this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
949 points (97.8% liked)
196
16597 readers
3357 users here now
Be sure to follow the rule before you head out.
Rule: You must post before you leave.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Hmm, but why would a farmer provide food to people without getting anything in return? This is, assuming everyone is selfish, which is the core assumption of capitalism.
thinking that farmers should do work with nothing in return as a method of ending food insecurity is ignorant to the work being done to address food insecurity. nobody is proposing farmers should work for free. food stamps, subsidized farming, community owned farmland, urban gardening, universal basic income, food banks, all of these things and more are how we eradicate starvation, and how many other developed nations have successfully reduced food insecurity.
systems which allow people to starve are indefensible in a world where we can make enough food for people, and we absolutely can do that.
Because if the farmer doesn't, starving people will either die, or wise up and take the food by force. Usually the starving people aren't in the majority, so they work with sympathetic individuals who recognize that they might be next. So that the farmer has the resources to continue, the mob takes resources from those that have excess, by force. If the farmer is not motivated because they can't make big profit margins, then someone without the mental illness of greed will eventually replace the farmer.
If the only options for the farmer are let people starve or get raided, why would he choose to be a farmer then? Seems more likely he'd do something else or join the mob rather than become a farmer in the first place.
Because if he doesn't farm he starves as well. The issue is that people doesn't think through the long term common good consequences of their actions, less so because they're selfish, but more so because people aren't designed to think that way.
Which is why I added that instead of being a farmer, he could just join the mob of people that would have raided him if he had been a farmer. Why aren't they all farming?
This is forgetting the fact that we already socialize several things in our society. We've agreed that national protection is necessary, so if you're a citizen of most countries, you're paying taxes that pay for a military. We could very easily socialize food as well.
Take social security for example - it will provide some level of retirement, but you won't be living a life of luxury. There is no reason why we can't apply this model to food, healthcare, water, electricity, etc (and in certain circumstances, we often do.) This doesn't mean that those on medicare are being cared for while doctors are held at gunpoint, it means that we use taxes to do a tiny bit of taking care of people.
We're a society beyond real scarcity, only artificial scarcity. Our productivity levels over the last few hundred years especially has increased exponentially. Just since the 40 hour work week was standardized upon, we've made leaps and bounds but been allowed to realize none of those gains.
We're so brainwashed in the US we don't even realize that quite a few other countries already do these things more successfully than we do, and pretend like there is no other possibility.
This would result into some kind of farm run by the community, which means that volunteers are working on the farm, providing free food to everyone. However, this begs the question if the food produced by inexperienced volunteers with good intentions is sufficient to feed an entire village, town, city or a country.
EDIT: I would like to add that I'm definitely not opposing this kind of farm and I'm very much aware of the major flaws in capitalism.
It's how villages worked for thousands of years, isn't it? Open to correction by any historian.
I'm no professional historian or anything, but as far as I know, back in prehistoric era hunters & gatherers used to share basically everything with each other without anything in return.
When the people stopped moving around and settled at one place to farm land, the first agricultural society was founded, where people didn't use money but goods (such as food itself) as a currency to trade with each other.
Once again, I'm not a professional historian, just a guy who read some books, so feel free to correct me.
It all depends on how many people need to work to maintain society vs how many will work for the greater good.
Economics and unrealistic assumptions, name a nore iconic duo.
It's not unrealistic to assume that most people don't want to do a hard, miserable, body-ruining, thankless job (i.e. farming) in exchange for absolutely nothing.
I didn't specify that one assumption. I was thinking more like what the ither comment said.
Well I mean, most of the liberal and classical economists generally try to predict the behaviors of consumers, which lead to assumptions such as "People will generally be selfish".
Because they're put in an economic system where if they aren't - they starve.