:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: I'm getting old (4.00 / 3)
If the trend in service industries with circumventing employee protections by technically having one-person franchises I can see the basis for a new identity.

One-person franchises in all corporations, unite!

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Tue Jun 23rd, 2009 at 04:49:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: I'm getting old (none / 1)
The whole business of subcontracting work to nominally independent self-employeed contractors is all about avoiding the legal and other obligations that socialists have established for the employer/employee relationship.

Arguably, the small self-employed operators are victims of classical Marxist "false consciousness" syndrome.  They think they are capitalists/independent and even small employers, when in reality they are more under the thumb of agribusiness than direct employees are.

These are important points, and I find it hard to fathom how socialist parties have failed to grasp them.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jun 24th, 2009 at 05:58:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

A Sustainable Food Industry for Europe (Now with poll!) | 37 comments (37 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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