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Should Food Be a Commodity?
Every second Monday something miraculous happens in my kitchen. One minute the cupboards are bare: the next minute groceries are delivered right on to the kitchen counters. I use Grocery Gateway, owned by Longos, to order groceries on the internet and have them delivered as they say, “right on to your kitchen table!” Fabulous!
This week, it occurred to me to wonder at the tremendous amount of human effort that had been involved in bringing such a rich harvest to my home. Grapes from Chili, oranges from California, tomatoes from Ontario: everything had been collected from such widespread parts of the world. I thought of the owners of the farms and orchards, the workers who had picked the crops, the transport people who had brought everything together to Toronto, Canada. Then there were the people who had made up my order, and those who had brought it to my door and delivered it with a smile. I felt grateful to them all, and willingly paid the price asked for such a service.
I hope all those farmers and people involved in producing such a richness of food, take a great pride in doing so. They are feeding the world, and without them we would all still be feverishly fending for ourselves. Without the farmers down through the ages, and all the builders, spinners and weavers, and others too numerous to mention, we would still be back in the caves. Human ingenuity and self-interest has brought us a long way!
These musing brought into my mind Adam Smith, my favorite moral philosopher and the father of economics. Neither a political or religious ideologist, nor an Utopian, he was a pragmatist, and concerned with striving to understand reality. The most famous of quotes from his work came into my mind. “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” When humans began to trade with each other and further exercise their self-interest, they took another giant step forward. Those familiar with Adam Smith can understand how free trade between individuals and regions advanced civilization. Wealth began to be built up, and life improved for everyone beyond imagining.
My mind moved on to the report on Reuters about the address Pope Francis gave in Rome to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) on Nov. 30. The Pope said that speculation in food commodities, market priorities, and greed for profits are undermining the global fight against poverty and hunger. He called on rich nations to share their wealth and denounced waste, excessive consumption, and unequal distribution of food. This address seems to be quite clearly stating that the present system of food production and distribution is not doing the job of feeding the hungry. It would appear that Pope Francis doesn’t agree with Adam Smith about self-interest motivating people to work, fueling the markets, and bringing needed and wanted goods to the buyers, including food. If food were not a commodity, and people prepared to pay for it, what would an alternative system look like?
The Pope has said at other times that capitalism is not a good system. It allows some people to become rich, while others remain poor, implying that those who become rich are greedy, and do so at the expense of others. There doesn’t appear to be any appreciation of the hard work needed to run any business, including farms. Food doesn’t appear by magic. It is not transported by wishful thinking. It is not marketed without any effort. Is all the work involved to go without reward?
The conference wasn’t all empty platitudes, divorced from reality. The outcome was the Rome Declaration on Nutrition which states that there is a need to implement coherent public policies across relevant sectors, from production to consumption. This sounds suspiciously like central planning. The dangerous ideas of Karl Marx have been proven not to work. Perhaps someone ought to explain this to Pope Francis. More regulation seems to be the message coming through from him.
What do you think? Is Pope Francis correct in saying that food ought not to be a commodity? Ought the food producers in our societies be controlled by central planning? Is it the right of every individual to be fed by others?
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The French model, which is the standard of all modern democracies. Essentially, it’s the idea that government officials do not “rule” so much as “govern” (if there’s really a difference) and that governors serve in this role only because “the people” let them. It’s the idea that government begins with the people and relies on their consent.
Historically, and perhaps more sensibly, government authority does not originate from the people.
As you know, Christianity is defined more by tradition than by the Bible alone. Perhaps the Church has “updated” its teaching on authority in light of this shift of perception in politics, applying old revelations to new manners of government. If so, I am unaware of it.
Certainly, the modern Church understands God to be involved in guiding (or, rather, offering to guide) political authorities of any variety. But Saint David did not defend himself from the tyrannical Saul because Saul was anointed by God. Are modern Western politicians similarly anointed? Is our duty to obedience, and the limits thereof, not significantly different?
I suspect that our relationship to Presidents and Congressmen is different than David’s relationship to his anointed King. How so, I am not sure.
Pope Francis is truly an ignorant man. And the Catholic Church is quickly becoming a very disappointing institution.
