Locavore. Farm-to-Table. Artisanal. Organic. Non-GMO. So go the labels for a modern trend among progressive, socially conscious diners, who see our industrialized, mass-production, agriculture industry as something to be eschewed, derided, and protested. This anti-industrialization sentiment extends, at least among the most earnest, beyond food to other consumer goods, such as furniture and clothing. No Kullen dressers, no sweat-shop T-shirts, because they line corporate pockets and are thus “unjust.” Look a bit further, and the same sentiment holds for oil, gas, coal and nuclear power generation, which are scorned in favor of “sustainable, renewable” wind and solar.
The folks who have such preferences and beliefs typically also believe that the collective good takes precedence over individual enrichment and selfish materialism. They’ll strive to, as one very earnest writer noted:
live according to values that dictated the sacrifice of material comfort in exchange for collective well-being.
This is the collectivist ideal, a main premise of Communist and Socialist ideology, and a prime motivator of dislike and distrust of Big Business, Big Agriculture, and the purportedly heartless selfishness of capitalism. Progressives, old and young, are nodding their heads in agreement right about now.
The behaviors that many “socially conscious” progressives idealize (e.g. the aforementioned food trends) are, ironically, the opposite of what a commitment to the collective good over selfishness demands. The simple reality is that large-scale production, modern agricultural practices, and “for the masses” consumer goods are far more efficient uses of resources than locavore, organic, and artisanal products.
The various “green” food trends consume more farm acreage per unit produced, generate more transportation cost per unit produced, require more chemicals per unit produced, and create multiple opportunity costs, at the producer, wholesaler, distributor, transporter and consumer levels of the chain. A recent report indicated that, were the entirety of America’s agricultural industry to go organic, the efficiency decrease would necessitate adding farmland equivalent to the entire area of California to produce the same amount of food. This same lesson extends to other consumer products.
Does this mean there’s no place for farmer’s markets and artisanal products? Of course not. BUT, it must be realized that these are luxuries. They don’t advance the collective good, they displace resources (i.e. the extra money you spend on them) that could be used for the collective. Whether we buy these luxuries instead of minimizing our “selfishness” and maximizing the fraction of our disposable income that we donate to the collective good is, in a free society, purely a personal choice. A good and proper progressive collectivist would forego locavore, artisanal, farm-to-table and organic in favor of the efficient, including the greatest food in human history. A good and proper progressive collectivist would decry his or her peers who live what is an excessively luxurious lifestyle, one that actually harms the world’s poorest through both the inefficient use of wealth and the reduced demand for the mass-produced consumer goods that provide them jobs and earn them wages.
Do I object to someone buying a two pound heirloom tomato from a farmer’s market, instead of a tasteless, force-ripened, mass-produced, sphere of red mediocrity? Of course not. The latter isn’t even worth eating, IMO, but that’s just my opinion, and the fact that these dull and disappointing tomatoes are ubiquitous in the market says that most consumers are content with them. But, buying that heirloom tomato under the guise of social consciousness is ass-backwards. It’s pretending to care while doing the opposite of caring. It’s virtue signaling, either internal or external, and it’s an irreconcilable conflict of values.
If you truly want to act to the benefit of the poorest and weakest, you should not embrace the faddish anti-industrial food and consumer goods trends. You should understand that the most efficient means of production, the ones that produce the least costly food, clothing, furniture, etc, are what benefits the poor the most. You should shop Walmart, not Whole Foods. You should eschew organic, non-GMO, gluten-free (unless you are legitimately sensitive), local, “sustainable,” and all the other cooler-than-thou trends. But, when you want that tasty tomato, just buy it and eat it without wrapping the process up in some holier-than-thou social justice gobbledygook. A good locavore is a terrible communist.
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Agree with you about most tomatoes being dull and disappointing. Come to think of it, you could say that about a lot of the produce in most stores. You presume that “most consumers are content” and this is the reason this has come to be. I am not so sure about that.
Despite what we’re led to believe about marketing and big companies, market forces do work, and people’s preferences do affect the products offered to them.
Consider this, as well. American consumers have grown so accustomed to having any and all forms of produce available at any and all times of the year that producers are incentivized to find a way to make it so. Good, tasty tomatoes, allowed to ripen before picking, do not travel well and rot quickly, so they’re only going to be available when locally grown and at the time of normal harvest. The rest of the year? Perhaps some hothouse heirlooms that cost an arm and a leg. But, people don’t think about seasons any more, and so they want tomatoes when they want them, and at a cheap price as well. So…..