Too Small To Matter

You know, this whole idea of financial institutions being too big to fail? Well, aren't we doing every fool thing we can to ensure that every other industry or institution we have is also too big to fail?

Increasingly, the distribution of cheap imported shit comes from only a handful of large companies. (WalMart, Target)

Increasingly, the distribution of pharmaceuticals comes from only a handful of large multinationals. (Pfizer, Glaxo)

Increasingly, the distribution of military hardware comes from only a handful of large multinationals. (Colt, Raytheon)

Increasingly, the distribution of all our food comes from only a handful of large multinationals.

Focus on that last one for a minute. Suppose instead of Goldman, Cargill was on the verge of failing. Instead of Lehman, Archer Daniels Midland went bust. Or instead of AIG, Monsanto needed $150,000,000,000. You think we'd allow any of these to fail?

At the same time, it's salmonella this, salmonella that. Don't eat peanut butter, bypass the spinach, avoid all pistachios. Do you possibly believe that food safety could be any more elusive due to our increasingly concentrated food industry? Do you really think that when our basic needs can be traded off for profit to a diminishing number of power brokers that we are better off?

Tell me how easy it is for FDA to trace the source of an "outbreak" from tainted polenta when wheels and wheels of it come off some centralized processing line and distributed to all four corners at all four seasons. Tell me that agribusiness isn't in the business of trying to eradicate and eliminate every diverse microbe culture that might be the cause of this "outbreak," eliminating competitive cultures from preventing any one pathogen from dominating. Superbugs rejoice. And tell me that, next to the financial sector, ADM and Cargill weren't right up there in lobbying expenditures, successfully pushing reams of legislation "favorable" to business and "unfavorable" for you...with the exception of cheap prices.

Trade off basic rights for profit. Yeah, go fuck yourselves, Americans. Get sick and die from food poisoning you can't source because of our 'concentrated distribution networks.' You are too small to matter. That's your comeuppance for demanding cheap products produced through cheap energy. Pretty soon, there will only be one provider for everything, because that's ultimately the most efficient, cheapest solution, right? and that's all that matters. Happily motor to the centralized warehouse to collect all your pre-arranged purchases -- quality of living at its finest.

This is my simplistic view of things, but I've said it before -- as we allow the Home Depots and the JoAnns and the WalMarts and the J.R. Simplot's of the world to collect, to aggregate, to control an increasing share of our lives, we lose far more that they can possibly return to us. We lose job and product diversification, we lose quality for quantity, we lose non-renewable resources, and we lose the dignity of work when we focus on line-speed, quotas, and the dogged pursuit of more.