Food and Chemicals...Good? or Bad?

The "Story of Stuff" explained how our capitalistic ways promote our economy being a materials economy however the video sugested that it is not the entire story. The extraction of the earth's natural resources has been at an accelerating rate since 1950 due to our consumption ways. Earth is already depleted of one third of its natural resources with forty percent of its water undrinkable due to the toxins submitted. A few facts about the USA that is very disturbing in my opinion is that we make up only five percent of the total population, however we contribute thirty percent of the world's waste. Tell me that is economically efficient in terms of the capitalistic ways. The video said how if everyone were like the US that we would need three to five planets to keep up with our disgusting waste habits.

To relate this with Pollan's reading, we can see how since the law of 1850 that allowed food products just to meet a certain standard in order to go to the market allowed for these waste years to be brought upon us. I will not discuss my views on the subject, but will discuss the pros and cons about the chemicals we now use on our crops. To get started on the pros of the chemicals the farmers use today I will bring upon how they resist bugs and other diseases brought upon by nature. In years before these chemicals were available farmers had to pray to God their crops were not damaged by worms, drought, and weeds. All of these factors could destroy a farmers crop very easily, especially the bugs and diseases which is what these chemicals mainly target in these modern times. The cons of these chemicals are very detromental. To start off eighty percent of the earth's natural forests are depleted not due to farming or chemicals but they definately have helped. These chemicals that are used to rid crops of bugs and diseases are also very harmful to humans in which we digest so much every year. In this subject area there are many more pros than cons, however the cons are very weighted due to the fact we consume the chemicals that are put on the crops no matter how carefully the food is cleaned before it hits our kitchen.

It is very hard to say how our world should fix this problem because we have a very overpopulated world and since the law of 1850 that the government passed all farmers really care about is how much they can yield. In other words it is quantity over quality whereas before 1850 the farmers motto was quality over quantity. It is very amazing how greedy people can come over the opportunity for cash.

What are we really fighting for?

Americans have always thought to have been fighting for the fundamental right of freedom of each and every person, not just in this country, but on a global scale. I agree up to the point where we define freedom. In the movie Why We Fight several citizens were asked what freedom meant, and why we were fighting in Iraq. All subjects interviewed either had varying definitions or unable to come up with a concise definition. One older woman in the documentary noted that in the wars of years past Americans knew exactly what they were fighting for, but in today’s war she didn’t believe that most of us knew.

Although my intention is not to give an opinion on the Iraq War, I find it interesting that unlike most nations in most wars, there is no typical answer. There may be common answers, but not a definite universal response. The next question then becomes why we are fighting for some purpose that cannot be defined. Most people will say democracy is freedom, and that peoples lives are subjugated if they do not experience it. To this I wholeheartedly agree, every person should have at least some say on how their country should be governed. Even if their view on a topic is part of the minority, then their rights should be protected and their opinions be respected. However, can we truly say that our version of democracy is ideal? According to the video, our government altered the truth in an attempt to gain the approval of the American people. Also, media reporters rarely have full disclosure to the government’s insight and planning for war. Therefore, if the media has a limited view, then our view is as limited or worse. Another thing to note is that a lot of federal government officials seek their own interests in office while campaigning for yours. This happens across members of both political parties. While I am unwilling to say that us voters are led by completely false pretenses, we cannot be lead to believe that our needs are met first, which is why our democratic government was established in the first place. It’s like ordering steak but receiving salmon instead.

I think that the most interesting part was that the documentary reported on the military-industrial complex, which President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the country against in his farewell addresses. The military-industrial complex is an encompassing term that relates how the military, corporations, and think tanks rely on each other to benefit and profit each other. Knowing that in a capitalist economy businesses are forever in a struggle to make more and more profits, we need to investigate and know how they affect our foreign policy. One example that stuck out in the video was that Vice-President Dick Cheney had an estimated net worth of $ 1 million, prior to joining Halliburton. Five years after he joined their board of directors, his worth jumped from $60-70 million dollars. One person interviewed suggested that Cheney was hired by Halliburton because of his government and military contacts he developed under the Reagan administration. Although I have no problems with military corporations making money, I do believe that there has to be an independent government oversight. This goes back to the fight for freedom. These corporations, in any industry for that matter, might feel that there are rights are being restricted. However, how can we know that there rights are restricted when we really don’t know what that means.

Inside STUFF..

Do we know that the stuff that we get has a story behind it? Have you ever wondered where the stuff came from? Probably from China, Mexico, or maybe somewhere in other parts of the countries. Yeah, why bother? Surely you would think that why do we have to bother to know that info as it is not related to their life. Even I think like that at first but when I open my perspective a little bit after watching a 20 minute video of “The Story of Stuff”, I knew I was totally wrong. Me, as many people do, assume that the stuff comes through the materials economy process; extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal. We look as it is fine but there are more than just that. The system is in crisis as being said on the video and the only reason for this is only in one word. Capitalism.

