The last days of a 350-year-old family farm
Here&#x27;s what I find funny: many of the people who extoll the virtues of capitalism also bemoan the death of small businesses and family farms. Or at least they pay it lip service.<p>Why is this funny? Because small businesses and family farms are inherently more socialist than capitalist. Why? Because it is closer to owning the means of production and capturing the excess value of labor by those who are, well, laboring. These are socialist principles.<p>Many (including in these comments) will repeat the propaganda that small farms (or businesses) can&#x27;t survive. Yet farmer&#x27;s markets, which many people like, can offer better prices and products than those that come out of agribusiness and go through distribution chains to end up on supermarket shelves. Again, the value has simply shifted to many layers of capital owners instead of the farmers.<p>This is a myth because it&#x27;s been artificially created. Agribusiness is predatory in nature. Things like seeds are now a subscriptio model. Modern farm equipment often can&#x27;t be repaired. It requires another predatory subscription. Yet, those large agricultural conglomerates also operate their own farms and don&#x27;t have to pay those predatory prices.