Sorry if anyone is offended by this. But clearly this is turning quickly into Socialism.
As for food and commodities: I don’t even understand it. Rattlesnake said all there’s to be said on that in post #3.
It’s nonsensical. Unless one is a Socialist/Communist, like Pope Francis, where nonsense is the norm.
No, but neither were the pagan Roman emperors. Saul, David, and his heirs were the anointed kings over God’s chosen people, a line of kings that culminates in Jesus the universal king. I think they have a unique status that doesn’t necessarily apply to rulers of the gentile nations.
I looked it up in the Catechism and the Church still views political authority as derived from God:
Though perhaps you could view this as a development in light of modern social contract theory:
Is there ever a justified revolution, by that standard? Does passage 1899 imply that the rise of any dictator or evil regime is punishment from God?
I see nothing in that description to differentiate David’s duty to Saul from that of any citizen to his tyrannical government. The case seems to prove that a wickedly abused authority is a justified authority nonetheless, so a government’s monstrous abuses are not evidence of a loss of authority.
There are probably entire books on the subject. I’m just not familiar with them.
The Church has been called worse and She will always be hated. You are the ignorant one for thinking, based on remarks by Pope Francis to the UN FAO, that the Church is disappointing. She is where you will find your salvation – nowhere else. That’s not disappointing, it is a blessing.
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Well, there’s this passage:
This is all consistent with Aquinas’ theory of 4 types of law: eternal, divine, natural, and human. We ought to obey human laws promulgated by the proper authorities unless they directly conflict with the higher types of law.
C’mon Scott, winning the next election is far more important than saving one’s soul. Get yer priorities straight!
Thanks. That clarifies it. It sounds like the Church through her divine authority has changed the rules, so to speak.
Hmm. Yeah. Ok thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.
I think I’ll stick to churches that actually talk about God and Christ…and not about “social justice”.
Inspired by Godwin, I hereby propose Stanko’s Law:
If you call someone or something Marxist, and they or it do not actually advocate public ownership of the means of production, then you:
Perhaps, but I’m not sure anything has changed. I don’t think St. Paul advocates unconditional obedience to authority, and I think Christians from earliest times understood that when human law contradicts the divine law we must obey the latter. That is why so many early Christians chose martyrdom rather than obey the law that obliged them to offer sacrifice to the cult of the divine emperor.
Pope Francis talks about God and Christ all the time. For some reason those speeches don’t inspire many posts on Ricochet, but since you asked:
That’s wonderful. That’s his job…isn’t it?
Does he want a medal for doing his job?
Talking nonsense about “the rich” and “the poor” and about “social justice”, however, ain’t his job, now is it?
A man who’s never worked a day in his life is hardly the man that ought to be talking to us about the economy.
There’s loads of preachers and priests and pastors etc. talking about God. That’s not news, is it? There’s lots of doctors talking about medical stuff, and lots of engineers talking bridges and stuff. Not news either.
When you start “pontificating” about things you have no idea about, saying things that are clearly nonsense, that’s news worthy.
Truly, I tried giving the Catholic Church a chance. But it looks like they want to go in neck-deep in this Socialist nonsense.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. As I read the Gospels, Jesus talks about the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and so forth. He said:
I don’t see how you can preach the Gospel without mentioning our duties towards one another, and especially towards the least fortunate among us.
When I first read the post, I thought that of course you want food to be a commodity. It means it’s plentiful and less expensive.
Then I realized the subject was really about commodity markets. Some of the posts didn’t see the distinction.
The short answer is that commodity markets do more good than harm, especially when those commodities are plentiful. I grant that the markets do some harm.
The upshot, though, is when it comes to economics, the Pope doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Even a devout Catholic would agree that the Pope is not infallible in all things. Maybe even the present Pope would too.
The Gospels portray Jesus as someone who turned away from secular power when it was offered to Him. And His preaching centered on individual charity. It seems to me that the Pope should be concentrating on that too.
It’s actually not his job to be telling governments the nuts and bolts of their job, including commodity regulation.
P.S. Here’s some more “Socialist nonsense” for you:
Of course. He’s only infallible on topics of faith and morals, and only under very narrowly defined circumstances. There are only two instances that I’m aware of where a Pope has explicitly and unambiguously invoked his infallible authority since the doctrine of infallibility was defined at Vatican I.
