Friday, March 27, 2009

Why Market Liberalizers Are Dumb

"Given the reality of what consumers can and can't do, market liberalizers' enduring fantasy—that the collective power of tens of millions of conscientious shoppers will force suppliers to correct their bad practices—has been replaced by a grimmer understanding: Until we can make the market see all the costs of unsustainable farming, and until we learn how to temper its obsessive focus on ever greater efficiencies, market-driven sustainability will fail."
From this: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2009/02/spoiled-organic-and-local-so-2008

It's not that I think most people are dumb. Wait. I do think most people are dumb. But that's because I'm a privileged and cynical upper middle class snobby smartypants who doesn't always realize the perspective her liberal college education gave her or that not everyone else shares it.