Sugar is one of the central elements of the food basket in the world. The centrality of sugar consumption, however, is a recent phenomenon. The idea of sweetness is present from the ancient times but the consumption of it as a necessity reveals the development and deployment of new meanings to sugar and the changes in the economic and social conditions. It is a valid curiosity to know how sugar became the object of mass consumption across all society and all classes. But, it is not only about sugar as material object rather it is mainly about the essence of sweetness in the social world. The idea of taste is socially determined. It is related with the physiological propensity for certain kinds of taste and the need for certain minerals in our body but the presence of various objects having same taste makes the popularity of some foods a historical and an anthropological question of inquiry. The historical inquiry sees the trends in the changing use of cultural objects but anthropological inquiry is more concerned about the effects and its movement in the social strata through meanings and motives. Taking cue from anthropology, social history emerged as a new discipline or a new way of inquiring the patterns of social changes in our society.
In the contemporary anthropological studies, the study of food habits became a powerful tool to study the society or community to understand the social arrangements. Our food habits are determined socially, geographically and biologically. Food choices also provide the distinctions of age, sex, status, culture and even occupation. Sydney Mintz, in the book Sweetness and Power, provides a detailed account of the appropriation of sugar in the diet of United Kingdom and he treats ‘sugar’ as a cultural object to see how people of different strata provided meaning to the use of sugar. He also sees the development of capitalism with the rise in the production and consumption of sugar. In this explanatory work, he analyses the concept of “power” and “meaning” to explain the change in the status of sugar from luxury to medicine to decorative object to necessity. This book is divided into five chapters namely “Food, Sociality, and Sugar”, “Production”, “Consumption”, “Power”, and “Eating and Being”. Mintz shifts the focus from the production to the consumption part to understand the phenomenon of the rise of sugar use as most of the studies on food is mainly concerned for the production processes. The history of technological accomplishments is Europe centred and he tries to break away from this tradition to provide an objective understanding of the technical achievements of Arab worlds. The western world does not provide attention to the technical achievements of orient rather they are more concerned about the aesthetics and given reference in putting the great inputs of labour (the pyramids, the sun temple, the great wall etc). Mintz provides the example of Moorish conquest of
Spain as much as technical and military as economic, political and religious.
Mintz provides the historical evidences of the presence of the idea of sugar from the ancient times in the India and later in the Mediterranean region. However, this work takes Mediterranean region as the starting point of sugar production, then moves to colonies of Spain, and then finally goes to Caribbean region to see the development of capitalistic mode of production in the sugar industry. The history of sugar production in Mediterranean region is present in many historical acts but the earlier works differentiated it naively from the sugar production in Christian region with slavery. However, Mintz provides the evidences of use of slavery in Morocco and East African countries through the historical accounts of slave revolts in these areas. He takes this idea further and says that Spain learnt the use and necessity of slave labour in this labour intensive industry from the experiences of the Muslim world. In the colonies of Spain, the experiment of sugar production was unsuccessful due to chronic lack of capital, and unproductive, tribute taking and labour-squandering role in America. However, the Spanish obsession of precious metal provided sugar industry a big blow after its conquest of the Mexico and the Andes. The sugar industry of Mediterranean region declined due to inferior local administration, which caused decimation of the effective irrigation system and labour allocation. However, the colonisers continued sugar production at some places in the region Sicily is one of the examples.
After the decline of the sugar industry in the Mediterranean and Spanish colonies, British industry has no rival to face and the age of continued growth in the sugar production became reality in the British colonies. Mintz, here, engages in a debate about the mode of production of sugar industry in this initial phase of industrialisation. Here, he differentiates between the “new world” and the “old world” meaning the transfer from Mediterranean to Atlantic islands. He also investigates plantation as it is agricultural or it is industrial or a combination of both. The increasing use of machinery and division of labour made the plantation agriculture a synthesis of field and factory. The labour in the industry was constituted of both slave and the wage labour. Since, the labour was not free to sell his labour power so many scholars are of the view that it was not capitalistic industry. However, he compares it with the modern forms of “agro-industry” and finds certain feature of sugar industry in the modern world. These features are:-- plantation and processing were under one authority, the organisation of the labour force was on the basis of skilled and semi-skilled linked with the organization goals, the system was time-conscious, the separation of production from consumption and the separation of the worker from his tools.