Capitalism had makes varies of destruction in all living aspects, yet we can do nothing about it. Capitalist is true about the fact that Capitalism is beneficial towards increasing the economy level but when looking at the other side of Capitalism, it has lots of negative things too. True to its definition, Capitalism is an economy system that emphasize profit-making or M-C-M’ paradigm neglecting other things such as education, health care and more. So, the only thing that the institution especially companies think of is all money! They do not care about the environmental damage or pollution that they had made the destruction in other countries mainly in Third World Countries, the worker’s wages and health, and also happiness. The graph of national happiness shows that people’s happiness is decreasing from 1951 if I’m not mistaken. That means that this problem is totally in crisis! Isn’t this what we call violating rights of people?

We take other people’s right to have needs for people that had loss their country resources to other bigger countries, we take their rights to be healthy, and what is more important, the rights to be happy. That’s too many! Although these things happened all around us, there’s nothing we can do about it. Capitalism is like computer viruses; created by human and creates destruction. It is endless and compulsory to have in companies because if they do not, the company will not survive. Therefore, could this be an endless situation?

Capitalism the Giant

The anecdote used by Schweickart really piqued my interest. The poor dwarfs are unimaginably down-and-out and outnumbered the exclusive, elite, super-wealthy giants. And that was only in the States. How can this happen?

Capitalism.

The nature of the system itself, although deemed by many beneficial, is causing the ever expanding gorge between the rich and poor. It’s totally ridiculous to see the facts and figures of American’s income. Capitalism encouraged profit making, in the term of M-C-M’, which means money is used to make commodity that could be sell for more money which is also known as profit.

The problem is that whenever ‘giant’ company adepts to capitalism. The competitive nature of capitalism is healthy, but it will make any new company or business gone quickly out of the ‘profit-making’ race. Those ‘giants’ can easily suppress any other small competition so that they could gain a steady profit, and even more. This means that small business to expand is very hard in this competitive world, unless they are backed up by some capitalist company. If this goes on, ‘giants’ would become ever gigantic and ‘dwarfs’ could be the next smallest thing to bacteria.

If we carefully register the above situation into our daily lives, we can see that almost all kind of business nowadays is a ‘suppressing market’, capitalism style. Everyone raced to make profit in almost whatever means they could get their hands on, including dirty tricks. Blackmailing, breach of trust and backstabbing could become a common thing to gain superiority in capitalism and economy.

How could we stop capitalism? How should I know? I am not an economist. Capitalism had managed to make its way to the deep roots of the human’s life that it seemed like impossible to destroy it. It is like a tumor. Ever expanding, ever destroying. Abolishing capitalism is like destroying the global economy itself. There is nothing that we could do, the ‘giants’ ever growing, the ‘dwarfs’ ever dying.

Universal health care?

Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko is an examination of our country’s health care crisis. Over 47 million people are currently without insurance, and the people who do have it are not taken care of. Welcome to capitalism. Everything is a commodity from which profit can be made. Even sickness has become a business. Capitalism should have no place in medicine. We are the only industrialized nation that puts profits over people’s basic needs for food, and health care. There are people rejected for health insurance because the insurance company profile of them determines that they might actually get sick. People that need insurance the most are rejected because they would be a loss of profit. Something is truly wrong when the health needs of millions of Americans are secondary to the profits of insurance companies. Insurance carriers only make money by denying claims. However, they must approve just enough claims to appear to be reliable. If they manage to keep the balance, then the insurance company will succeed. If they cannot, then they will perish. Obviously this system of health care as an industry is seriously flawed. Michael Moore proposes wiping out private health insurance and replacing it with a massive federal program; much like the ones already in place in France and England. Take capitalism out of medicine, providing people with health care should not be a profit making scheme. Education is not an industry, so why should basic health needs be? It has been shown to work, so WHAT are we waiting for? This federal program will unfortunately always be shot down by the big CEOs and lobbyists who hold TOO MUCH sway in Washington. People worry about government having too much interference in business, but it seems to me that business has too much interference in government. It seems from the examples of France and England that universal health care works without a huge cost to anyone. Everyone pays what they can, so everyone can get what they need. Big businesses and the extremely wealthy have a problem with this because it would mean that they would have to pay more than others. Why should they sacrifice personal pleasures for a McDonald’s employee to get the same health care they do? The rich in this country tend to think that their money entitles them to things, and that people who do not have money do not deserve the same as them. That unfortunately is the nature of capitalism. Competition apparently extends from the buisness world to include competition for basic needs as well. Under capitalism not everyone can be taken care of, and many people are run over and forgotten about.

Is This What You Call Freedom?

Freedom, from my understanding, is something that is rightfully belongs to everyone. Each individual deserves to do what they want as long as it does not invades other people's freedom.

