{"id":628,"date":"2019-02-18T00:18:50","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T00:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?p=628"},"modified":"2019-11-25T22:31:51","modified_gmt":"2019-11-25T22:31:51","slug":"almerias-greenhouses-the-dark-side-of-agro-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/almerias-greenhouses-the-dark-side-of-agro-capitalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Almeria\u2019s greenhouses: the dark side of agro-capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Part One: Mar de Plastico<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Almeria province in Southern Spain there is to be found the \nlargest greenhouse complex in the world, an area roughly the size of the\n Isle of Wight. Nothing quite prepares you for the sheer scale of it all\n \u2013 or the brutal ugliness. Driving through it can be a disorientating \nexperience. As far as the eye can see, covering the coastal plain and \nlapping the mountain range behind, is a shimmering sea of plastic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first greenhouses were erected in the early 1960s. Prior to that \nAlmeria province was considered the poorest region in Spain, a barren \ndesolate place, Europe\u2019s only desert and the backdrop of many Spaghetti \nWesterns and films like Lawrence of Arabia. However, it wasn\u2019t always \nlike that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Historical Background<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one time, according to Robert Wolosin, the area had extensive pine\n and oak forests as well as abundant fauna (including bear, lynx and roe\n deer), despite its meagre rainfall (2006, El Milagro de Almeria, \nEspana: A Political Ecology of landscape change and Greenhouse \nAgriculture). Successive waves of human occupation incrementally \ntransformed this landscape to what it has become today. Key to this was \nthe overexploitation and export of local resources linked to the \nextraction of economic surpluses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anthropogenic influences on the environment can be traced back to \nRoman times and even earlier. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in \nthe 5th century, the habitat largely reverted to its earlier state, only\n to undergo a further transformation under the Nasrid Moorish dynasty \n(711-1492). The Moors introduced elaborate irrigation technology and new\n crops like citrus and almonds. Under them, the city of Almeria itself \ngrew to briefly become the second richest city in Europe after \nConstantinople, linking the hinterland to the wider world of \nMediterranean trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Christian \u2018Reconquista\u2019 (re-conquest) of Spain completed in 1492,\n signalled a new chapter in the region\u2019s environmental history. Feudal \nlords leased out land for sheep farming to provide wool for the Italian \ntextile industry. The decline of that market in the 1600s and the \navailability of abundant land, subsequently encouraged a shift towards \nlow-yield, extensive \u2018dry\u2019 farming (mainly cereals) necessitating the \nremoval of yet more vegetation cover. Pastures and woodland were \nrecklessly put under the plough, rendering the soil vulnerable to \nerosion, in a manner reminiscent of Dustbowl years of the 1930s when \necologically inappropriate, commercially-driven, farming techniques were\n introduced on the vast prairies of North America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final, and most devastating, blow to Almeria\u2019s once forested, if \nfragile, environment was delivered in the early 19th century when, as \nWolosin notes, tens of thousands of acres of vegetation cover was lost \nand half a million evergreen oaks were felled to, among other things, \nserve the needs of the local mining industry, then experiencing a boom. \nThe growth of the mining sector \u2013 Almeria province at that time \naccounted for 80 percent of Spain\u2019s lead production \u2013 also encouraged \ninward migration and the resultant increase in population exerted \nadditional pressure on the local environment. However, by the late 19th \ncentury the mining industry went into a sharp decline because of falling\n prices but also, ironically, because of a self-inflicted shortage of \nwood needed to fuel the foundries. With mining in decline and farming \nadversely affected by centuries of environmental abuse, the province \nsuccumbed to significant depopulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such was the parlous state that Almeria found itself in the early 20th century before the advent of the greenhouses:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018An area once known for forests, streams, and a wide array of plant \nand animal life is now parched, cracked, and shadeless\u2019 (ibid).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018Ecological transition\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putting this in a wider context Wolosin, citing the environmentalist \nHeinrich Walter, remarks that the Mediterranean region, and Almeria in \nparticular, are \u2018the best and most tragic example of how mankind has \nremoved the foundations for his existence through the overexploitation \nof natural resources\u2019. How this came about can be usefully understood in\n terms of the concept of the \u2018ecological transition\u2019 pioneered by John \nBennett in his book The Ecological Transition: Cultural Anthropology and\n Human Adaptation (1976).