Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Corporate versus Community Orientation
The civic agriculture approach is oriented toward nurturing and sustaining local social and
economic systems, while the free-market approach is directed toward beating down local
barriers to economic globalization. The desired outcome under the free-market scenario is
a global (mass) market that articulates with standardized, low-cost, mass-production enter-
prises. Sustainable development, on the other hand, rests on production and consumption
maintaining at least some economic linkages to the local community.
In the free-market model, the ideal form of production is the large firm. Large firms are
able to capture “economies of scale” and hence produce goods more cheaply than smaller,
and presumably less efficient, firms. From this perspective, large producers link with large
wholesalers, large wholesalers link with large retailers, and large retailers serve the mass mar-
ket. Large multinational corporations are the driving engines in the development scenario. 36
The civic community perspective advocates smaller, well-integrated firms cooperating
with one another to meet the needs of consumers in local (and occasionally specialty global)
markets. The ideal form is the “production district.” 37 Firms bound together into production
ensembles share information and combine forces to market their products. The state supports
this economic venture by ensuring that all firms have access to the same pool of resources
such as information, labor, and infrastructure and that policies do not favor one group of pro-
ducers over another group.
Corporate Middle Class versus Independent Middle Class
From the free-market/modernization perspective, a worker's social class position is part and
parcel of the corporate hierarchy. As the corporation goes, so goes the employment prospects
of the individual. Not surprisingly, in an economy dominated by large corporations an indi-
vidual's engagement with the civic affairs of the local community is tempered by his or her
allegiance to the corporation. When a choice must be made between what is good for the
company and what is good for the community, the company's priorities almost always trump
those of the community. 38
The economically independent middle class is rooted in the local community. As both C.
Wright Mills and Melville Ulmer as well as Walter Goldschmidt showed, the independent
middle class is more likely to participate in civic affairs and concern itself with finding solu-
tions to local social problems. What is “good” for the socioeconomic health and wellbeing of
the local community is integrally tied to the welfare of the small-business community. 39
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