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-> rural Canada was in deep on the socialist end of the spectrum. Isn't socialism an urban phenomena? How did socialism develop in rural areas?

randomdata 4y ago
Modern socialism is a response to industrialization and as Canada has historically been a resource-based economy industrialization rose most prominently in rural areas (mines, for example). Early agriculture in Canada was also steeped in socialist-like thinking, such as cooperatives that were established to supply the means of production, a lot of which still exists today. With that, it wasn't long before the farmers and labourers were working together. Canada's NDP political party was born out the amalgamation of earlier labour and farmer parties. Once NAFTA opened the US floodgates, though, it was compete or perish and that quickly changed attitudes as the old ways were largely no longer sustainable, except where certain trade restrictions were able to be maintained (dairy and poultry, for example). There has been a push towards 'Americanization' in rural Canada over the last 30-some-odd years in an effort to remain competitive.
monknomo 4y ago
The Russian Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, China's revolution all had substantially rural components. But the tldr; is that land/resource ownership, the distribution of surplus value and softening the blows of the market when your produce depends on the weather are extremely relevant concerns of rural areas
andylynch 4y ago
NZ had a similar pattern; farmers there had to pool resources to process and export products (in their case, wool, meat, dairy, later on fruit too). Importantly and probably like Canada these markets developed with the industrialisation of Europe and the British Empire and the organisation of labour, and followed on from earlier co-operative movements in the UK & France. These producers set up on co-operative lines, first locally i.e. most dairy areas had a creamery or something in each village. Over time these merged to take advantage of scale, especially in the 1970s and 1980s to compete internationally with the loss of the UK market to the EEC. Even today the largest NZ dairy company, Fonterra, is a supplier-owned co-operative, though it's now big enough to warrant a private segment on the New Zealand Stock Exchange for them to trade with each other. On the purchasing side a similar pattern emerged, and purchasing co-operatives are still common especially in the agriculture sector.

randomdata 4y ago

Modern socialism is a response to industrialization and as Canada has historically been a resource-based economy industrialization rose most prominently in rural areas (mines, for example). Early agriculture in Canada was also steeped in socialist-like thinking, such as cooperatives that were established to supply the means of production, a lot of which still exists today. With that, it wasn't long before the farmers and labourers were working together. Canada's NDP political party was born out the amalgamation of earlier labour and farmer parties. Once NAFTA opened the US floodgates, though, it was compete or perish and that quickly changed attitudes as the old ways were largely no longer sustainable, except where certain trade restrictions were able to be maintained (dairy and poultry, for example). There has been a push towards 'Americanization' in rural Canada over the last 30-some-odd years in an effort to remain competitive.

monknomo 4y ago

The Russian Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, China's revolution all had substantially rural components. But the tldr; is that land/resource ownership, the distribution of surplus value and softening the blows of the market when your produce depends on the weather are extremely relevant concerns of rural areas

andylynch 4y ago

NZ had a similar pattern; farmers there had to pool resources to process and export products (in their case, wool, meat, dairy, later on fruit too). Importantly and probably like Canada these markets developed with the industrialisation of Europe and the British Empire and the organisation of labour, and followed on from earlier co-operative movements in the UK & France. These producers set up on co-operative lines, first locally i.e. most dairy areas had a creamery or something in each village. Over time these merged to take advantage of scale, especially in the 1970s and 1980s to compete internationally with the loss of the UK market to the EEC. Even today the largest NZ dairy company, Fonterra, is a supplier-owned co-operative, though it's now big enough to warrant a private segment on the New Zealand Stock Exchange for them to trade with each other. On the purchasing side a similar pattern emerged, and purchasing co-operatives are still common especially in the agriculture sector.