V. I.   Lenin

New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture

PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America

Having examined the general data on hired labour as the most direct indicator of capitalism in agriculture, we can now go on to a more detailed analysis of the specific forms assumed by capitalism in this particular branch of the economy.

We have taken a look at one area with a shrinking average acreage of farms, namely, the South, where the process signifies a transition from latifundia worked by slaves to small-scale commercial farms. There is another area where the average acreage of farms is diminishing—a part of the North: New England and the Middle Atlantic states. Here are the figures for these divisions:

The average farm in New England is smaller than in any other division of the U.S.A. In two Southern divisions the average is 42 to 43 acres, and in the third, the West South Central, where homesteading is still going on, it is 61.8 acres, i.e., almost as much as in the Middle Atlantic states. It is the reduction in the average size of farms in New England and the Middle Atlantic states, “the areas with an older culture and a higher level of economic development” (Mr. Himmer, p. 60), where homesteading is no longer taking place, that has led Mr. Himmer, as it has very many   other bourgeois economists, to draw the conclusion that “capitalist agriculture is disintegrating”, that “production is breaking up into smaller units”, that there are “no areas where colonization is no longer continuing, or where large-scale capitalist agriculture is not decaying and is not being replaced by family-labour farms”.

Mr. Himmer arrived at these conclusions, which are the very opposite of the truth, because he forgot a mere “trifle”: the intensification of agriculture! It is incredible, but it is a fact. This matter requires a particularly thorough analysis because quite a few bourgeois economists, almost all in fact, contrive to forget this “trifle” when dealing with small and large-scale production in agriculture, although “in theory” they are all “aware” of and accept the intensification of farming. This is indeed one of the basic sources of all the misadventures of bourgeois (including Narodnik and opportunist) economics on the question of small “family” farms. The “trifle” they forget is this: owing to the technical peculiarities of agriculture, the process of its intensification frequently leads to a reduction in the improved acreage on the farm, and at the same time expands it as an economic unit, increasing its output, and making it more and more of a capitalist enterprise.

Let us first see whether or not there is any fundamental difference in farming techniques, in the general character of farming and degree of its intensification between New England and the Middle Atlantic states, on the one hand, and between the rest of the North and the country’s other divisions, on the other.

The differences in the crops grown are shown in the following table:

The difference in farming conditions is fundamental. In the first two divisions agriculture is highly intensive; in the other two it is extensive. In the latter, cereals account for the bulk of the total crop value; in the former, they contribute not only a minor part, but sometimes a negligible part (7.6%), while the special “commercial” crops (vegetables, fruits, etc.) yield a greater part of the crop value than cereals. Extensive agriculture has given way to intensive agriculture. Grass cultivation has become widespread. Of the 3.8 million acres under hay and forage in New England, 3.3 million acres were under cultivated grasses. The figures for the Middle Atlantic states are 8.5 and 7.9 million respectively: By contrast, of the 27.4 million acres under hay and forage in the West North Central states (an area of colonization and extensive agriculture), 14.5 million, i.e., the greater part, were unimproved grass lands, etc.

Yields are considerably higher in the “intensive” states:

The same is true of commercial livestock and dairy farming, which are especially highly developed in these divisions:

This table shows that in the “intensive” states dairy farming is on a considerably larger scale than in all the others. The areas with the smallest farms (in terms of improved acreage) have the largest dairies. This fact is of tremendous importance, for, as everyone knows, dairy farming develops most rapidly in suburban localities and in very highly industrialized countries (or areas). Statistics from Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, which are dealt with elsewhere, improved^[1] also show a growing concentration of dairy cattle.

As we have seen, hay and forage in the “intensive” states constitute a considerably greater proportion of the total crop value than cereals. Accordingly, livestock farming there develops largely on the basis of purchased feed. Here are the relevant figures for 1909:

The extensive states of the North sell feed. The intensive states buy it. It is clear that if feed is purchased large-scale operations of a highly capitalistic nature can be conducted on a small tract of land.

