A history of social struggles over food, and prospects for militant campaigns over food distribution in a cost-of-living crisis.

Archive Link - https://web.archive.org/web/20251103112812/https://notesfrombelow.org/article/food-price-hikes-social-composition-and-auto-reduc

Image description: a group of teens is shown liberating goods from a store. This “issue” of people being forced to organize together to survive high prices has been the target of recent laws, especially in california. This organizing effect has a historical basis, such examples such as in the quote from the article provided below.

More recently, in 1970s Italy, collectives of factory workers and young people would organise mass ‘proletarian shopping’ in supermarkets, involving hundreds of people. A date, time, and location would be chosen at a prior assembly, and on the day participants would divide into two groups. The first would enter the supermarket in dribs and drabs, blending in with the rest of the crowd. The second would be placed on either end of the street, looking out for and defending the ‘proletarian shoppers’ from the police. Finally, the signal would be given - a militant would take control of the supermarket tannoy and announce a special sale: “Today everything is free! Don’t Pay! Don’t Pay”. This was the militants in the shop’s cue - take as much as you can and then get out. With these militants, many normal shoppers would take the opportunity to also leave with their shopping, at a 100% discount.5