Capitalism and food: Let them eat junk

An interview with Rob Albritton
March 2010 -- Rob
Albritton’s Let Them Eat Junk: How Capitalism Creates Hunger and
Obesity
(2009), published by Arbeiter Ring Press in Canada and Pluto Press in
the UK,
offers a welcome and urgently needed analysis of “how the profit
fixation of
capital has led us deeply into a dangerously unsustainable system of
food
provision, a system that totally fails when it comes to distributive
justice
and to human and environmental health” (p. 201). His analysis takes us
inside
capitalism and shows how its “deep structures” manage our agricultural
and food
systems in irrational ways.
Socialist
Project’s Relay magazine
recently
asked John Simoulidis to interview Robert Albritton about
his book and current
global struggles to address the failures of our agriculture/food system.
Posted
at Links International Journal of Socialist
Renewal with permission.
* * *
You have
written a number of books on Marxist theory and political economy: why a
book
on food?
When I
retired from York University’s political science department after
teaching
political theory and political economy for 36 years, I had more time to
do
research and writing. Previously most of my work was very theoretical,
and I
decided it was time to direct my attention to something more down to
earth.
I had
many influences directing my attention toward food, not the least of
which was
my wife’s career teaching food and nutrition at Ryerson University in
Toronto.
Now that I was retired, I could devote most of my waking hours to
researching
and writing this book on the food system – a topic that turned out to be
far
more extensive than my initial expectations. Indeed, the more I
researched the
topic, the more I discovered the numerous interconnections among our
ecological
crises, our social and physical health crises, our economic crisis and
our
global food system.
The focus
on the impact that capitalism has on food and agriculture is a
particularly
rich source if we want to make connections between the struggles for
socialism
and the struggles for ecological sustainability. I hope my book can
contribute
to a growing wake-up call that will bring about a refocus of human
intelligence
and material wealth toward reshaping the food system and the capitalist
economy
that it is embedded in.
There are
various and recently published books and articles offering critiques of
the
corporate control of the food system. What can readers expect to find in
your
book that is lacking in other critiques?
After 40
years of studying capitalism, I believe that no single work makes more
headway
in grasping its inner logic and inner dynamic than Marx’s Capital.
It
was this work more than any other that guided me in my central aim,
which was
to understand how capitalism has shaped our food system.
It
follows that the first difference between this book and others written
on the
topic of food is that I am not aware of any other food book that
explicitly
bases its theoretical framework (many do not have theoretical
frameworks) on
Marx’s Capital. Second, no other food book has as broad a
scope
as this one. Third, no other food book has as much factual information.
Fourth
and finally, the above three points are combined in a way that makes
this book
the most radical critique of the capitalist food system yet written.
This is
because it seeks out connections between the food crisis and the other
crises
of advanced capitalism, and it illustrates that capital’s indifference
to
use-value is particularly destructive when capitalism subsumes and
commodifies
the food system.
What were
some of the most interesting and/or surprising discoveries you made
while
researching and writing this book?
I was
shocked by many things. I’ll mention a few.
First, I
was impressed by the immense power of the sugar industry. Sugar is one
of the
cheapest, the most addictive and most profitable of food inputs. As a
result
more and more of it goes into much of our processed foods, even though
it is
the prime suspect in the current global diabetes epidemic. Efforts to
place
constraints on its use have mostly failed, despite a fledgling
international
“dump soft drinks” campaign led by the Center for Science in the Public
Interest.
Second,
while I knew in a general way that the global distribution of food
leaves many
people struggling with hunger and malnutrition, I was not aware that
globally
nearly half the population makes $2 or less a day, and that
approximately 1
billion people are mentally impaired due to malnutrition.
Finally,
our food system spreads toxins in the environment; has played the major
role in
deforestation, the running down of water supplies and the degradation of
land;
is a huge contributor to global warming; and is rapidly depleting the
remaining
reserves of fossil fuels. In short, it not only undermines human health,
but
also is leading us toward ecological disaster.
What are
some of the major themes that you address? What are some of the major
failures
associated with an agricultural/food system controlled by capital’s
“deep
structures”?