If that's the case in this world, I would be very happy.

The problem is that, not everyone have the same understanding as me. Its a pain to see when someone said that "This is a free world, everyone should enjoy it!", while they themselves are taking the 'freedom' away from other people, and they do know about it. For example, war; it takes other innocent people's freedom while fighting for what is 'right'.

Another thing that intrigue me is 'right'. Indeed, many scholars and philosophers agreed that right belongs to everyone, the same thing as freedom. But, its only by word, not action. We can see that there are individuals that violate their 'right' by invading other people's 'right'. Abuse of power is a good example. An individual who was appointed as a leader by a group has the right to give orders so that the actions taken would benefit all of the group members, not only for the leader's personal benefit.

Based on my readings by Foner, this kind of things happen because of inequaility of power. People who have power tends to misuse them, using freedom and right as their cover. I am not saying all people do this kind of things, but there are people out there taking freedom away from people based on their rights. What amazed me that nobody is willing to help them.

Freedom should be enjoyed by everyone, and it is everyone's right to enjoy it. Have we ever thought that any of our actions could affect other's freedom? If we would think back, are we rightfully using our freedom to our hearts content or helping other out?

The Thing About Profit-Making or What We Call Capitalism..

Having it discussed in the class and from my previous reading on Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma plus other readings, makes it clearer for me about Capitalism system. Before this, i had heard about Capitalism but not in detail. All I know is that it is one type of economic system that emphasize on making profits. Nowadays, most country in the world apply this system for their economy. Some country refuses to apply Capitalism as they find that this system has more disadvantages than advantages. When we look through the history, many had failed when using other system. This is because Capitalism, one of the systems that had been applied long time ago, in nature, dominates the world today. Yes, they have pros but there are more cons than the pros when we look deep inside what Capitalism is.

In general, there are two formula that are used in the world of business. One of the formula, C-M-C is a formula that is used in common market. The concept of this formula is use-value where it "satisfies a definite need". There are a qualitative differences in this formula. Before that, C means commodities while M means money.This means in the equation C is being made in order to get M. The M that we get is used to buy another C for our definite need. Likewise, a farmer yielded corns. He sells it to get money so that he can buy new clothes. On the other hand, another formula, M-C-M', is totally different story. The concept for this formula is surplus-value where it "satisfies an indefinite needs". This formula are commonly used in capitalist market or what we call a company. C means commodity, M means money and in addition from the previous formula, M' is more money. Yeah, it seems tempting, right? This is the case where there are quantitative difference as the money is still the same but the amount we use and the amount that we get is different. Commodities in this formula does not only carry the meaning of solid things but also labor power as means of production.

Lets focus on M-C-M' formula a bit more. This is the formula that is used in Capitalist country or we say profit-making country. The thing about Capitalism is when we have started to apply it, we have no choice but to continue working on it as it is required in order to compete with another company. In order for a company to stay survive in the market, the company have to make profits continuously. Competition is a good thing but sometimes it can lead to bad things. When people compete for the company, they will only think about how to get the profit more easily or more faster. They will eventually be blinded with money and forget about other important things such as health. That is why in Francis Wheen's interview in Talk of the Nation: "Marx's Das Capital Lives on in Capitalist Age", Wheen describes Capitalism as Frankenstein or a vampire. Why is he making the analogy? He said that in the case of Frankenstein, human creates and controls it but at some point, Frankenstein became destructive and out of control. At first, human is controlling it, but then after a period, Frankenstein controls them. This is also true for Capitalism. Capitalism is made by humans and eventually now, it became destructive and controls the human. Wheen also said that Capitalism can be analogous to vampire. Vampire is a dead thing or a past labor. It lives by feeding off living or the present labor. This is also true for Capitalism as they take away something important to us like health but at the same time gives us profits.

Profit-making is also an endless and compulsory things. A German Sociologist, Max Weber, describes that profit-making is endless. He points out that it is endless because economic acquisition in capitalist societies is not "subordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of his material needs". This actually means that this process of profit-making is a non-stop process as when we make more money out of money, we will have to use the some of the money to be used for making more and more money.

Profit-making is also compulsory. Weber points out that within "a wholly capitalistic order of society, and individual capitalistic enterprise which did not take advantage on its opportunities for profit-making would be doomed for extinction". What he actually mean is that if a company does not do profit-making, they will not survive in the market and in order to survive, the company must apply profit-making. That is why profit-making is endless and compulsory. From Pollan's example, we see that there are examples of Capitalism. Some of it is in order to produce meat faster, the government make a policy about corns. Surplus corn will go to feedlot to feed the cows. This is done in order to reduce wastage. Other than that, cows were made to eat corn as it makes the growth of cows to become faster. Moreover, corns are cheap food.
We can see from the examples above that Capitalism is an economic system that emphasize in making profit and neglecting other things in order to get profits.