also contributed to this Marxist renaissance, taking an approach similar to that of Mann and Dickinson.Yet, whereas Mann and Dickinson focus on why capitalists have not been as interested in investing in production agriculture, Friedmann argues that the persistence of family farms rest on their ability to match if not outcompete capitalist firms. Friedmann(1978) documents how, following the global drop in market price for wheat in the late 1800s, family wheat producers in the USA outcompeted capitalist producers from around the world. She attributes their success and persistence to their superior flexibility. This allowed family farms, during this period of depressed market prices, to reduce their level of consumption to a subsistence level and liquidate their assets.