CAPITALISM AND THE POWERLESSNESS OF PEOPLE FULLY SUBJECT TO MARKETS

John Tutino, The Mexican Heartland: How Communities Shaped Capitalism, A Nation, and World History, 1500-2000 (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2017):

Now, the end of ecological autonomies in a mechanizing. urbanization, globalizing  world had ended the capacity of communities to sustain themselves. In a telling example of Mexico's transformation, at Tehuacan--east of the heartland, where archaeological studies have traced the most ancient origins of maize--rural families have all but abandoned the cultivation of the historical staple. A few among the elderly raise maize for elotes--the Mexican variant of corn on the cob, a delicacy. Their children see no future in the historic staple. They look for labor locally, in Mexico City, or the United States. They know that the world of their ancestors will not return. With little hope for gain from political participation, people seek solutions in personal and family adaptations. They can carry on in rural towns, build city barrios, or migrate to seek new opportunities. They petition and demonstrate. But they cannot press the powerful with enduring insurgencies. People fully subject to markets can defy power only as long as income and store supplies last. Whatever their grievances, whatever the political openings, the people of our urbanizing world cannot press insurgencies long enough to rattle power and claim gains.

Id. at 408-409. FOOD FOR THOUGHT!!