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crazy idea, let's just feed people
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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No, I did not insinuate this.
You wrote...
At any rate, my position remains, that I am not understanding as broadly coherent your initial round of questions.
If you wish to attempt another presentation of your concerns or questions, perhaps taking into consideration the more recent discussion, I will try to address it.
Sure, it's very straight forward. People are saying that farmer's are dumping cow's milk to reduce supply, and therefor retain high prices. But, if the farmers (cows) have already produced their milk, dumping it simply makes them no money instead of less money than expected. Unless there's something else to consider here, there's no reason, including greed, for the farmer to dump the milk. If someone was greedy, would they not try and sell every last bit of milk they could?
What I'm alluding to, is that these farmers did not choose to dump their milk. It does not make sense for farmers to dump their milk, because they make more money if they sell more milk. They cannot store milk and wait for the market price to go up, because it spoils. When a farmer has milk to sell, they want to sell all of it, because being able to sell all of it means they make more money, always, regardless of market price. There may even be cases where dumping it will lose them the chance to net profit. Considering the negative impact dumping milk has on the farmer, it straight up can't be greed motivating the farmer to do it. In fact, we know what causes farmers to do it, because these cases have been thoroughly reported on, and the reason behind it frankly isn't really up for dispute.
The milk dumping issue went viral because of an Ontario farmer who exposed the issue on Tik Tok. He shared the same sentiment, that he would've loved to sell all that milk, but he was unable to sell it because he had exceeded his quota given by the Ontario Dairy commission. Dairy farmers in Ontario are only allowed to sell through that source, and that source's expected demand fell through in covid, so they just stopped all sales altogether. This is not the only time it happened either, there are several reported cases of farmers being told outright by the government to dump their products.
It's really not something that's up for debate, capitalism did not cause this, over regulation by the Canadian government did.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/02/02/dairy-farmer-dumping-excess-milk/ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52192190
Perhaps under conditions resembling the theoretical perfect competition imagined by authors such as Adam Smith, your analysis might tend to be more strongly tied to practical reality, but our current monopoly capitalist dystopia is starkly different. Since supply is under consolidated control, discarding supply, through a choice of one supplier or through collusion of a few with each other or with the state, induces a scarcity that inflates prices and thereby raises profits.
Businesses have been increasingly discovered discarding product in recent years. Amazon has moved viable merchandise to landfills, because of the greater profit from setting prices high enough that the full inventory would not sell.
Also, discarding unsalable product during overproduction crises within the bust-boom cycle has been a consistent feature throughout the history of capitalism.
In the recent case you mention, of the milk dumping, households were unable to afford milk due to lost income, and so supply was wasted to protect price stability. The families still wanted the milk, and any household would have been happy to purchase at lower prices, even those able to afford the higher prices.
Even as families suffer and product is wasted, oligarchs continue consolidating wealth.
It is an incoherent objection that farmers in Canada dumping milk is somehow separate from capitalism, the system that organizes production and distribution, in Canada and everywhere else. The observation that the government is providing direction for such activities is not one that confers any value to the objection.
Any system is inefficient if it leads to overproduction.
Any system is anti-human if it supports destruction of product useful to others simply to support higher prices realized by producers.
I feel the case against capitalism is quite well corroborates by the observations referenced in your objections.
Agreed. House holds could not afford milk, so it was dumped so that prices remain high and people can't afford it. This dumping was ordered by the commission, not the farmers, Being ordered by the state to dump milk is not an example of capitalism. If the state (a public body) exerts control over a market, you cannot call it a capitalist act, you can not blame capitalism for it.
You have to actually tell me why. I'm doing my homework, please do yours as well. My point is coherent, and well sourced, yet you have never actually pointed to anything that can falsify what I'm saying. I'm going to spell it out one more time, and while I'm doing so, I'm going to explicitly explain to you exactly why I'm saying it, and what you need to convince me of to think you're correct.
Capitalism is the private ownership and control of the means of production. If you disagree, please provide your own source definition. If you do though, this just stops the conversation, this is the agreed upon definition but every intellectual across the isle.
Means of production includes the markets that distribute milk. If the state controls distribution, then the distribution cannot be called capitalist.
Canada owns the means of distribution. Since the state holds control and ownership over the distribution, the distrubtion cannot be called capitalist. If you disagree that Canada's distribution method is not capitalist, you have to convince me that holding the means of distribution in public is a capitalist thing to do, which completely contradicts the definition.
Canada - the state, not the private - is the one who decided milk should be dumped. A public body exerted control over the market, leading to a specific decision to destroy market product.
Capitalism is characterized by free markets. If you want to convince me this was capitalist, you would have to convince me that the market was made freer than it was before by the act. Considering product was barred from market by the state, I would say this is a pretty difficult conclusion to come to.
Did you miss the part where the producers did not benefit at all? Farmers are the producers of milk, farmers are upset by this. Farmers make less money because of this. The people that benefit most are the Canadian Dairy Commission
I want you to deeply consider the context you're saying this because it direct exposes an abundant level of ignorance in the case we're talking about. Who owns the farming monopoly in Canada? Your characterization is completely wrong, there's no monopoly in farming in Canada. Dairy is produced by thousands of disunited private farmers. Dystopia doesn't mean capitalism.