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Bennett, there is a spectrum of human adaptations \u2013 from\n a local community completely reliant upon, and adapted to, its own \nimmediate resource base right through to the kind of globalised system \nof production that characterises modern capitalism. In this latter case,\n the local community no longer depends entirely on its own resources to \nmeet all its needs but, increasingly, on the ability of other \ncommunities to supply some, or even most, of those needs. In other \nwords, environmental adaptation to the immediate constraints of nature \ngives way to the cultural adaptation of communities to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The classical economist, David Ricardo, advanced his theory of \n\u2018comparative advantage\u2019 in support of this development. It benefits a \nnation, he argued, to specialise in what it is best at producing while \nrelying on other nations to supply it with goods it is not particularly \nadept at producing. This reduces the opportunity costs of producing \ngoods across all nations, leaving everyone better off from the resultant\n increase in global trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ricardo\u2019s theory is based on a number of unrealistic assumptions but,\n here, we are concerned only with the particular counter argument bound \nup with the aforementioned concept of the \u2018ecological transition\u2019 \u2013 \nnamely, that by reducing the local community\u2019s reliance on its own \nnatural resources, this tends to \u2018desensitise\u2019 it to the need to \nprudently operate within the limits of these resources. This does not \nmean those limits are necessarily fixed and unchangeable \u2013 human \nintervention can, for instance, sometimes significantly enhance the \nfertility and hence, \u2018carrying capacity\u2019, of the soil. Nor does it mean a\n community will inevitably set about despoiling its own environment if \nit can rely on others to supply what it needs \u2013 there are other factors \ninvolved besides this \u2013 but this does nevertheless create the conditions\n which can greatly amplify the environmental impact of those other \nfactors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collapse of the Roman Empire is a classic example. In part, the \nexpansion of that empire was driven by the need to secure an adequate \nfood supply to meet the needs of Rome itself \u2013 at its height, a city of \none million people \u2013 and its vast armies. Grain tributes were exacted \nfrom conquered territories all around the Mediterranean basin which \nprofoundly altered the region\u2019s ecology. Widespread deforestation \noccurred to permit intensive cereal farming leading to soil exhaustion \nand desertification. The resultant decline in output, in turn, prompted \nthe empire to further expand its territory, eventually reaching the \npoint at which its supply lines were so over-stretched that it became \nincreasingly vulnerable to external threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In modern capitalism, it is not so much tribute as the quest for \nprofit that drives economic activity. But with capitalism, we see also \nthe same preoccupation with short term interests over long term \nsustainability. According to Friedrich Engels:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018As individual capitalists are engaged in production and exchange for\n the sake of immediate profit, only the nearest, most immediate results \nmust first be taken into account\u2026What cared the Spanish planters in \nCuba, who burned down the forests on the slopes of the mountains and \nobtained from the ashes sufficient fertiliser for one generation of \nhighly profitable coffee trees \u2013 what cared they that heavy tropical \nrainfall afterwards washed away the unprotected upper stratum of soil, \nleaving behind only bare rock! In relation to nature, as to society, the\n present mode of production is predominantly concerned only about the \nimmediate, most tangible result, and then surprise is expressed that the\n more remote effects of actions directed to this end turn out to be \nquite different, are mostly quite opposite in character\u2019 (1876, The Part\n played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These words have a particularly modern ring to them in the light of \nthe multiple and escalating environmental crises facing humanity today. \nThe underlying mechanism driving this development is plain to see. \nBusiness enterprises strive to \u2018externalise\u2019 their production costs as \nfar as possible in order to maximise their commercial gains under a \nsystem of market competition \u2013 or face commercial ruin. However, just \nbecause those costs are made to disappear from the accountant\u2019s ledger \nbook, this does not mean they cease to exist. The burden of those costs \nis born not just by the wider community but the very physical \nenvironment itself upon which we ultimately depend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, capitalism has tended to promote technological \n\u2018solutions\u2019 to these very problems it has itself engendered. But can \nsuch an approach ever truly succeed in ensuring we keep our heads above \nthe water or will the rising tide of \u2018externalities\u2019 eventually engulf \nus all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Spanish \u2018El Dorado\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a question we might well ask in turning to consider that \nparticularly remarkable example of capitalist enterprise and innovation:\n the greenhouses of Almeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1950s, under Franco, a model irrigation project was launched \nin that sparsely populated zone, now under plastic, with the aim of \nresettling landless peasants there. It was the peasants themselves who \ninitially developed