Dusty Volumes, Hazy Politics: The Ambiguous Intersection of Nature, Economics, and Disaster

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Back in February, we analyzed how Frederick J. Turner and William Cronon viewed the expansion of the American West as an effort of manifest capitalism, as well as destiny. As Emily noted, they presented the idea that the development of nature was inexorably a consequence of commerce and economics. To Clayton Koppes, the Dust Bowl provides no exception. In Dusty Volumes, his review of works by Donald Worster and Paul Bonnifield, Koppes strongly identifies with the argument that the Dust Bowl was an ecological consequence to an economic trend: Gilded Age speculation and profit maximization. While dismissing Bonnifield’s defense of agrarian capitalism as “xenophobic boosterism”, Koppes praises Worster’s indictment of the capitalist agricultural mindset as explaining the environmental origins of the Dust Bowl. (539)

Dusty Volumes is a short review of two detailed books concerning the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, as well as the possible economic causes of the great drought. Therefore, one would be very rushed to use it as a substantial source of disaster analysis. Nonetheless, Koppes seems to use the book review as a platform to voice his own conclusion on the subject. He strongly defends Worster’s “three maxims” of agricultural capitalism, which argue that the pursuit of profits and prosperity led inevitably to acceptance of environmental consequences in the West. (536) Worster and Koppes agree that the New Deal programs of subsidies and conservation provided some relief to troubled farmers, but little or no reform to the destructive capitalist system that incentivized the endless cultivation of farmland. Koppes also utilized the opportunity to bash the ideologically opposite position to Worster presented by Paul Bonnifield. Unlike Worster, Bonnifield argues that farmers’ limited access to technology and economies of scale led to unsustainable farming techniques and the onset of the Dust Bowl by the 1930s. Of course, Koppes dismisses the idea of ‘bigger capitalism’ as the proposal for more tenable farming practices.

While Koppes’ review succinctly outlines his views on Plains capitalism, his evidential base is sorely lacking. His indictment of boosterism and expansionary economics fails to connect policy with environmental consequences. Overirrigation of water sources and overuse of soil (as my research also investigates) certainly can have dangerous environmental impacts, but Koppes fails to identify any specific policy of wrongdoing. Was it the fault of the Reclamation Bureau or the Department of the Interior? Or was it the Gilded Age industrialists who manipulated agricultural prices with their control of the railroads? Koppes fails to go beyond blaming the farmers themselves for the overproduction of crops and misuse of the farmland. After all, the farmers themselves did not choose to be capitalists- they had to respond to market forces in order to survive on the Plains. As a result, Koppes’ assignment of blame to farmers and their practices for the Dust Bowl disaster is an unjustifiable, if not dangerous, conclusion to make.