Bananas For Socialism: The Horizons Beyond Food Production Under Capitalism / Arun Gupta
In this expansive discussion, investigative journalist and food columnist Arun Gupta tackles the extremely online drama between "progrowth" and "degrowth" leftists about one of the cheapest fruits you can find in the supermarket: the banana. Will we have bananas under socialism?
Whenever I make a shopping list for an upcoming venture to the grocery store, there are several staples I always like to keep stocked up on that inform my shopping. Those items include things like non-dairy milk, snacks, greens, and various fruits, including a week’s worth of bananas. For my partner’s smoothies that I make in the mornings before they head off to work, a banana is essential. They make a decent snack when in a bind. Plus, they’re cheap.
But, I must add an important caveat. What I stated above was stated almost self-consciously, like it’s a shameful thing to admit. Like my individual consumer choices are problematic, which admittedly, they are. I understand I am not innocent in my consumption of this fruit, in the same way you aren’t innocent, listening to this podcast on your smartphone or laptop. We aren’t innocent, but that brings me to my point.
The simple, iconic, bright yellow Cavendish bananas neatly arranged in the produce section at the supermarket don’t exist in a vacuum. We exist as consumers in a global capitalist matrix of relationships defined by ruthless exploitation, embedded within a long history of colonial conquest and capitalist hegemony. The banana to be purchased at the supermarket exists as but one of the countless nexus points in this matrix.
These dynamics play out with every online impulse purchase and trip to the grocery store. But certainly, me standing in front of an array of Chiquita branded bananas, trying to decide which bunch is the right shade of green before I put one in my shopping cart, isn’t quite the same as being a corporate executive for the United Fruit Company (now known as Chiquita) in the 1950s, or one of its CIA counterparts. But still, there is an undeniable line that connects us across space and time.
Capitalism and its global distribution networks do more than just transport criminally cheap goods from the so-called “Banana Republics” of South and Central America to Global North markets, it works to disperse the responsibility for such a ruthless system: no consumer is completely to blame, nor completely blameless, either. Some are more than others, sure—like the corporations and their government partners—but we’re all implicated, just by the mere fact we need to eat.
We can make better choices when we consume. Instead of plastic, I can use a paper or metal straw to drink an iced coffee. I can go vegan. I can source all my food—meats and produce—from local farms and growers. These choices matter, but frankly, most of the choices most human beings can ethically make are terribly limited under capitalist hegemony. These are lifestyle choices, and are not liberatory in the truest sense.
None of this was inevitable. Other horizons exist. So, when the “banana discourse” erupted on one of the hellsites many of us frequent, the question became: will there be bananas under socialism? And Arun Gupta, who thinks and writes a great deal about food, in more or less words, answers: well, yes, of course we’ll have bananas. But frankly, this not really the right question, or even the right framing.
Bio:
Arun Gupta is an investigative reporter who has written for the Guardian, the Daily Beast, the Intercept, The Washington Post, and other publications. He is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute, cooked professionally in New York City, and is author of the forthcoming, Apocalypse Chow: A Junk-Food Loving Chef Explains How America Created the Most Revolutionary Food System in History (The New Press).
Episode Notes:
Read Arun’s article Bananas for Socialism at Dissent Magazine, part of his Apocalypse Chow column.
Subscribe to his Substack.
Music produced by Epik The Dawn.
