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Book Details
Abstract
This book to analyses the food industry from a Marxist perspective.
Let The Eat Junk argues that the capitalist system, far from delivering on the promise of cheap, nutritious food for all, has created a world where 25% of the world population are over-fed and 25% are hungry. This malnourishment of 50% of the world's population is explained systematically, a refreshing change from accounts that focus on cultural factors and individual greed. Robert Albritton details the economic relations and connections that have put us in a situation of simultaneous oversupply and undersupply of food.
This explosive book provides yet more evidence that the human cost of capitalism is much bigger than those in power will admit.
'Pulls no punches in its analysis of the contradictions of 21st Century food systems'
Marion Nestle, Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, author of Food Politics (2003)
'Albritton speaks a language that has gone unheard for too long. Karl Marx felt that capitalism's focus on short-term profit was a recipe for disaster when it came to agriculture. Now Albritton shows that, in many ways, the old man was right'
Debora MacKenzie, New Scientist
'Marx understood the dynamics of the current food crisis over a century ago. Robert Albritton has written a fine primer, bridging the best thinking of the nineteenth century to the urgent needs of the twenty-first'
Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved
Table of Contents
Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
---|---|---|---|
Cover | Cover | ||
Contents | v | ||
Preface | viii | ||
Part I: Introduction | 1 | ||
1. Introduction | 2 | ||
General introduction | 3 | ||
A framework for understanding capitalism | 10 | ||
Part II: Understanding | 17 | ||
2. The Management of Agriculture and Food by Capital's Deep Structures | 18 | ||
Capital's profit orientation | 26 | ||
Capital, time and speed | 30 | ||
Capital, space and homogenization | 33 | ||
Capital and workers | 37 | ||
Capital and underconsumption | 41 | ||
Capital, oligopoly and globalization | 43 | ||
Capital and subjectivity | 46 | ||
Conclusions | 49 | ||
3. The Phase of Consumerism and the US Roots of the Current Agriculture and Food Regimes | 51 | ||
Consumerism's profit orientation: petroleum, cars, suburbs and television | 56 | ||
Consumerism, time, and speed: unchecked toxicity and life on the run | 61 | ||
Consumerism, space and homogenization, suburbanization and monocultures | 64 | ||
Consumerism and workers: hiding the health costs of hazardous working conditions and low wages | 66 | ||
Consumerism and underconsumption: new forms of debt expansion and advertising | 68 | ||
Consumerism, oligopoly and globalization: a command economy of corporations | 71 | ||
Consumerism and subjectivity: the politics of fear | 72 | ||
Conclusions | 76 | ||
Part III: The Historical Analysis of the US-Centred Global Food Regime | 79 | ||
4. The Food Regime and Consumer's Health | 80 | ||
Capitalist agriculture | 81 | ||
The case of tobacco | 84 | ||
The global food regime: a story of irrationality | 87 | ||
The obesity \"epidemic | 91 | ||
Sugar | 95 | ||
Meatification and fat consumption | 101 | ||
Hunger and starvation | 105 | ||
Salt | 108 | ||
Soy | 109 | ||
Pesticides | 110 | ||
Food additives | 113 | ||
Microorganisms | 114 | ||
Loss of nutrients | 115 | ||
Genetically modified organisms | 118 | ||
Supermarkets | 119 | ||
Fast food chains | 120 | ||
Conclusions | 122 | ||
5. The Health of Agriculture and Food Workers | 124 | ||
Workers in the US agricultural and food systems | 125 | ||
Workers in the agricultural and food systems of developing countries | 133 | ||
Conclusions | 144 | ||
6. Agriculture, Food Provisioning and the Environment | 146 | ||
Peak oil and biofuels | 147 | ||
Global warming | 154 | ||
Land and deforestation | 156 | ||
Fresh water | 158 | ||
The oceans | 159 | ||
Species loss | 160 | ||
Genetically modified organisms | 161 | ||
Waste | 163 | ||
Conclusions | 164 | ||
7. Food, Marketing and Choice in the United States | 165 | ||
Choice and the case of tobacco | 167 | ||
Marketing | 171 | ||
Marketing to children | 172 | ||
Choosing junk foods | 177 | ||
Consumer sovereignty | 178 | ||
Conclusions | 180 | ||
8. Corporate Power, Food and Liberal Democracy | 182 | ||
Corporations and government | 185 | ||
Corporations and the legal system | 189 | ||
Corporations and science | 190 | ||
Conclusions | 197 | ||
Part IV: Conclusions | 199 | ||
9. Agriculture, Food and the Fight for Democracy, Social Justice, Health and Sustainability | 200 | ||
Capitalism's food failures | 201 | ||
Movements for change | 203 | ||
Toward a more effective and accountable public sector | 204 | ||
More accountable corporations | 205 | ||
Making markets democractically accountable | 208 | ||
Conclusions | 210 | ||
Notes | 212 | ||
Bibliography | 238 | ||
Index | 251 |