Unequal Exchange between Agriculture and Industry

Abstract

As discussed in Chapter 1, the vast majority of Korean farmers are small-scale family producers whose purpose of production is to sustain their own subsistence, rather than to pursue profits. The structure and the characteristics of subsistence production of Korean farming have not been transformed into a fully capitalist production system. The scale of individual farming is too small to benefit from modern agro-technology to ensure for capital accumulation. Agricultural production in Korea has been isolated outside the cycle of capital investment, pursuit of maximum profits, and capital accumulation. Accordingly, the economic logic of agricultural production has remained in the domain of the non-capitalist production system. Nevertheless, subsistence farming production has been forcibly articulated into the capitalist system in a particular way which is specific to the fact that subsistence production is a non-capitalist production system. The industrialisation process altered the patterns of farming production and consumption of farm households into a more market-centred economy. The commodity market became one of the most eminent mechanisms through which agriculture is exploited by industry.