Food Price Inflation as Redistribution: Towards a New Analysis of Corporate Power in the World Food System (Preprint)

Food Price Inflation as Redistribution: Towards a New Analysis of Corporate Power in the World Food System (Preprint)
Baines, Joseph. (2013). New Political Economy. April. pp. 1-35. (Article - Journal; English).

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Abstract or Brief Description

This paper outlines the contours of a new research agenda for the analysis of food price crises. By weaving together a detailed quantitative examination of changes in corporate profit shares with a qualitative appraisal of the restructuring in business control over the organisation of society and nature, the paper points to the rapid ascendance of a new power configuration in the global political economy of food: the Agro-Trader nexus. The agribusiness and grain trader firms that belong to the Agro-Trader nexus have not been mere 'price takers', instead they have actively contributed to the inflationary restructuring of the world food system by championing and facilitating the rapid expansion of the first-generation biofuels sector. As a key driver of agricultural commodity price rises, the biofuels boom has raised the Agro-Trader nexus’s differential profits and it has at the same time deepened global hunger. These findings suggest that food price inflation is a mechanism of redistribution.

Language

English

Publication Type

Article - Journal

Keywords

global food crisis capital as power redistribution Agro-Trader nexus biofuels commodity prices

Subject

BN Conflict & Violence
BN State & Government
BN Distribution
BN Cooperation & Collective Action
BN Industrial Organization
BN Agency
BN Institutions
BN Power
BN International & Global
BN Business Enterprise
BN Capital & Accumulation
BN Value & Price
BN Labour
BN Production

Depositing User

Jonathan Nitzan

Date Deposited

29 Jul 2013

Last Modified

08 Apr 2016 00:23

URL:

https://bnarchives.net/id/eprint/359

Commentary/Response Threads

• Baines, Joseph Food Price Inflation as Redistribution: Towards a New Analysis of Corporate Power in the World Food System (Preprint). (deposited 29 Jul 2013) [Currently Displayed]
  • Arnesen, Arnie and Baines, Joseph An Interview with Joseph Baines on Food Price Inflation as Redistribution. (deposited 08 May 2013)

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