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June 09 2023
Book review:
Bitter Harvest: An Inquiry into the War between Economy and Earth
by Lisi Krall - (c) 2022 SUNY Press ; 196 pages [0]
--
Guess it has been a while since my last post..
Still following the on-going collapse threads but haven't really felt
compelled to post about much of it. I think I've just gotten used to
the steady drip of doom and lack of meaningful institutional response;
it no longer surprises.
Anyway, finished up the fore-mentioned book a couple weeks ago but I
wanted to think about it some to see if it worth writing about.
Bitter Harvest is another book on the economic superorganism concept,
something that seems to be getting more coverage lately. Nate Hagens
has had several interviews discussing it on his podcast and someone
named Carey King has a recent book[1] on the topic.
Lisi Krall is a professor of Economics at the State University of New York
College (SUNY). Krall worked closely with John Gowdy on ultrasociality
and the economic superorganism. Being quite impressed by Gowdy's 2021
book 'Ultrasocial'[2] I was naturally drawn to Krall's book after coming
across an interview[3] on the Planet Critical podcast.
Because 'Bitter Harvest' covers much of the same ground as Gowdy's book
I'm going to try to focus here on just the bits that the former seems
to add to the latter's coverage. While Krall's book does discuss
hunter-gatherers and the processes involved in human adoption of
agriculture, it is likely Gowdy's contribution due to his anthropology
background.
The Economic Superorganism in a nutshell:
- an emergent phenomena of all species engaged in agriculture
- expansionary in nature due to various self-reinforcing feedbacks
- characterized by high levels of choreographed specialization
- individuals simplify as the system itself become more complex
Both Krall and Gowdy see agriculture as a universal system that
produces essentially the same general features regardless of species.
In the case of leaf-cutter ants and termites the adoption of agriculture
took millions of years and the divisions of labor is entirely genetic;
individual insects literally physically morph into whatever functional
component needed, without hierarchy or anyone being in charge; the hives
function as One.
The human case IS different and both Krall, Gowdy and others like
the late E.O. Wilson point to various precursors already present in
hunter-gather societies that allowed language and culture -- made possible
by big malleable brains with loads of mirror neurons -- along with a
cooperative nature to greatly accelerate the transition to agriculture.
In an evolutionary blink of an eye the bulk of humanity transitioned from
small groups of self-reliant multi-talented generalists within egalitarian
social structures to large groups of inter-dependent specialists within
hierarchical socio-economic casts. Why it didn't happen sooner is largely
due to the climate; until the Holocene the climate simply wasn't stable
enough to make growing annual grains a reliable investment.
Along with a warmer, more stable climate was the buildup over the eons of
soil carbon. In this sense farming is a form of mining; soil nutrients
are extracted with each harvest. Naturally this has a depleting effect
over time, a recurring theme that Krall points to with respect to why
humans stuck with agriculture: the benefits -- more, easily stored
calories which support a larger population -- were largely immediate while
the detriments -- disease, higher mortality, soil erosion, patriarchy,
slavery, etc. -- took a while to show themselves and by then everyone
is on the treadmill so to speak. A bunch of hungry humans will that
the path of least resistance to obtaining food, usually by taking it
from another group via applied violence. From there it's just a short hop
to the formation of a warrior class and the State.
One point the author drives home is Capitalism is really a system
within a system, the larger encompassing system being the one that our
grain-based agriculture gave rise to. Krall is critical of the various
economic reformist movements such as the steady state and de-growth which
tend to focus solely on the many downsides to Capitalism while ignoring
the larger system which embodies the duality of humans vs nature.
In this sense Capitalism is simply one of several possible catalysts
which simply help run the larger system efficiently. While Krall does
feel that Capitalism powered by fossil fuels is particularly onerous,
it's not the main problem. On this Krall's critique shares much with
folks like Wes Jackson (The Land Institute) and Derrick Jensen (author
of Endgame) and James Scott (author of Against the Grain); in fact all
three are referenced in the book.
An interesting aside is Krall's discussion of the origins of Capitalism
and it's application in 1800s UK. I had heard of the enclosure of the
Commons but I wasn't aware that it was largely driven by the desire
for more wool to supply the textile mills; more wool necessitates more
sheep and sheep need grass to eat. The loss of the Commons forced many
subsistence farmers into wage slavery in slums of London which Charles
Dickens (Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol) and others wrote about.
The book wraps up with a sobering assessment of where humanity stands,
basically well into overshoot[4] on the edge of Seneca's Cliff[5] poised to
see through the 6th mass extinction. Both Krall and Gowdy seem fairly
pessimistic about humanity pulling off any sort of course correction. Krall
lists 3 primary levers of change: culture, institutional life, and
inventiveness. All three tend to work with the system rather than against
it. Krall lists several examples of reformist efforts being either
co-opted or re-framed to serve the needs of the economic superorganism.
--
Refs:
[0] https://sunypress.edu/Books/B/Bitter-Harvest
[1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-04-22/review-the-economic-superorganism-by-carey-w-king/
[2] see my October 2022 review of Gowdy's book
[3] https://www.planetcritical.com/p/how-economics-overpowers-culture
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_overshoot
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_effect