Tobacco Capitalism tells the story of the people who live and work on
U.S. tobacco farms at a time when the global tobacco industry is
undergoing profound changes. Against the backdrop of the antitobacco
movement, the globalization and industrialization of agriculture, and
intense debates over immigration, Peter Benson draws on years of field
research to examine the moral and financial struggles of growers, the
difficult conditions that affect Mexican migrant workers, and the
complex politics of citizenship and economic decline in communities
dependent on this most harmful commodity.
Benson tracks the development of tobacco farming since the plantation
slavery period and the formation of a powerful tobacco industry presence
in North Carolina. In recent decades, tobacco companies that sent farms
into crisis by aggressively switching to cheaper foreign leaf have
coached growers to blame the state, public health, and aggrieved racial
minorities for financial hardship and feelings of vilification. Economic
globalization has exacerbated social and racial tensions in North
Carolina, but the corporations that benefit have rarely been considered
a key cause of harm and instability, and have now adopted
social-responsibility platforms to elide liability for smoking disease.
Parsing the nuances of history, power, and politics in rural America,
Benson explores the cultural and ethical ambiguities of tobacco farming
and offers concrete recommendations for the tobacco-control movement in
the United States and worldwide.