The only thing we could consider a monopoly is this state-run dairy commission. You cannot call something state-run a capitalistic thing.
State run is not capitalist. The commission is state run. If you want to convince me it's a capitalist problem, you have to convince me state ownership is a capitalist thing. You could also try convincing me up is down while you're at it.
There is no such thing as a "capitalist act".
Capitalism is the total societal system by which production and distribution are organized.
The government is supporting the capitalist system, and operating within it, not separate from it, or antagonistic to it.
Your claim is unfalsifiable.
You impose an assumption of some distinction of acts that are capitalist versus not capitalist, but such a distinction has no conceptual coherence.
All acts follow from the systems in which they occur.
Capitalism is the system of organization in which acts are occurring under current consideration. Within a different system, the acts occurring naturally would be different. None may be separated, as not part of the system in which they occur.
Private producers are within the system of capitalism. Consumers are within the system of capitalism. Governments and states are within the system of capitalism.
A social body outside of capitalism would be one occurring in a society that has transformed beyond capitalism, or in which capitalism had not yet emerged.
Check.
However, based on your other remarks, it would be well to affirm the more precise framing, that capitalism is the system of production and distribution characterized by private ownership of production.
Markets are not means of production in themselves, but rather are a system of exchange utilized by the private owners, and imposed on workers and consumers, with support from the state.
The state is not controlling distribution.
Markets are identified as a convergence of free choices among private entities against rules and systems affirmed and enforced by the state, and often also affirmed, to some degree, as legitimate, by many of the private participants.
The state also participates in markets, and some choices may be determined as shaping them for specific objectives that are independent of the private benefit of any single entity.
Means of production under government control have character both of public and private ownership. However, in Canada, agriculture is controlled by agribusiness, and participation also may include some farmers of small plots who work their own land, and purchase supplies and equipment from agribusiness firms. Many such farmers may employ additional hands to help them work the land they own, making them small business owners who control means of production.
I am not aware of farms under government control in Canada. I feel doubtful that any are operated as such, but even so, agriculture is generally private, in the truest sense, of being owned by businesses and families.
Even if every farm were owned by the government in Canada, the industry would remain as integrated into the broader economy, and the national economy as integrated with the global.
Canada is a capitalist society. Enterprise, industry, productive lands, and other productive assets are controlled by private owners. There is no dispute.
The government protects private interests. Nominally the state protects the public, but in practice, the state protects business more than workers.
Markets are upheld and enforced by the state, but not controlled. Some markets may be considered as having characteristics of free markets, and others more so by regulation or intervention.
The distinction affects or describes policy and practice. Markets themselves have no inherent essential characteristic of being free versus regulated.
Most would consider the act you describe as representing intervention or regulation. Markets are not controlled by any single body, essentially by definition. Private entities and government entities participate in the market, and the state enforces the rules, and imposes regulations or interventions.
The defining feature of markets is that participants make free choices of exchange, following rules that make no explicit distinction among the various participants.
Markets are the primary system of commodity exchange in capitalist society.
No market is truly free, though some policy or practices may be considered as supportive of free markets and antagonist to regulation or intervention.
Markets may occur in systems that are not capitalist.
Capitalism is not an ideal that markets should be free, but rather the total activity occurring within capitalist society.
We are criticizing actual harm derived from current systems, not writing stories of fairy tales.
Your ideal of free markets is meaningless.
The meaningful discussion is describing how markets are occurring in practice, and their effects, in conjunction with other effects of the overall system.
Capitalism depends on the state to uphold it. The state affirms, defends, and protects capitalism. The state is not antagonistic to capitalism or separate from it. The state in capitalist society is part of the societal system of capitalist society.
Was the objective not to protect the prices of goods from deflation or instability?
If prices are inflated due to induced shortage, then the effect may offset lower volume of sale, with respect to income of producers from all sales.
I doubt it, unless you are suspecting cronyism. I am not rejecting the possibility, but I doubt you intend as much in your characterization.
How would the beneficiary be those within the Commission?
I am assuming the body is a bureaucracy in the government that employs workers to impose and to enforce regulations. Please clarify if I am mistaken in the matter.
Monopolization is a concept representing the degree of consolidation of an industry under a small number of large producers. It is a graduated characteristic of an industry. An industry many be highly monopolized even if having more than one producer. Pure monopolies are uncommon, but monopolization as a broader effect is problematic for essentially the same reasons.
The entire economy is highly consolidated under a relatively small number of massive producers. Agriculture occurs within the total system, and so the criticism would be valid even if agriculture somehow remained as a relatively competitive industry. Agriculture, however, is also highly consolidated through agribusiness. The few small farmers who remain are encumbered by the pressures of the system in which overall production is immensely consolidated, and also are dependent on agribusiness for equipment and supplies.
The number of small producers compared to large is a poor measure of consolidation versus competiveness, because each large producer carries the capacity of many small.