ABSTRACT
This chapter examines class formation not as "an effect of an ulterior structure, of which men are not the makers but the vectors", but as an active effort of fanners to affect that structure. It examines the forms of Wisconsin farmers' collective struggles in the post-World War II era. The analysis involves support for collective bargaining, and the extent to which the substantive commitment to values of cooperative organization supercede the formal rationality of monetary calculation. The social movement and political sociology literature often presumes that simple commodity producers in agriculture are incapable of collective organization. Given the Farm Bureau membership's tendency toward use of hired labor, low levels of off-farm work, high net worth, and higher educational attainment, this membership can be characterized as composed primarily of economists' model farmers and a portion of the successful family farmers.
