The centrality of agriculture: between humankind and the rest of nature

Abstract

Part I (Introductory) Agriculture as the problem: replacing the economy in nature and in society Section 1 (preliminary): The missing environmental dimension in social criticism Section 2 (ecological and historical): The environmental implications of agriculture and the preindustrial phase of their history Section 3 (ecological and contemporary): The environmental implications of industry and our living environment's capacity for response Section 4: Towards agriculture as our environmental monitor and the centrepiece of a new form of policy. Part II (Fabular) Agriculture privileged and benign: English capitalism in its light-industrial prime Section 1 (sociotheoretical): The relevance of the English case for understanding the place of agriculture in modern society Section 2 (agronomic and ecological): Classical English farming practices and land stewardship Section 3 (legal and institutional): The dynastic device of strict settlement Section 4 (interpretive): The place of agriculture in the economy of capitalist England. Part III (Contemporary) Agriculture displaced and disarrayed: The industrializing (world) economy as the only perceived context for human activity in this century Section 1 (historico-ideological): Free trade and the attack on the landed interest in England Section 2 (historico-economic): The rise and fall of an ordered world market in agricultural produce and their manifold effects Section 3 (technical): Solving agriculture's problems by deliberately subsuming it under industry Section 4 (critical): Agriculture and the socialist tradition. Part IV (Utopian) Agriculture biocontexts for future persons: Possible forms for communities securely placed in nature Section 1 (philosophical): Type of relations among persons, nature, and use-values Section 2 (descriptive): Forms of the new agriculture for bioregions Section 3 (exploratory): Forms of money and the division of labour Section 4 (tentative): Pathways to Utopia.