Affiliation:
1. York University, Canada
2. Birmingham City University, UK
Abstract
Critics have identified the corporate and business sector as contributing to household food insecurity through its endorsement of low wages, anti-union activities and lobbying for retrenchment of the Canadian welfare state. It is therefore troubling that this same corporate and business sector has come to dominate positions on the boards of directors of civil society organizations with missions to reduce household food insecurity. Fisher uses the term ‘Big Hunger’ to describe how this ‘hunger-industrial complex’ of food banks, food diversion schemes and corporations and companies are accruing benefits to themselves yet do little to reduce household food insecurity. We consider such processes as illustrating two key political economy concepts: (1) Marx’s concepts of base and superstructure and (2) Gramsci’s cultural hegemony. We carry out a critical case study of the relevance of these concepts to the Canadian household food insecurity scene by examining how the corporate and business sector now dominates the boards of directors of four major civil society organizations concerned with reducing household food insecurity. We find evidence of these civil society organizations exhibiting agenda distortion, reciprocity and loss of integrity, all reflecting their becoming part of the superstructure of capitalist society whose ruling elites come to dominate the ideas and values of society. Issues of wages, unionization and collective agreement bargaining, taxes and taxation, income inequality and retrenchment of the welfare state – all important contributors to household food insecurity and key concerns of the corporate and business community – are for the most part absent from these civil society organizations’ reports, documents and statements. We specify the implications these developments have for addressing household food insecurity and the inequitable distribution of other social determinants of health.
Subject
Economics and Econometrics,Sociology and Political Science,History
Reference88 articles.
1. Abdelbaki R (2020) For the owners of Loblaws, ripping off Canadian workers is a family business. Jacobin Magazine, 5 November. Available at: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/10/loblaws-westons-coronavirus-workers
2. Banares I (2019) Majority of Canadians have a positive view of socialism, poll says. The Toronto Star, 27 August. Available at: https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/08/27/majority-of-canadians-have-a-positive-view-of-socialism-poll-says.html
Cited by
5 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献