An Economic Rationale for Inshore Fishing: Simple Commodity Production and the Life Mode Approach

Abstract

Earlier chapters have uncovered the great diversity of activities that are subsumed under the term inshore fisheries and so exposed the basic dilemmas surrounding any attempt to generate a simple, comprehensive definition. Inshore fisheries express themselves in many different forms: they include conventional capture fisheries, which may be undertaken commercially on a full time, part time or seasonal basis or for purposes of recreation, and culture fisheries almost invariably conducted on a commercial basis. Moreover, inshore fisheries are not dominated by the conventional capitalist division between investors, companies and employees. European rural society reveals both a simple commodity mode of production and a capitalist mode of production often existing side by side (Hojrup, 1983). Each contains a number of logical variants which co-exist in differing degrees of interdependence and opposition. Under various forms of finance capital or state planning, private, competition oriented, entrepreneurial capitalism coexists with monopoly capitalism, state capitalism and simple commodity production, with the latter organised either as family based enterprises, as for example the family farm, partnership companies, most commonly found in professional, service and manufacturing activities, or in joint or share ownership as in fishing. In fact, practically all forms of organisation associated with capitalist and simple commodity production can be found within the inshore fisheries sector in Europe.