Therefore, Mintz sees a trajectory of transformation to capitalistic order and concludes that it was not capitalistic. However, looking at the functioning of capitalism, this idea is problematic. Mere freedom of labour to sell his/her labour power does not make any system capitalistic. The notion of “freedom” attached here is illusionary. The main point of arguments in examining any system as capitalistic or not should come from the separation of the worker and the tools of production. All these sugar industries of the new world were working with single motive of profit accumulation and the rise in the wealth of the sugar estates. As in the book also, Mintz finds that the replacement of the discipline of slavery could only be done with the discipline of hunger. So, the “free labour” in this phase had no other option of livelihood. However, one can argue that free labour had any option to quit the job but what option they were left with?
The production process of sugar was in-sync with the consumption process and it was arranged in a way to reap maximum profit. The British developed two “triangles of trade”, both of these arose in 17th century and matured in the 18th century. The first triangle linked Britain to Africa and to the new world: finished goods were sold to Africa, African slaves to the Americas and American sugar to the Britain or her importing neighbours. This triangle was working on the Mercantilist model. The second triangle was working in contradiction to the first and it started from New England to Africa. Rum was exported from New England to Africa and slaves from Africa to West Indies, whence molasses back to New England to make Rum. The only “false commodity” in these two triangles were slave as human being is not an object even treated one. The wealth created in the different parts of this triangle were taken back to New England. The production and consumption of sugar increased in 18th century and the poverty of resources led people to go for starch based food. The process of increasing consumption and for this process use of microphysics of power by the groups at upper level in Britain is interesting.
The power machinery was first used to make sugar accepted in religious rites. The religion in the United Kingdom did not allow eating or consuming spices in the religious fast however, sugar became the first exception in this category. It was permitted to consume sugar in the religious fast. Further, the laws and rules were changed/amended to make sugar cheaper in the United Kingdom. Political leaders, religious groups, judges, physicians, military officials, businesspersons and other “progressive” people showered intemperate praise of sugar. This had effect on the legal systems of the Britain. This in simultaneity with the heightened productivity of labouring class, the radically altered conditions of their lives, the evolving world economy, and the spread of capitalistic spirit made sugar a necessity among all classes of the country. The change in the use of sugar from medicine to spice to necessity can be seen through the mechanisms of power and how the meanings were created.
The use of sugar as medicine has a contested history in the 18th century Europe and some of this contestation came from the idea that the Arabs knew most of the medicinal use of sugar. In contesting Arabian progress in the use of sugar and projecting an advanced knowledge of medicine, it went to the extremes as Mintz cites the work of Slare where he talks about using sugar powder to drop in the eyes to treat eye-ailment (107). However, the use of sugar as a medicine diminished in the late 18th and 19th century as it transformed into sweetener and preservative and assimilated into a new function—a source of calories. At the same time, tea became household name in Britain. It supplanted cold beer in their diet. The use of sucrose in the tea made it more satisfying. The consumption of sugar increased and it led to surplus expenditure on food items in 18th century Britain. One of the cause for the increasing consumption of tea relates to the over exploitation of tea workers in the India. East India Company, which started with the export of Chinese tea, produced a large quantity of Indian tea and it decreased the price of tea drastically in Britain. Tea became cheaper than coffee and chocolate and entered into the household of workers and middle class. However, the popularity of tea is not the only reason for the increase in the consumption of sugar rather the use of sugar in another form in the pastries, sweetened custard, and creams were the other reasons for this. The diet of the English people signalled the linkage of the consumption habits of every Englishman to the world outside England, particularly to the colonies.