I’m sure he would. He doesn’t even like to refer to himself as Pope, he seems to prefer to be called “the Bishop of Rome.”
I’m pretty sure Francis would agree with this as well.
It doesn’t matter if one thinks that food “ought not” to be a commondity. It is a commodity. Their is a finite supply of food, and if the supply is not high enough some people will go hungry. If we’re worried about people being hungry, we should focus our efforts on producing more food to bring the price of food down. Anyone who talks of people having a right to eat is making an empty claim unless they bring food to back up their words.
As a Catholic, it has been hard on my faith to discover that progressive economics is an empty sham, because I strongly associate the Church with progressive economics. About fifteen years ago, I read Humanae Vitae, and came to the conclusion that the Church is right about basically everything. I know that the Church doesn’t claim to be infallible on economics (or on most things), but discovering that the Church is so wrong on economics has cooled my zeal for Catholicism considerably.
However, the fact that Kevin Williamson converted to Catholicism in spite of that reassures me greatly!
And here in lies the problem.
“Social justice” Catholics, and Socialists, and Marxsists…all share this one thing in common. They think that saying “we care” is justification for just about everything.
If you CARED…you would be in favor of capitalism which has turned more “hungry and naked” into “fed and clothed” than any other system we have come up with.
INSTEAD…Mr. Pope and the “social justice” Catholics, just like the Socialists and the Marxists, keep beating the drums against capitalism even harder, because apparently the issue now is no longer “feeding the hungry and clothing the naked”…cause there’s none of that left in the West anymore (with a few exceptions).
No, now it’s about the “less fortunate” ;) What does that mean? Anything you want it to mean. Someone who can’t afford as nice a car as you. Someone who can’t afford as nice a house as you. Someone who can’t afford as nice clothes as you.
There will always be “less fortunate” ;) I don’t recall Jesus saying anywhere about helping out the overweight lazy bastard who doesn’t have as nice a house as his neighbor.
I’m pretty sure…someone somewhere in the Bible said something about not eating if you’re not working ;)
The message in the Bible is about helping out those who…can’t…help themselves. Not those who just don’t achieve as much as someone else.
I believe in the Bible they called this…ENVY.
“The hungry and the naked” is a convenient excuse for Socialist politics in “the” church. Cause there’s no more “hungry and naked” in the West, with a few exceptions. So what to do now?
Invent “social justice!”
We have to be careful not to confuse means and ends. Kindness and compassion are absolute obligations for Christians, but the Left has done a fantastic job of equating free markets and business with greed and exploitation. Even many conservatives accept the Left’s terms, e.g., by having to qualify conservatism as “compassionate conservatism.” Unfortunately many, and likely most, serious Catholics have been taken in by the Left’s propaganda. I was one of them for a long time.
I think the concept of “social justice” is meaningless and empty.
Exactly. And that’s precisely the problem.
This has nothing to do with “compassion” or “caring”. These have nothing to do with capitalism or any economic system. People have caring and compassion. Institutions can’t.
But “social justice” type of churches (which is now unfortunately not only confined to the Catholic church, but you can now find it in a lot of other places), use “compassion and caring” to make virtually…any…argument it wants to.
There’s virtually no limitations to the “recommendations” that can be made if things are framed as “caring and compassion.”
I met a girl once (not Catholic, but a “social justice” type of church) who said that people who complained about paying more taxes were “selfish and greedy” because “taxes help the poor”!
Compare this with Paul’s:
Work, earn the food you eat, don’t be lazy and idle, don’t be a busybody.
WOW!
Is this the message you get at “church” today? Or do you get the message that other people who have more than you are the problem because they are “greedy”?
Francis takes it to a level JP2 and B16 never imagined. While both of them supported socialist policies as a practical matter, they both made clear that our responsibility was to help the poor, period, and that people of good will may disagree about how best to do that. Neither of them claimed that capitalism was inherently wrong, but that ambition without compassion was. Yes, they endorsed what can charitably be described as enforced compassion, but neither claimed that endorsement to be essential for all Catholics.
Are you suggesting Pope Francis has claimed these things, i.e. that:
If so, could you please cite your sources?