Raj Patel is an activist, writer and academic, and quickly becoming one of my new heroes. I’ll be the first to admit that I have not read his books (but some of his articles). Nonetheless, the essays I have read are provocative, insightful and poignant, especially in the context of food. His newest work, The Value of Nothing, examines the failures of the market economy.
The incredibly-worth-your-time talk he gives in the link above is an excellent overview of his ideas and the arguments put forth in his newest book. For this entry, I’m less interested in retelling his statements and more focused on connecting his talk with this blog.
One point of interest that Raj and I share (as well as many other food activists and the like) is the “hidden cost” of convenience. In a previous post I went into great detail on this topic. To summarize, the external costs not accounted for in the price of our consumer goods are actually prohibitably expensive. I’ll use an example Raj discusses in the video above, the cost of a hamburger.
His example is timely because a) most folks, at some point in their lives, purchased a hamburger at a restaurant or fast food chain, and b) for Americans, hamburgers are part of our culinary and cultural identity – it’s just something we like to eat. Most of us, the grand majority of us, are likely to pay less that $5 for a burger. If you eat at Burger King you might find one for less than $1. How could a full meal cost so little? That is the question at hand.
According to Raj, the true cost of the hamburger is more like $200. The disparity in price reflects the various “hidden costs” of creating this hamburger. Some of these unforeseen costs include the health of the cow (what it is fed and how much the feed costs); the health of the environment (was the cow raised on unbothered pasture or bulldozed land); and socially/economically, the wages of the worker (how much are workers paid to pluck tomatoes off the vine?) These are some of the many questions that arise when you begin to consider the true cost of food.
And food of course, is but one of thousands of tangible goods we consume on a daily basis. The economy, climate, health and future of our civilization is at stake. Anyone who understands capitalism knows that this economic system is far from sustainable. When the oil runs up or the cost of health care is too great or fluxtuating weather destroys arable land
- what will we do then?
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