Sweetness and Power

            Sidney Mintz proposes “that the social history of the use of new foods in a western nation can contribute to an anthropology of modern life.” (xxviii)  Rather than focusing exclusively on primitive societies or the exotic or different within contemporary societies, Mintz wants the perspective and tools of anthropology to be focused on modern western countries.  His study of sugar production and its consumption in Great Britain relies heavily on social history.  In Chapter 4, Power, Mintz consider the influence of the producers of sugar on the behavior of British consumers of sugar.  He claims that although poor, working-class people made significant changes to their eating habits, their behavior cannot be explained merely by a universal preference for sweetness or by the fact that an expensive good became an inexpensive commodity within their means.  Mintz attempts to explain how the power of the state, elite planters, ever-growing groups of industrialists, in short, people and groups with greater political and economic power than working-class people, constrained the options available to poor consumers.  These consumers made choices, but their field of action was limited by the political, social, and cultural world within which they lived.

            The period when sugar production in the Caribbean was significant was a time of imperialism, colonialism, and a transition from mercantilism to capitalism.  Mintz describes the thinking behind mercantilism, finite markets, constant demand for products, and a belief that lowering prices would automatically reduce profits.  In contrast capitalists came to understand that the scope of the world economy was not fixed, and one nation’s economic success did not necessarily imply the diminishment of another nation’s prosperity.  Most importantly for the study of sugar, when more people became active in the market and worked longer and harder to earn wages, their increased earnings enabled them to consume more.  The history of sugar in Great Britain is the history of ever-increasing demand.  Producers learned that by reducing the price of sugar they could increase demand and increase their profits.

            There were winners and losers in the changing economic environment as capitalism became more pronounced.  Mintz discusses how a variety of middle class people had the opportunity to participate in the wealth generated by the slave trade.  Attorneys, small-business owners, and artisans could buy shares in the expeditions of slave ships although they were unable to own shares in the sugar plantations because the upper classes controlled them.  It is interesting to note that the joint-stock company was not an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century invention.  Venice pioneered this invention in the fourteenth century as well as participating in international trade, and international trade began long before the medieval period.  Less we forget, Mintz reminds us that African slaves were always the losers in the history of sugar production.  When Britain abolished slavery in its colonies in 1833 the former slave-owners received some compensation, but not the slaves.  Actions directed against the emancipated slaves were intended to keep them in a position where they would still be dependent upon sugar production for their livelihood.  Eventually destitute people from India and China were brought to the colonies to work on the sugar plantations.  When tariffs designed to protect the British planters from foreign competition were dropped, the planters were the losers, and the winners were distributors and refiners who wanted to utilize all the sources of world sugar production.  The elite sugar planters lost power to the rising class of British industrialists.  These examples of winners and losers are the stuff of history.

            Possibly the particular contribution that Mintz as an anthropologist can bring to this study is his analysis of why British consumers adopted the sugar habit with a vengeance, what sugar meant to the British working classes..  Removal of tariffs to protect sugar planters did result in lower sugar prices and increased consumption.  Mintz asserts that the wide-spread use of sugar by poor British workers provided them with a respite from their labors as they worked longer and more arduous hours in locations outside their homes.  Sugar compensated workers for some of the disagreeable aspects of industrial employment.  Sugar in hot beverages and in baked goods gave people a sense of comfort when there was insufficient time to prepare a hot meal.  Sugar provided a surge of energy to people tired from work.  Sugar continued to be associated with hospitality, special celebrations, and the ability to join others in pleasant exchanges.  I think Mintz’s account of sugar consumption is tinged with sadness because he sees the transition from old economic practices to capitalism as primarily negative.  He focuses on those groups that benefitted most from both sugar production and the shift to capitalism.  He is right that powerful groups lobbied for their self-interests.  Businesses do attempt, and often succeed, in influencing consumer behavior.  The state looked at mercantilism and capitalism as a source of revenue to promote and maintain state objectives.  Capitalism has not resulted in pervasive economic equality.  Even in the rich countries like the UK and the USA income disparity exists.  I don’t disagree that capitalism imposed hardships on British workers in the first half of the nineteenth century, but as Eric Hobsbawm claims, after 1850 business people learned that well-paid workers made better consumers who enhanced profit.  From that time forward the standard of living of all British people began to rise.  Capitalism is like democracy, imperfect but better than the alternatives.