the basic technology of greenhouse production \u2013 \nincluding the use of polythene rather than glass, attached to a simple \nframework of wood or metal \u2013 capitalising on the region\u2019s natural \nadvantages such as its abundant sunshine and the virtual absence of \nfrost, to give them a competitive edge in the market for early \nvegetables. At first, it was the local, then the wider national market \nthey supplied but, with Spain joining the EU in 1986, production became \ntruly transnational. Europe, as a whole, now relies for most of the year\n on Spain to provide almost a third of its demand for fresh fruit and \nsalad crops \u2013 a figure rising to half during the cold winter months \u2013 \nmuch of this coming from Almeria\u2019s greenhouses which generate an annual \nrevenue of about \u20ac2 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the industry expanded so did the role of intermediaries in \nfinancing, marketing and basic R&D. Indeed, the institutional \narchitecture that has been built up around the greenhouse industry \nitself is, today, extraordinarily complex and closely coordinated. \nDownward and Taylor quote Almeria\u2019s Director of Agriculture as saying: \n\u2018This is the most social level of agriculture in the world, not even the\n best communist system would have achieved what has been achieved in \nAlmeria\u2026 and by people who maybe 50 years ago would have only had a herd\n of goats\u2019 (Journal of Environmental Management, January 2007).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remarkably, given the highly \u2018socialised\u2019 nature of the industry, the\n ownership of the greenhouses themselves remains firmly family-based \nwith about 13,500 small scale producers operating in the greenhouse belt\n typically on plots of somewhat over 2 hectares. This helps to explain \nthe popularity of the greenhouses among the locals who widely regard \nthis development as an \u2018economic miracle\u2019 and have prospered as a \nresult. However, it is a miracle bought at a considerable cost which \ncalls into question the sustainability of this model of development \u2013 \nnot least, as we shall see, in an era of growing concern about climate \nchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Part 2 follows)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ROBIN COX<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part Two: <\/strong>Environmental Impacts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Almeria has an annual rainfall of just over 200 mm, greenhouse \nproduction requires something equivalent to 800-1,000 mm of water. The \nshortfall in water supply has traditionally been overcome by sinking \nwells and tapping the water trapped in the local aquifer. Hundreds have \nbeen sunk \u2013 many illegally \u2013 causing the water table to drop. Not only \nhas this adversely impacted on the wider region but \u2018aquifer drawdown\u2019 \nalso tends to create a vacuum underground which is then filled by \nanother water source nearby \u2013 the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sea water is, of course, saline (and the level of salinity in the \nMediterranean itself is comparatively high) so the ingress of seawater \nunderground, and then into the irrigation system itself, results in \nsalinisation and, hence, the destruction of crops. This has led to some \ngreenhouses falling into disuse with new ones being erected elsewhere, \nalong with the sinking of new wells, to get round this problem, thus \nincreasing the area under plastic in a way that mimics the pathology of a\n spreading cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technical fixes have been advanced to tackle this problem, including \nthe establishment of several water de-salinisation plants but the water \nprovided is 1.5\u20134 times more costly in energy terms than pumped water. \nRelying on the Mediterranean is just exchanging one finite resource for \nanother (Melissa Cate Christ, The Scapegoat Journal<\/em>, 2013).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other technical fixes include water re-use (though this is not very \nsuitable for young plants) and the development of soilless or hydroponic\n systems of growing crops, using a substrate like perlite, and \ncomputerised drip technology which also delivers chemical fertilisers to\n the plants. \u2018Fertigation\u2019, however, presents a problem with what to do \nwith all the vegetable waste \u2013 over 700,000 tonnes per year (ibid) \u2013 \nmuch of which is just dumped, rather than recycled or composted, \ncontributing to contamination of the environment. While such \ntechnologies have certainly improved the efficiency of water usage they \nhave not really overcome the growing problem of falling water tables or,\n indeed, the leaching of chemicals into the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, the close proximity of thousands of greenhouses creates \nideal conditions for the spread of pests and diseases. The traditional \nresponse has been to blitz crops with chemical pesticides \u2013 although, \ninterestingly, Almeria itself has become a world leader in Integrated \nPest Management (IPM) involving more environmentally-friendly methods of\n pest control. This came about as a result of a 2006 Greenpeace report \nrevealing high levels of pesticide residues in produce from the region. \nThe bad publicity caused a drastic drop in sales and the chemical in \nquestion was blacklisted. Nevertheless, pesticides continue to be used \nwith adverse health consequences for those working within the relatively\n closed environment of the greenhouses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another environmental problem is the