ABSTRACT
Throughout American history, fanners have turned to political activity to cope with the vagaries of the market Farmer activism heightens during periods of particular economic stress in the agricultural sector. Agrarian political activism in the United States has generally been directed against the increasing concentration of wealth and economic power in the hands of the rich at the expense of small family farmers. Farm activists have been less critical of the institution of private property and the process of capital accumulation itself; thus American farm protest is anti-monopoly yet not anti-accumulation.
