ABSTRACT
In agriculture the ideology of laissez-faire economics has been used to mystify the tyranny of economic exploitation, which is no longer accepted by workers in most other sectors of the economy. Capitalism is based on inequality, democracy on equality. The US constitution guarantees life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and under this political democracy individuals are treated equally. The labor theory of value exposes the inadequacy of agrarian capitalism and hence the myth of the family farm. The land-grant college system, for instance, is based on taxes, which are used to accelerate the rate of mechanizing agriculture to the benefit of agribusiness and to the detriment of migrants and family farmers. With farm productivity increasing from an index of 53 in 1910 to 113 in 1975, and with farmers receiving a smaller share of the total food value, relative surplus value has increased in US agriculture.
