Marx and agriculture

Press, 9 May 1980, Page 12

Marx and agriculture

Sir, — The article,’ “Marx was surely a city boy,” by' Lester R. Brown, (May 2) is a tissue of absurdities from beginning to. end.- The Soviet Union is-, incontestably,- the world’s foremost, wheatgrowing nation. The false claim of the superior productivity of United States, and Japanese agriculture, that “it is due to the family farm systems that dominate in those countries,” is* belied, in the case of the United States by “Time” magazine, of January 21, 1980, which states, page 6, that from the mid-19405, “Farms grew larger and the number of people on them dwindled—to less than 5 per cent of the population, compared with 23 per cent in 1940.” The conclusion reached by Soviet planners, guided by their Marxist theory, in the 19305, that large farms operated as agroindustrial complexes, are more productive than small family farms, is being vindicated by United States practice 40 years later. — Yours, etc., M. CREEL. May 4, 1980.