industry\u2019s ubiquitous use of \nplastic itself. Not only does the manufacture of plastic sheeting add to\n the industry\u2019s environmental footprint in terms of the consumption of \nfossil fuels this requires (the same would be true of the high \ntransportation costs of shifting agricultural products by truck to \nNorthern Europe); there is also the problem of how to dispose of all \nthat plastic once it has been used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Plastic tarps have a relatively short lifespan under the blazing sun \nof Southern Spain. Though in recent years the authorities have set up \ncollection points for used plastic, a lot of it \u2013 not just tarps but \ncontainers of all sorts \u2013 ends up being dumped along roadsides or in \ngullies or even burnt \u2013 presumably because it is more convenient or less\n costly than transporting it to the collection points where it has to be\n sorted. In 2018, the group, Ecologistas en Accion, <\/em>released dramatic video footage of a local river, normally a dry barranco<\/em>,\n absolutely choked with plastic detritus after a storm. Such rubbish \nmakes its way to the sea where it can harm or kill marine life, \nincluding even sperm whales, or else breaks down over time into \nmicro-plastic particles that enter the food chain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Migrant Labour<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The so-called \u2018economic miracle\u2019 that is Almeria\u2019s greenhouses would \nnot be possible but for the harsh exploitation of cheap labour. This is \nyet another externality, along with the environmental costs of \nproduction that tends to be left off the capitalist equation: the social\n costs of production. For Marx, these things were vitally \ninterconnected:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018All progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, \nnot only of robbing the labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress \nin increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time, is a progress \ntowards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility\u2019 (Capital, Vol 1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Almeria\u2019s greenhouse sector began to develop back in the 1960s \nit relied mostly on family labour supplemented by locally-based seasonal\n labour. In the 1970s immigrant workers, chiefly from Morocco, began to \narrive. Entire families would come to do the harvesting and then return \nto Morocco. Being paid less than the local workforce they soon replaced \nthe latter as a source of seasonal labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1980s, Moroccan labour was supplemented by workers from \nSub-Saharan Africa which also signalled a shift from the organised \nannual too-ing and fro-ing between countries that had characterised the \nearlier migrations. Increasingly migrants tended to remain in the area, \npost-harvest, because of the greater logistical problems of migration in\n their case. Still later, from the 1990s onwards, this pool of migrant \nlabour was joined by others \u2013 from Latin America and Eastern Europe \n(following the enlargement of the EU). Some of this labour, as in the \ncase of Eastern Europe, was officially recruited in the country of \norigin but increasing use was made of illegal undocumented migrant \nlabour, particularly from Africa. Recent developments in that continent \n(and elsewhere) have ensured a steady growth in this supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Europe\u2019s so-called refugee crises, peaking in 2015, initially \nfocussed on refugees from the Middle East and their impact on \npoint-of-entry countries like Italy and Greece, more recently attention \nhas shifted to Spain which, according to a Reuters report, is emerging \nas a \u2018new weak link\u2019 in Fortress Europe\u2019s efforts to stem the inflow of \nmigrants (July 7, 2018). The numbers of asylum applicants arriving in \nSpain is currently rising sharply. This graphically illustrates how \ninterconnected the world has become and subject to the dynamics of \nglobal capitalism. The economic forces that precipitate civil wars over \nmineral wealth in some distant African state are the self-same forces \nthat condemn those who flee to a miserable existence in Almeria\u2019s \nplastic hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of these are undocumented illegals; their very illegal status \nenabling employers to depress their wages to a bare minimum. Even those \nwith legal contracts are little better off. Ironically, the ability of \nemployers to hire large numbers of illegal workers, often with the \ncollusion of the authorities, means that workers applying for a legal \ncontract, supposedly granting them certain basic rights, have to pay a \nsteep price for it. According to one source this can amount to several \nthousand euros (Network for the Promotion of Sustainable Consumption in European regions<\/em>).\n Even then, there are ways and means for employers to get round legal \nrequirements \u2013 for instance, registering workers for social insurance \u2013 \nsimply by hiring them for less than the statutory minimum of 180 days \nper year. All the odds are stacked in favour of the employers and \nagainst the workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wages these workers receive fall significantly below even the \nlegal minimum. The norm is between 33 and 36 euros per day, though there\n have been cases reported of daily earnings falling well below even this\n derisory level \u2013 of 20 euros per day according to one report in the Guardian<\/em> (7 February, 2011).