Culture is marked by behavioural and attitudinal differences in a complex hierarchized society. When cultural material or cultural objects move upward or downward, the meaning of the object does not change with the movement. In the movement of cultural objects, wealth, authority, influence and power affect the way diffusion occurs. Mintz also sees these factors in the movement of sugar in use from the lords to the commoners. People knew the use of sugar as preservative from the 15th century onwards and its use as medicine and decoration provided legitimacy of its use. He brings the notion of “aspiration” to explain the increasing use of sugar in the Britain. He says that the middle class did not use because it was costly and rare until 17th century. With the decrease in the cost, people accepted it in the diet and provided cultural meanings. However, this idea is problematic. He does not see the variation of sugar use among different regions of the country and in the different classes. Without looking at these dimensions, it would be a generalisation to accept the hypothesis that all in United Kingdom had luxury to use sugar. He discusses the different consumption patterns for men and women but he does not explore two things—a) the cause for less consumption of calorie diet among women and b) the women’s role in the development of capitalism through the lens of the development of sugar industries.
However, this consumption process of sugar needs more emphasis. The working class did not use it through the process of imitation of high class. Even the meanings attached with sugar changed with time. It was not merely seen as a status symbol, which was the case with the use of it by the elites. Here the concept of “intensification” can provide us with the probable causes for this. When tea was accepted as the British drink, the use of sugar increased in the diet of people. With this increase in the use of the sugar, it became one of the main source of the calorie. Therefore, it was more than the status question for the commoners. However, one can see the power dimension in this process. Those, in the power, made sugar available and maintained low price for the mass consumption. The control over the spread of ‘internal meanings’ associated with any cultural objects and the simultaneous control over food availability in the region provide the evidence for certain forms of domination in the society. As the price of sugar depends upon the duty, the ruling government fix. The imperial government decreased the duty to make it cheaper and to increase its consumption and production. After the end of protectionist regime, the consumption and production of sugar increased more as many Asian and African countries started growing sugar canes. One of the differentiating phenomenon in this period was the increase in beat production. After some years, beat production surpassed sugar cane production in the world.
There were two changes in this period—first relates to the status of sugar as an essential commodity and second the centrality of the production of sugar, molasses, and rum for the power in British society. At the same time, British experienced rival markets in the world economy and accepted the policy of “free trade” to compete with Americans and other powers lobbies of the world. However, Sydney Mintz’s focus on these power blocs for the meaning acquired by sugar in the working class seems problematic. His whole conception of “power” in this case is problematic. He says that availability of sugar by the British political and economic elites increase the consumption of sugar in the United Kingdom. But, this can be seen through another lens—the lens of poverty of resources, which he touches but does not explore. Clifford Geertz says that human beings are caught in the web of significations they themselves have spun. Therefore, one should think the world to be able to see it rather than accepting the ideas inhered by the world. People do not accepted the meanings provided by other groups rather they judge it with their pre-existing cultural symbols and then responds to it. In this case, also, people were not just accepting the meanings comings from the ruling elites rather it was the social conditions of the common people of Britain, which were providing affinity or distance to cultural objects.
Eric Hobbsbawm (1999) points out that “neither economic theory nor the economic practice of the early Industrial revolution relied on the purchasing power of the labouring population, whose wages, it was generally assumed, would not be far removed from the subsistence level” (52). Therefore, workers need to get calorie from any cheapest food available in the market. Further, sugar got acceptance in the religious arena. Therefore, people accepted it as a calorie rich substance. Mintz says that the low price of sugar was the product of policies of political elites and they did it to increase the consumption of sugar. However, Britain had no option but protectionist regime in the sugar industry. Otherwise, there voyage of sugar production would had same end as the Spanish attempts to make sugar had. When they feel threatened by the rival forces in the sugar production, they went for free market economy as they had more resources at their ends in comparison to rival forces. Further, British appropriated all the money in this process. Also, if we relate the consumption with the increasing wage of the labour then other economic factor should also be considered. It is common assumption in classical and neo-classical economics that people go for “luxury goods” with the increase in the purchasing power. However, any conclusion based on it should be considered taking into account the rise and fall of the “necessary goods”. Therefore, the acceptance of sugar as necessary goods in the 18th century United Kingdom needs more research and insights.
