12.

T h e literature on underdeveloped countries in fact abounds in actual cases that have the essential
features o f the so-called hypothetical case, and 1 have simply presented a stylized sketch o f a com m
on pattern. M ost anecdotes are in the form o f “horror stories” about transnational corporations
switching land out o f the production o f the food consumed by the local poor. See, for exam ple, Robert
J. Ledogar, Hungry for Profits: U.S. Food and Drug Multinationals in Latin America (New York: ID O C ,
1976), pp. 92 -9 8 (Ralston Purina in C olom bia) and R ichard J. Barnet and Ronald E . M uller, Global
Reach: The Power of the Multinational Corporations (New York: Sim on and Schuster, 1974), p. 182
(carnations in C olom bia). For a gargantuan case on a regional scale involving cattle-ranching, see
Shelton H. Davis, Victims of the Miracle: Development and the Indians of Brazil (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1977). T o a considerable extent the long-term development policy o f M exico for at
least thirty’ o f the last forty' years has followed this basic pattern o f depriving the rural poor o f food
for subsistence for the sake of greater agricultural production o f other crops— see the extremely
careful and balanced study by Cynthia Hewitt de Alcantara, Modernizing Mexican Agriculture:
Socioeconomic Implications of Technological Change 1 9 4 0 -1 9 7 0 , Report No. 7 6 .5 (Geneva: United
Nations Research Institute for Social Developm ent, 1976); and Judith Adler Heilm an, Mexico in Crisis
(New York: Holmes & M eier Publishers, In c., 1978), chapter 3. For a sophisticated theoretical analysis o
f some o f the underlying dynamics, see Jeffery’ M . Paige, Agrarian Revolution: Social Movements and
Export Agriculture in the Underdeveloped World (New York: Free Press, 1975), which has case studies o
f Angola, Peru, and Vietnam .