politics and food - "everything i want to do is illegal"

[latefordinner]

food. the politics of food. it's an important topic often overglossed.

I understand that some of you will find this unbelievable, but I actually have been trying to take market anarchist theories seriously and read and think about them. In the past two months I have read more individualist anarchist and market anarchist writings than I ever have in my entire life - and what I have found is a mixed-bag. There is a tendency in right-libertarian thought to slip and slide between a critique of the current socioeconomic system and to write apologetics for some of it - Kevin Carson refers to this as "vulgar libertarianism" and much of his writing about it resonates with me. I find much of the critique parts compelling. I find much of the apolegetics sickening. I would especially like to thank AlexM and NietzReznor for repeatedly pointing out that in many cases, market-anarchists and libertarian socialists are critiquing the same things, just using different language, and perhaps a different understanding of cause and effect, to reach their conclusions.

So in that spirit I would like to talk about global agribusiness which is perhaps one of the most egregious examples of corporations and governments being in bed together. This is, in many ways, not suprising. After all, controlling the food supply is an easy way to control the populace. Put it under lock and key and demand that you engage in certain behaviors to get it, and you can create a tremendously unequal power relationship. Steal people's land using corporate-State power that they were using to feed themselves, and then demand they produce other items to sell to buy food. Create laws which shield corporations from being held accountable for say, killing all the salmon in a river, and watch the salmon die.

Industrial agriculture is profoundly destructive and totally unsustainable. We are literally growing our food in inches of oil, needing ever increasing amounts of pesticides and fertilizers and also land for ever-decreasing yields. People have become more and more disconnected from any sense of where food comes from - it comes from a grocery store, not the earth. Therefor we become brainwashed into thinking we must protect the grocery store, and not the earth (does that make sense?)

I still don't necesasrily understand what food production would look like in a market anarchist society - however it seems clear to me that barring the creation of huge externalities, local small-scale production for local consumption and in general, organic production, is a much more efficient process barring subsidies and externalities.

I also thinking that taking back our food and medicine supply from corporations could be a profoundly important step in allowing people to imagine life without the State which is why I'm involved in so many community-based garden/farming programs.


--
Here are some things you might find interesting

Everything i want to do is illegal - written by a farmer who strikes me as probably leaning AC

press release about organic crops performing 100% better in drought conditions than conventional crops (language is so revealing - what does it say when we refer to food grown in chemicals as conventional and food grown without them as something special?)

The Future of Food - a good, if long documentary - about the marriage of government and corporate agriculture. Here is the first part. (I think the full documentary is on google videos)