The title
could be misleading without an understanding of the reference to Marie
Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake.” In my interpretation “junk food”
epitomises
capitalist food in this phase of history, and junk food is high in
sugars, fats
and salts, while being low in other nutrients. My book does not focus
narrowly
on junk food, but on a food system whose cutting edge has been junk food
and
whose largest corporations tend to be centred in the US, expanding
outward to
the rest of the world. The main themes of the book are the food system’s
failure
to advance human health, environmental health or social justice; and the
connections between the food crisis and the myriad of other crises
characteristic of late capitalism.
Rational
behaviour under capitalism requires that capitalists continually shift
production from goods and services that are unprofitable (and will, in
due
course plunge them into bankruptcy) to goods and services that are
profitable.
Since competition forces them to maximise short-term profits, it is this
quantitative focus and not the quality of use values that becomes the
overriding goal.
For
example, if a capitalist learns that by adding more sugar to baby food,
profits
will increase both because sugar is a very cheap input and because
babies will
eat more baby food and later adults will eat more sugar, then a rational
capitalist would do this, despite many studies that show a craving for
sugar
that borders on addiction can be established very early in children
through a
diet of sugar dense foods.
The
capitalist cannot afford to be concerned with the lifetime of obesity
and
connected illnesses that such a diet might generate. In short, in order
to be
rational, a capitalist needs to focus on profits (quantity) and not the
quality
of life of humans (or use values) unless that quality can be easily
converted
into profits. Similarly, if the market for palm oil is profitable, and
the
easiest way to expand its production is to cut down the remaining
rainforests
of South East Asia, then a rational capitalist would not hesitate to do
this.
Finally,
if capitalist farmers profit from paying low wages to undocumented field
workers, then any capitalist farmer who does not do this is likely to
lose out
to the competition. Unfortunately these and many other destructive
trends are
all too current.
How does
the crisis in the food system relate to the broader economic and
ecological
crises of the current phase of neoliberal capitalism? How will its
impacts be
felt and distributed globally?
The food
crisis feeds the other crises which in turn feed it. The North American
food
system is so dependent upon fossil fuels that it has been estimated that
all
known fossil fuel reserves would be exhausted in seven years were the
whole
world to adopt the US system. Indeed, at approximately one-third of the
total,
the food system contributes more to global warming than any other sector
of the
economy. At the same time global warming will reduce crop yields due to
extreme
weather and higher temperatures.
Further,
to mention only two of the many causes of pollution: the massive
petrochemical
inputs of agriculture coupled with the pollution of bodies of fresh
water by
confined animal feeding operations make the capitalist food system a
major
contributor to the toxification of the environment, which is now
reaching
alarming levels.
Finally,
given the petroleum dependency of the food system, the price of food
will go up
with the price of petroleum, and the use of food crop land for ethanol
production will only push food prices yet higher. Declining yields due
to
global warming and extreme weather will also increase food prices.
Without
action now these price increases will soon be disastrous for the 40 per
cent of
global population that lives on $2 or less a day.
Your
reply addresses how capitalism creates hunger. Can you explain how it at
the
same time produces obesity?
The
producers of junk food that profit from the ease with which people
become
quasi-addicted to sugar, fat and salt provide consumers with lots of
calories
but few nutrients. Hooked on junk food and lacking the income to afford
more
nutritious food, people consume too many calories and not enough
nutrients.
This is a recipe for obesity, a weakened immune system, and ultimately
illness
and death. A report published by the American Medical Association claims
that
if current practices continue, one-third of US children born in the year
2000
will get diabetes.
Even more
serious than what some have called the “pandemic of obesity” is the
hunger and
malnutrition suffered by over a billion people in the world. It has been
estimated that during each half hour an average of 360 children under
the age
of five die of starvation or hunger-related illnesses.
Perhaps
the most challenging part of your book for readers not familiar with
Marx’s Capital or the Unoist approach that
informs your
theoretical work concerns the two chapters in part 2 of your book where
you
provide an outline of “capitalism in the abstract and general” and
“consumerism”
as a phase of capitalism. Can you elaborate briefly on why this kind of
theoretical work is necessary in order to understand the global and
local
failures of the agriculture/food system?
The more
abstract level of analysis clarifies the basic features of fully
developed
capitalism: showing how it subsumes social relations while deepening and
expanding itself.
Capital’s
abstract dynamic is present in history to the extent that capitalism is.
