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Still Going: Recent Debates on the
Goldschmidt Hypothesis
Linda M. Lobao, Michael D. Schulman and Louis E. Swanson
Goldschmidt’s (1978a) 1940s study of two California communities generated the
hypothesis that large-scale farming has detrimental impacts while family-operated
farms enhance community well-being. Research on the Goldschmidt hypothesis
has gone through phases corresponding to transformations in the sociology of
agriculture and broader rural sociology. This article discusses the present status of
the Goldschmidt literature with a focus on a recent article by Barnes and Blevins
(1992), which ignored the body of literature generated in the latter phase of the
Goldschmidt debate. The result is that their article is premised upon discovering
solutions to problems addressed even a decade earlier. However, as Barnes and
Blevins (1992) once again raise interest in the Goldschmidt hypothesis, they pro-
vide a reason for stepping back and assessing what has been accomplished. Because
all of us have participated in the discussion of the Goldschmidt debate, our com-
mentary will draw particularly from our own research.
Goldschmidt’s (1978a) As You Sow has become a requisite citation for research
on rural well-being and economic structure. Early literature reflected numerous
quantitative attempts to replicate and test the original hypothesis. By the mid-
1980s, however, both the spatial and temporal generalizability of the Goldschmidt
thesis were seen as limited. A new generation of researchers recast the Goldschmidt
debate in light of post-war transformations of the farm and broader non-farm rural
economy (Buttel et al, 1988; Flora and Flora, 1988; Gilles and Dalecki, 1988;
Lobao, 1990; Lobao and Schulman, 1991; MacCannell, 1988; Skees and Swan-
son, 1988; Swanson, 1982; van Es et al, 1988). Theoretical extensions and meth-
odological inroads were made as well. Barnes and Blevins (1992) point to the need
to take stock of the new generation of research. In ignoring much of this body of
literature, Barnes and Blevins (1992) repeat earlier critiques, discount methodo-
Reprinted from Lobao L M, Schulman M D and Swanson L E. 1993. Still going: Recent debates on
the Goldschmidt Hipothesis. Rural Sociology 58(2), 277–288. Reprinted with permission from Rural
Sociological Society.