The Power of the People

Earlier this week I heard a familiar statement. It came from the food industry but it theoretically applies across the board. A farmer was being interviewed about the generally unhealthy nature of the food that we eat and especially the conditions under which poultry and lifestock are mass produced. The farmer said something like this... We could produce healthier food sources. We could feed cattle what cattle were meant to be fed. We could raise free range chickens. We could produce, market and distribute whole grains. All it would take is demand...

Behind the farmer's comments is an idea, an ideal really. It is the ideal of the free market economics. In free market economics, no one is ultimately responsible. The individual is but a dot on the page, a fraction of a data point. What matters is the aggregate. The sum of many data points and how they trend. The farmer's explanation for the unhealthy food that is produced and consumed in our society is us. Look, he is saying, if people didn't want things like soda and potato chips and cheap beef, then it just wouldn't be produced. If there is not a market for it, then it is wouldn't be here.

I'm going to set the reasoning aside here while we consider some of the other things that we must really, really want... Things like exhorbitant health care costs and NBA players with guns. Things like eight-hour school days and thirty-percent tax brackets. Things like ten-percent unemployment and jobs that pay seven dollars an hour with no benefits. If free market economics is truly the best decision making mechanism that we've got, then it seems to me that we need to get a little bit more excited about things like sweat shops and gang crime and homelessness. Right? Isn't that the way the argument works? If we've got it, then this must be what we're demanding...

While I think that I understand what the farmer is trying to say, I also think that it is not especially imaginative. Essentially, he is saying, Look, give me something more wholesome to do with my time and energy and I'm glad to change my ways. O.K., but is not part of the responsibilty also on the producer and business man or woman? Aren't they supposed to help us with our tastes? Because it sure seems that they spend a lot of time and money trying to influence them. What I mean here is how exactly do things like advertising and lobbying fit into the whole free market thing? How is that the people can be both the data and the the excuse for it?

For example, I recently gathered with a group of people in a Bible study and we were talking about the recent disaster in Haiti and some of the bizzare comments that have come out about the earthquake. We noted that there was certainly some corruption going on down there. While none of us were ready to suggest that the earthquake was connected to this, we did imagine that perhaps something better could rise from the rubble... But as we discussed this, I immediately thought about the lobbying system in our own country. Lobbies are real and they are very powerful. Even though most people would not equate them with corruption, it seems to me that they certainly skew the free market.

Lobbyists do not represent the people. They represent the people who are trying to sell things to the people. Of course, this is perfectly legal in our society but my question is this: don't things like power and influence affect the data? The farmer seems to suggest that someone is holding out a chicken to us. He knows that it is poisonous and he knows that he could offer a better example but also knows he doesn't have to. Because we appear to be quite happy with the poisonous one. Never mind the fact that most of us don't know the difference. Never mind the fact that he's got billboards and radio spots and television ads dolling up that chicken and sitting it next to our favorite movie stars and professional athletes. Never mind that he is paying lobbyists untold millions to make sure that no one ever raises issue over whether or not we should be eating this stuff.

I am not saying that it's not our fault. I'm just saying that it's not really as it seems. It's not ONLY about supply and demand, markets and taste...

"Poison in the Well" 10,000 Maniacs

Tell me what's gone wrong.
I tilt my head there, under the faucet, but when I turn it on -- dry as paper. Call the neighbors.
Who's to blame for what's going on?
In the dark without a clue I'm just the same as you.

O, they tell us there's poison in the well,
that someone's been a bit untidy and there's been a small spill.
Not a lot, no, just a drop.
But there you are mistaken, you know you are.

I wonder just how long they knew our well was poisoned but they let us just drink on.
O, they tell us there's poison in the well,
that someone's been a bit untidy and there's been a small spill.
All that it amounts to is a tear in a salted sea.
Someone's been a bit untidy, they'll have it cleaned up in a week.

But the week is over and now it's grown into years
since I was told that I should be calm, there's nothing to fear here.
But I drank that water for years, my wife and my children.
Tell me, where to now,
if your fight for a bearable life can be fought and lost in you backyard?

O, don't tell us there's poison in the well,
that someone's been a bit untidy, that there's been a small spill.
All that it amounts to is a tear in a salted sea.
Someone's been a bit untidy, they'll have it cleaned up in a week.