| Abstract: | Conclusion Cooperatives, with respect to the history of wine production in the southwest of France, require that they be graced as the outcome of the transformation from the era of captitalist markets to the era where the capitalist mode of production became dominant—a transformation marked by the creation of a market in labor as predominant among winegrowers. As Marx showed through his many works on the development of capitalism, the translation of market exchanges into a quantifiable economic entity only serves to mask the social relations on which it is based. It was therefore my intent in the first part of this essay to highlight, if only suggestively, the process that led to expanded commercialization of wine in the Aquitaine and the deployment of a specific system of labor. Although wine proprietors and growers were divided by social class early on, the market in labor matured slowly, especially in the sector of the production of table wines. The market in labor among winegrowers followed from the appearance of the grand crus in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and from the social consequences that ensued from the phylloxera in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The grand crus ushered in new specialized labor while the phylloxera intensified this process by turning wealthy merchants and large proprietors towards the volume production of table wines, thus usurping the last vestige of the small independent producer.Markets were not left to follow their own telos as the state played a central mediative role in creating legislation that both encouraged and pressured small independent producers to collectivize their resources in vinification cooperatives. This was not a conspiracy of the state legislature against the excesses of production on the part of the small producers. Wine cooperative legislature was an attempt on the part of the state legislature to resolve the periodic crises in viticulture caused by overproduction and to implement a long overdo agricultural policyThe problems faced by the Sigouls Cooperative today are largely a product of the past history of wine production in the southwest of France. Currently, seventy-five percent of the Cooperative's plantation is in white wines. The high plantation in white wines reflects northern European preferences that are traceable to the sixteenth century and earlier. More recently, in France and elsewhere, there has been a gradual shift in consumer preferences from white to red wines. Consumer preferences in part can be attributed to the vicissitudes of taste. However, one must not overlook concerted efforts through advertising to shape consumer taste. Recently, the best known example is the enthusiasm for Beaujolais Nouveau cultivated through clever advertising in major urban centers such as Paris and New York. Since wine cooperatives have not had sufficient capital to invest in advertising and promotion to establish trends, they have had to settle for keeping pace with new developments. Although Sigouls has exceeded its neighboring cooperative, Monbazillac, in keeping pace with the latest trend, it must be recognized that it requires at least five years for a red wine stock such as merlot to mature after plantation.Although wine cooperatives can be seen as assimilatory institution in that they have served the absorption of small independent producers of wine into the capitalist mode of production, it should be recognized equally that wine cooperatives have been the only means available to small producers for continuing the cultivation of their vineyards given the constraints of capitalist social relations. With this in mind, one must avoid the conclusion that wine cooperatives are simply an instrument of the capitalist mode of production, French legislature, the ruling class and nothing else. Although the political motives that led some of the Sigouls Cooperative's early members to pool their vinification and marketing resources have given way to pragmatics, or as my informants related  la rentabilité (profitability), the Cooperative has preserved, albeit in a transformed medium, an ageold meaningful livelihood, a sense of local pride in the production of wine, and some sense of independence from the fate of wage labor.Robert Ulin is Professor of Sociology & Anthropology, Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa.
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