Let us make a comparison between the two intensive divisions of the North, New England and the Middle Atlantic states, and the most extensive division of the North, the West North Central:

We find that there is more livestock per acre of improved land in the intensive states (447:36 = $12 per acre) than in the extensive states (1,552:164 = $9). More capital in the form of livestock is invested in a unit of land area. And the total per-acre turnover of the feed trade (purchases +sales) is also very much greater in the intensive states (26+89 = $115 million for 36 million acres) than in the extensive states (174+76 = $250 million for 164 million acres). In the intensive states farming is obviously much more commercialized than in the extensive states.

Expenditure on fertilizers and the value of implements and machinery are the most exact statistical expression of the degree of intensification of agriculture. Here are the figures:

This fully brings out the difference between the extensive divisions of the North, with an insignificant proportion of farms using purchased fertilizers (2-19%), and with negligible expenditure on fertilizers per acre of improved land ( $0.01-$0.09)—and the intensive states, where the majority of farms (57-60%) use purchased fertilizers and where expenditure on fertilizers is substantial. In New England, for example, the per-acre expenditure is $1.30—the maximum figure for all divisions (once again a case of   farms with the smallest acreage and the largest expenditure on fertilizers!), which exceeds the figure for one of the divisions of the South (South Atlantic). It should be noted that in the South especially large quantities of artificial fertilizers are required by cotton, on which, as we have seen, the labour of Negro share-croppers is most widely employed.

In the Pacific states, we find a very small percentage of farms using fertilizers (6.4%) but the maximum average per farm expenditure ($189)—calculated, of course, only for the farms which used fertilizers. Here we have another example of the growth of large-scale and capitalist agriculture with a simultaneous reduction of the farm acreage. In two of the three Pacific states—Washington and Oregon—the use of fertilizers is quite insignificant, a mere $0.01 per acre. It is only in the third state, California, that the figure is relatively high: $0.08 in 1899, and $0.19 in 1909. In this state, the fruit crop plays a special role, and is expanding at an extremely rapid rate along purely capitalist lines; in 1909, it accounted for 33.1% of the total crop value, as against 18.3% for cereals, and 27.6% for hay and forage. The typical fruit-growing farm has a smaller-than-average acreage but the use of fertilizers and hired labour is much greater than average. We shall later have occasion to dwell on relationships of this type, which are typical of capitalist countries with an intensive agriculture and which are most stubbornly ignored by statisticians and economists.

But let us return to the “intensive” states of the North. Not only is expenditure on fertilizers—$1.30 per acre—in New England the highest and the average farm acreage the smallest (38.4 acres); expenditure on fertilizers is increasing at an especially rapid rate. In the 10 years between 1899 and 1909, this expenditure increased from $0.53 per acre to $1.30, i.e., two and one-half times. Consequently, here intensification of agriculture, technical progress and improvement of farming techniques are extremely rapid. To get a more graphic picture of what this means let us compare New England, the most intensive division of the North, with West North Central, the most extensive division. In the latter division, scarcely any artificial fertilizers are   used at all (2.1% of the farms and $0.01 per acre); its farm acreage is larger than that of any other division of America (148 acres), and is growing at a faster rate. This particular division is usually taken as the model of capitalism in American agriculture—and this Mr. Himmer also does. As I shall show in detail later on, this is incorrect. It is due to the crudest, most primitive form of extensive agriculture being confused with technically progressive intensive agriculture. In the West North Central division, the average farm is four times as big as in New England (148 acres as against 38.4), while average expenditure on fertilizers per user is only half as great: $41 as against $82.

Hence, in actual practice there are instances of a substantial reduction in farm acreage being accompanied by a substantial increase in expenditure on artificial fertilizers, so that “small” production—if we continue, as a matter of routine, to regard it as being small in terms of acreage—turns out to be “large” in terms of the capital invested in the land. This is not an exception, but the rule for any country where extensive agriculture is giving way to intensive agriculture. And this applies to all capitalist countries, so that when this typical, essential and fundamental characteristic of agriculture is ignored, the result is the common error of the votaries of small-scale agriculture who base their judgement only on farm acreage.

Notes

[1] See The Agrarian Question and the “Critics of Marx”, Vol. 13. —Lenin