At the
same time capital is constrained and/or supported by historically
specific
structures and agencies that shape it and are shaped by it. The abstract
level
of analysis brings out the reasons why even when capitalism is
functioning at
its competitive best, its management of a fully capitalist
agricultural/food
system is likely to manifest significant contradictions and
irrationalities. My
mid-range level of analysis illustrates the form that these
irrationalities
take in the phase of consumerism after World War II. Finally, these two
higher
levels of analysis help us to understand the evolving food system over
the past
20 years or so.
One can
easily list large numbers of alarming facts about current tendencies
associated
with the capitalist food system, but theory helps us to weigh the
importance of
the facts, to understand their interconnections, and hence to understand
the
most important forces shaping and being shaped by the food system. The
better
we understand how the current system operates, the more effective our
strategies of transformation.
You
describe the current phase of capitalism in terms of a “capitalist
command
economy”. Can you briefly explain what this means and how it frames the
issues
you raise in the concluding chapter of your book on “the fight for
democracy,
social justice, health and sustainability”?
The food
industry always emphasises the enormous choice it offers the modern
consumer,
but this is an illusion.
First of
all because most people in the world are too poor to buy any but the
cheapest
of foods. Second, those that have the money are confronted with a huge
array of
processed foods that are largely re-arrangements of soy, corn, fat,
sugar and
salt. If you are allergic to GM soy, you will have to avoid the majority
of
processed foods since so many of them contain soy and soy by-products,
and
there is no labelling requirement for GMOs. Third, food indoctrination
is so
widespread and powerful that most food choices are already heavily
conditioned
by the toxic food environment and its powerful marketing techniques.
Fourth,
nearly all foods in the typical supermarket are the products of a few
huge
corporations (for example, Nestlé and Kraft).
During
the “Cold War”, Western economists often sharply contrasted
“totalitarian
command economies”, characteristic of the communist bloc, with “free
market
economies”, characteristic of the capitalist bloc. Today, the world
capitalist
economy ought to be labelled a “corporate command economy” because large
corporations run by small elites have way too much unaccountable power
to command
the future of humanity.
Markets
are now largely planning instruments utilised by corporations for
creating both
supply and demand. Large profits are made even when much larger social
costs
(externalities not included in market prices) will need to be paid by
taxpayers
and future generations.
While in
reality most markets have never worked as pictured by the ideal of
optimality
that many economists have presupposed, now this ideal is so deeply
ingrained
that it can still be used to justify “free markets” when in reality we
more and
more see the corporate use of markets as planning mechanisms to maximise
their
short-term profits while creating huge long-range costs to society.
These
social costs can be viewed as debts that future generations will have to
pay
whether they are economic debts, ecological debts or health debts.
We need
to turn this around, and we need to do it fast. This will require
clearing our
minds of the free market myth, so that we can begin to consciously use
markets
as democratic planning mechanisms to advance human and environmental
wellbeing.
Besides democratising markets, we also need to democratise corporations
and
governments. Democratising corporations means making their decision
making
transparent so that they can be held accountable by the public. The
first step
in democratising governments is to find ways of preventing them being
held for
ransom by giant corporations.
In the
current circumstances, it is particularly important to democratise the
labour
market. There will always be unmet social needs, and therefore there
should
always be jobs to meet those needs. Existing labour markets are
extremely
ineffective ways of mobilising human energies to meet human needs.
Computer
technology could be utilised to find new ways of prioritising social
needs and
of mobilising the human intelligence and material wealth to meet them.
Anyone
who wants to work and is able to work should never be unemployed unless
it is
to gain skills needed to meet particular needs, and such education
should be
subsidised.
Finally,
and this will perhaps be the most difficult, we need to find ways to
redistribute wealth globally in order to advance the equality that is
necessary
for democracy to be effective, and for freedom to have any meaning.
Democratising
markets, corporations and governments is, in my opinion, not a “middle
way”
that compromises its soul to neoliberalism, it is the best way forward
that I
can think of – a way that offers a just and humane way out of the myriad
of
crises that confront us.
[Rob Albritton is professor emeritus at York University, Toronto, and the author of Economics Transformed: Discovering the Brilliance of Marx (2007) and contributed an article to the recent issue of Socialist Register (2010), “Morbid symptoms: Health under capitalism”. This article first appeared in the January-March 2010 edition of Relay, Socialist Project’s magazine. It is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission. To download a PDF of the latest edition Relay click HERE.]