Agricultural History Review, Volume 69 Part 1 (2021), p. 166

First published in Spanish in 2019 with the rather more revealing title of ¿Capitalismo coordinado o monstruo de Frankenstein? La política agraria común y el modelo europeo, 1962–2020 [Coordinated capitalism or Frankenstein’s monster? The Common Agricultural Policy and the European Model, 1962–2020] this is not a straightforward study, or simple history, of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It has loftier ambitions, asking for example: ‘Does [the CAP] illustrate the virtues of the European model of coordinated capitalism, as opposed to US-style liberal capitalism? Or, conversely, is it an incoherent set of instruments that exerts diverse negative impacts and seems to have escaped the control of its designers?’ (p. ix). Its author, who is Associate Professor of Socioeconomic History at the University of Zaragoza, laments the rise of Euroscepticism, which has raised questions requiring answers such as: ‘Is the EU really a triumph of democracy or, on the contrary, an institution with a serious problem of lack of legitimacy? Is it a bastion of Europe’s tradition of social capitalism within a global neoliberal era or, conversely, an agent working against said tradition?’ To help address these issues, the book ‘analyses the socio-economic dimension of the problem through a case study of the Common Agricultural Policy’ (p. 2). I have my doubts that a case study of the CAP is, by itself, capable of answering such deeply divisive questions.

It is claimed that the use of an historical political-economy approach results in two distinctive features distinguishing this from other analyses of the CAP. First, ‘the book tries to consider the socio-economic and the political sides of the analysis in a more integrated fashion than has been common so far’ (p. 3); and second ‘the book aspires to providing a longer-run perspective than is usual in most available historical and social science studies, not to speak of journalistic coverage of the CAP’ (p. 4). This is quite ambitious in the space of 112 pages, and quite understandably the author concedes that the book ‘does not give … a complete, once-and-for-all history of the CAP’. It is ‘closer to a history-based essay than to a history monograph proper’ (pp. 3–4). It relies on printed rather than archival sources.

Anyone new to the CAP, wanting to know the ‘whats’ and ‘whys’ of support for European farmers, may well need to search out additional material. Readers with more than a passing knowledge of the CAP and its history will not be too surprised by the book’s contents, but may quibble over odd statements that appear. These include: ‘Only during the Uruguay round of the GATT (1986–1993) was agriculture incorporated into international trade negotiations’ (p. 40), and a confusing reference to ‘farm income’, when farm revenue (from sales and subsidies, before deduction of costs) was surely in mind (for example, p. 37). The author clearly has little time for ‘neoclassical economists’ and ‘Marxist sociologists and other critics of neoliberal globalization’ (for example, pp. 15, 108).

Chapter 1 introduces the concept of ‘coordinated capitalism’, a phrase that reverberates throughout the book. This is ‘a variety of capitalism in which the state actively intervenes in order to pursue social, environmental and territorial objectives’ (p. 107). The European Union’s embrace of coordinated capitalism underpins the rhetoric surrounding the CAP: ‘A common agricultural policy had the potential to illustrate the virtues of European-style coordinated capitalism’ (p. 85).

Although the Treaty of Rome outlined a number of objectives for the CAP, the main concern of policy makers in the early years was a belief that farm incomes lagged behind those in other sectors. Thus a system of market price support, involving import taxes, export subsidies, and the purchase of ‘surplus’ produce was put in place, resulting for example in the infamous ‘butter mountains’ in intervention stores. Some analysts characterized this as an agricultural welfare state, even though the benefits flowed disproportionately to larger farmers (who had more to sell), and landowners. Others have claimed this was successful rent-seeking by the farm lobby. However, a ‘change of paradigm was started by the MacSharry reform of 1992 and consolidated by the Fischler reform of 2003. … The key to paradigm change was the substitution of a system of price support via market intervention with a system of income support via direct payments to farmers’ (p. 41).

Chapter 3 challenges the ‘monster myth’. It claims that the CAP was never as costly to taxpayers or consumers, or as disruptive to farmers in the ‘global South’, as its critics suggest. The pre-1992 CAP had a more modest impact on food prices than was commonly supposed, and with rising real incomes throughout Western Europe the proportion of the household budget spent on food declined; CAP’s budget was only ever a small fraction of EU GDP (Gross Domestic Product); and the anti-agrarian policy bias of the global South was more problematic than the CAP for their agricultures.

But if the CAP was never as bad as its detractors made out, nor was it ever as good as its advocates alleged. Chapter 4 addresses this ‘even greater myth’: the claim that the CAP’s coordinated agrarian capitalism resulted in an agricultural welfare state, and that it subsequently delivered effective environmental protection together with robust policies for rural development. Despite the progressive incorporation of these other concerns, Collantes concludes that the post-1992 policy mix ‘did not trigger a substantial reorientation of those instruments towards social justice, environmental sustainability or rural development’ (p. 101).

Consequently, in the closing pages the author declares: ‘The CAP is actually a rather sad story. If all the stories that we can contrapose to Eurosceptic arguments are of this kind, no wonder Eurosceptics are ever more in number’ (p. 110). Whilst many could concur that the history of the CAP is a rather sad story, some of them might suggest that this is more than counterbalanced by the wider aspirations and achievements embedded in the European project.