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are an estimated 100,000 migrants working and living in the \ngreenhouses. Work conditions are atrocious. Temperatures in the \ngreenhouses can rise to above 45 degrees Celsius, the toil is \nback-breaking and Health and Safety standards are poor. There is little \nprotection against the chemicals the workers come into contact with or \nbreathe in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given their abysmally low income, they cannot afford even a minimally\n acceptable level of accommodation. Some live in barrack-like squalor in\n semi-derelict cortijos <\/em>with hazardous electrical connections \nand poor sanitary facilities for what is often, under the circumstances,\n an extortionate rent; others create constructions for themselves called\n chabolas<\/em> made out of old pallets, plastic and cardboard \nerected amongst the greenhouses themselves. There tends to be a rigid \nsegregation between migrants and locals (who live in agro-towns \ncompletely surrounded by the greenhouses) which creates a breeding \nground for racism. Simmering tensions have in the past broken out into \nrace riots as happened in the town of El Ejido in 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contradictions of greenhouse production<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, those who harbour such racist sentiments are sometimes \nthe very people who have prospered on the backs of the migrants. The \ndirect employers, as stated, are largely small-scale family-based \noperators \u2014 an estimated 13,500 of them \u2013 who, over the course of \nseveral decades, have come to forge close dependent ties with an array \nof large-scale intermediaries such as banks, agribusinesses (providing \nseeds, irrigation technology, plastic sheeting etc.) and the supermarket\n chains. All of these want their slice of the pie and all have an \ninterest in enlarging the size of that pie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is that there is strong pressure on farmers to embrace \ntechnological innovations that enhance productivity. Output per hectare \nhas indeed risen but at the cost of rising indebtedness to the banks to \nfinance this technology. And therein lies the rub. For while innovation \nenables the operator to increase output it also leads to falling prices \nthrough increased productivity which then undermines the ability of \nthese small operators to pay off their loans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the aforementioned NPSCER report, operating costs can be\n between 30 and 40k euros per hectare, leaving many struggling to break \neven in stark contrast to the big supermarkets that bulk buy their \nproduce. Such is the contradictory nature of the system we live under \nthat plenty should come to be considered an economic curse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The squeeze on profit margins, exacerbated by the small-scale nature \nof the greenhouse operators themselves has a further consequence \u2013 \nnamely, that is likely to increase pressure on them to seek ways to \nreduce or externalise their costs of production. Certainly, as far as \nlabour costs are concerned, the growing oversupply in relation to demand\n fuelled by the migrant crisis and augmented by the haemorrhage of jobs \nin construction following the 2008 property market crash, means the \nprospects of any real improvement in the circumstances of the greenhouse\n workers themselves seem bleak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same might be said of the environmental costs of greenhouse \nproduction. Despite efforts by the industry to clean up its act, notably\n with the adoption of IPM technology, to an extent this is just another \nexample of \u2018greenwashing\u2019 to allay the concerns of increasingly health \nconscious customers in Northern Europe. It distracts from the more \nfundamental issues affecting the region \u2013 above all, that of falling \nwater tables and future water supplies in the context of global climate \nchange. Rainfall in the region has decreased by 18 percent since the \n1960s and water shortages are projected to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A final irony is that the very success that the Almeria greenhouse \ncomplex had achieved as an exemplar of high-tech commercialised \nagriculture has encouraged others to copy it. Though its energy costs \nare markedly less than in Northern Europe where greenhouses have to be \nheated, this advantage falls away in other parts of the Mediterranean \nbasin such as Turkey or Morocco. Here the same model of greenhouse \nproduction is being aggressively pushed and labour costs are, if \nanything, even lower. With international competition heating up, this \nwill likely add to the already relentless pressure to reduce or further \nexternalise costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In so many ways, this little corner of the world represents a \nmicrocosm of global capitalism, a mirror on the environmentally and \nsocially destructive forces the system unleashes in its pursuit of \nprofit at any price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(concluded)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ROBIN COX<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part One: Mar de Plastico In Almeria province in Southern Spain there is to be found the largest greenhouse complex in the world, an area roughly the size of the Isle of Wight. Nothing quite prepares you for the sheer scale of it all \u2013 or the brutal ugliness. Driving through it can be a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2843,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions\/2843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}