Mintz - Sweetness and Power

Sidney W. Mintz's Sweetness and Power:  The Place of Sugar in Modern Society (1985) places sugar both within different aspects of society and culture.  Yet, he seems to concentrate more so on how the Western world utilized and developed sugar as useful commodity.  Notably, Mintz notes the deployment of sugar as a construct for power.  He states, "Sucrose was a source of bureaucratic, as well as mercantile and industrial, wealth.  Once the magnitude of its market and potential market was grasped, maintaining control over it became important...  It might not be too much to say that the fate  of the British West Indies was sealed, once it became cheaper for the British masses to have their sugar from elsewhere and more profitable for the British bourgeoisie to sell more sugar at lower prices" (185).  Sugar and a part of it's make-up sucrose, resonated among individuals seeking political power, not to mention economic power within a British and European market.  But what Mintz points out that for all the political and economic might sugar gave the individual, it was ultimately found to be produced cheaper elsewhere, thus producing sugar in higher yields, selling at lower prices to lower classes at reduced rates.  Doing this neglects the market of the British West Indies, making their chances for political and economical gain and support dwindle due to this commodity being produced in other areas.  Sugar, in its physical form, is merely a conduit that gives the individual, be it individual proprietor or a company, authority.  As in the previous lecture concerning authority with a commodity, it is in this case that the producer and not the product takes command.

Mintz's text is indeed an insightful piece on the commodification of sugar but an excellent point was raised by Kirsten for this round of blog posts concerning a lack of detail or analysis concerning other nation's involvement with sugar.  Why I do agree that Mintz's text extensively covers that the British had a dominant control of its markets, he does point to struggles that the British had with competing nations within the sugar market.  Mintz examines United States' consumerism in comparison with the United Kingdom.  He states that especially after 1880-4, the US consumed thirty-eight pounds of sugar, though not passing consumption of the UK and "... In three short years consumption rose still higher.  And after 1898--99--not a date picked out of a hat--it rose higher yet" (188).  These statistics indicate that the US was, in sum, a very quick rival for consuming sugar and very much on the heels of the United Kingdom.  However, the US did not gain any significant ground within what Mintz terms the "Caribbean sugar bowl" until very late (later nineteenth century) to its foreign policies and expansion of military power in this region (188).  The United States foreign policies of this era gave it a great avenue to get into areas rich in producing sugar, though much later than the UK.  He further argues, "...--beginning around the end of the Civil War--until the present, U.S. sugar policy has been a major political football..."(188).  This suggests that the US has been moving the "football" or its stakes into the sugar economy more and more, getting close to those of Western Europe, particularly the UK.  The US is a late comer to the sugar economy and its overall benefits, with the UK still taking the reins as a prime example for scholars to study as they have more provenance in it.

The one interesting issue with Mintz is his use of primary sources, especially imagery from periods he discusses.  This only helps more in assisting his overall arguments within each of his chapters.  It further depicts at a firsthand glimpse how different regions utilized sugar.  One such case is sugar as an art form, which I thought was extremely intriguing and wished he could have explored it more in depth and how extensive a history (and possibly its historiography) is on sugar as an art form.  Yet, that can also be a discussion for art historians.