Further, Mintz’s focus on power is also one-dimensional. He is Foucauldian in this approach as he only sees the discourse of the people of higher status. However, people shows resistance to any discourse coming from other groups. That is why not all discourses from dominant group becomes dominant in our society. Mintz does not talk about the resistance of people to the dominant discourse about sugar. He does not talk about the revolt, protest, or strike of slaves in the Caribbean sugar industry. The scale of exploitation in the sugar industry was very high. Therefore, it was preeminent that there must have been some protests in the Caribbean sugar industry. As in the British India, the workers of tea plantation protested in different ways. They even staged hartal in solidarity with the nationalist movements. He also does not see the resistance from the colonized people of the Caribbean islanders against the destruction of other industries and means of subsistence. He tries not to bring Eurocentric history but he at the end provides us the same. He only talked about the technical expertise of Mediterranean people in the pre-industrial era but he does not pay any attention to the involvement of labour in the Caribbean sugar industry.
The typical-ideal notion of modernity supposes the persistence of only one view of the changes, as they do not see the counter-currents prevailing at the same time when the project of modernity was unleashed. Therefore, many anthropologists and historians see the abolition of slavery as the attempt to establish the capitalistic economic system. However, slavery was just not the result of the good conscience of republican values and the progressive forces of capitalism. W. E. Du Bois argues that slaves are protagonists of their own emancipation in the United States and determine the outcome of civil war. Further, he writes, slaves set in motion an exodus, “a general strike that involved directly in the end perhaps a half million people”. One thing that slave resistance makes clear is that although slaves may undergo what Orlando Patterson calls a “social death”, they remain alive in their resistance.
Mintz also proposes the idea that Tobacco, tea and sugar were the first objects within the capitalism that conveyed with their use the complex idea that one could become different by consuming differently. However, looking at food as social behaviour, it is very farfetched idea. Certainly, the system of economy influences food behaviour but it is not the only determinant. Taking the example from India, we can see that food as a social behaviour has more influence of the construction of culture. The changes in the meaning of cultural objects, which is not per-se, determined by economy only, affects the way people perceive new foods. The food chain of McDonalds in India is not determined by the culture of the place of its origin rather it is determined on the basis of the culture of the consumers. McDonald’s food chain has notice, “It does not serve beef”. Therefore, despite the system of capitalism the culture influenced by religion, economy, and politics determines the food behaviour.
Food determines self in the society. The notion of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ serves the path for the change in the meanings of the cultural objects. Food is related with the rituals. It relates with birth, life, death and so on. The use of rice in India on the forehead for tilak exemplifies prosperity. Also, in India people celebrate any auspicious occasion with sweets. The phrase Mooh meetha karwao (Sweeten the mouth) depicts the centrality of sweetness with the culture. Mintz in the start of the book very clearly identifies the fact that it is not the sugar but the ‘sweetness’, which is his matter of investigation but he trapped in the web of signification he himself has spun. His focus changed from ‘sweetness’ to sucrose. He touches many important points but he left that. As he talks how Americans rejected tea and choose coffee and how sugar consumption in France is less compared to British but he did not investigate or provides a comparative study. Why people could not attach same meaning in the France and America as people of Britain attached.
This book provides insights about the socio-historical development of production, consumption, tool used for its popularity and social meanings of sugar. This book deals with many important questions with regard to the development of sugar industry and its relation with the changing economic mode of production, sociality and power mechanisms. As we move from one page to another, Sydney Mintz carefully demonstrates the machination of capitalism in exploiting the labour in the Caribbean and exploitation of the British for the weakness for sweetness. One very important takeaway point from this book is the use of consumption to see social change. It establishes groundwork for the concept of “new consumerism” and new scholars are indebted to Sydney Mintz for this. As Miller (1995) argues that, the first world wife is a “dictator” over the third world producers.
References:-
Hobsbawm, Eric J., and Chris Wrigley. Industry and empire: from 1750 to the present day. The New Press, 1999.
Miller, D. "Acknowledging consumption: a review of new studies." Material cultures Show all parts in this series (1995).
Mintz, Sidney Wilfred. Sweetness and power. New York: Viking, 1985.
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