(no subject)

[snousle]

I like Tyler Cowen's blog a lot - http://marginalrevolution.com/ - his mind works much like my own in that he loves data and the critical analysis thereof. He's got lots of interesting ideas and is rarely a blowhard about anything.

Interesting, then, that he would also write what looks to be a thoughtful and contrarian book about food:

http://www.amazon.com/Economist-Gets-Lunch-Everyday-Foodies/dp/0525952667/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323874242&sr=1-1/marginalrevol-20

He recounts: Let me just give you a few traits of food snobs that I would differ from. First, they tend to see commercialization as the villain. I tend to see commercialization as the savior. Second, they tend to construct a kind of good versus bad narrative where the bad guys are agribusiness, or corporations, or something like chains, or fast food, or microwaves. And I tend to see those institutions as flexible, as institutions that can respond, and as the institutions that actually fix the problem and make things better. So those would be two ways in which I’m not-only not a food snob, but I’m really on the other side of the debate.

In an age overrun by culinary piety, this is truly refreshing. I'm more of a romantic-naturalist than he is, so I have more tolerance for ecological woo, but he sure knows how to tell it like it is.

I highly reccommend his e-book "The Great Stagnation", btw. Provides a very useful perspective on the economic crisis.

Comments

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

Huh?

"Agribusiness, corporations, flexible, fix problems and make things better" are not words that seem to me to go together.

At first reading it appears to me that he places people into two camps - food snobs who apparently like fresh food from local farms and agribusiness.
I suppose he is railing against those whose obsess over the local and slow food movements and see anything else as trash, but that doesn't come through in that quote.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Well, in fact, agribusiness and corporations are flexible and do solve problems; in the early 20th century, food cost 50% of the typical household budget and was often unsafe to eat. That problem was not changed by cute little family farms, it was changed by agribusiness and corporations. This is a rather bigger deal than organic limestone lettuce for rich San Francisco residents, and Cowen rightly identifies it as the greater good. The current anti-corporate trend has valid points and there are aspects of corporate law that lead to undesirable corporate behavior, but identifying corporations per se as the root of the problem is rather ignorant of economic reality and represents the "fashionable thinking" he consistently works to correct. He is absolutely right in saying that if there is a way to improve American nutrition and food quality, agribusiness and corporations are going to be a critical part of that.

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

As you point out “current anti-corporate trend has valid points …” agribusiness and corporations are also inflexible and create problems. There needs to be a balance approach in accessing them. I’m not arguing that “all small is good, all big is bad”.

“He is absolutely right in saying that if there is a way to improve American nutrition and food quality, agribusiness and corporations are going to be a critical part of that.” I agree, but that was not clearly stated in the quote.

“…in the early 20th century, food cost 50% of the typical household budget and was often unsafe to eat. That problem was not changed by cute little family farms, it was changed by agribusiness and corporations. This is a rather bigger deal than organic limestone lettuce for rich San Francisco residents,…”

Two points –
Family farms in the early 1900s were not cute. While you may apply that term to current small farming, family farms of that time period ran the gamut of large to small, and well run to disasters. But farming was a way of life, not cute niche marketing. At that time, if I’m recalling correctly, the majority of people lived on family farms. And while food in the cities was often unsafe, food on family farms was far safer. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Upton Sinclair’s point in the Jungle about the problems with unregulated capitalism and food production, not family farms?

Both of you seem to be presenting all family farms as organic and producing pricy boutique veggies for rich people. Many local farms produce conventional or organic food at a reasonable price. And that seems to be a good thing.

I’m not arguing this from the point of someone who buys organic all the time. More often than not I buy conventionally produced food and often from agribusiness. But the quote you gave did not seem to me to take a balance view of small vs large.