Fragments From Floyd

"I think that the real reason for genetic engineering is to put absolute control of the food system into corporate hands."

Isn't the reason more likely to be to increase yield? Couldn't you develop a niche market based on non-engineered food? This way you can have a higher price with smaller output, which seems to be what Berry wants. This would also answer his concern about corporate totalitarianism. Companies are constantly going through a cycle of "creative destruction", so there will always be a diffusion of products and companies and regimes.

"People are pushed into the arms of Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart is pulling them with cheap products produced in labor conditions that are exploitative."

People make rational decisions (I have read that Walmart saves the average family over $2K/year.), and no one is forced. These "exploitative" wages are more than the employee or family would have made otherwise. This could simply be a protectionist argument from higher-cost producers. Who is exploiting who?

"If you buy the products, and you don't give an adequate payment in money, then that means that the producer doesn't give adequate care."

Berry seems to have it backwards...the price for a product is determined by both its value to the consumer and its cost to produce. Would you buy groceries that had an add-on charge so producers could "adequately care" for their property? It would be difficult to know and measure just what you are getting for your money.

"The worst example of rural poverty we have right here is that of migrant farm workers."

Yet the workers are here for the fact that they are better off earning US wages. Same argument as the "exploitative" wage earlier.

"on the subject of usury. Dante was pretty explicit about it. It would put you in hell because it implied, among other things, a contempt for nature."

I am reminded of "The Merchant of Venice" here. If I lent you money for 5 years with no interest, then if you repaid me I would have less than I lent you. This is because there is a time-value to money owing to inflation. I also used the phrase "if you repaid me" because there is a risk that you will not pay me back for whatever reason. How am I to be compensated for this risk? Answer: Charge interest on the loan equal to both the time value of money and the probability of you defaulting on the loan. No interest=No loans. Who here could have either gone to college or bought a home without a loan?

" It's too easy to say that country people are provincial and prejudiced, as if the worst things that humans are capable of hadn't also risen up in cosmopolitan, highly sophisticated, urban civilizations."

So true!

There are many ways to be compassionate without destroying the incentives that drive effort and creativity. Berry appears to be asking for subsidies and other barriers to trade from both the consumer and the government. Margaret Thatcher showed the world how to improve their standard of living by tearing down these barriers to trade, but granted, there are questions of sustainability that arise from capitalism. As a fellow economist once said to me, "Don't criticize a method unless you have a better alternative." So far, I personally haven't seen one.

I am making a leap here, but it may be worth mentioning that Sojourner's movement originated in Deerfield, IL. This is basically Chicago, a blue city in a blue state. I dug this up because the talking points in this interview seemed to be a carbon copy of the left-of-center Democratic party rolled up into a Biblical package for easier swallowing in say the Bible belt.

Well,if anyone thought Wendell Berry's kind of politics was new age mush, the response from your previous commenter underlines how far this is from the truth!

Thank you for this link. I do know Berry's work a little, but this was an exceptionally good interview. Just reading something so sane and lucid, and knowing such a man exists in America, makes me feel a little less despair.

"knowing such a man exists in America, makes me feel a little less despair."

Ah yes, most of us Americans have rings in our noses and spears in our hands? I also feel despair about larger issues, and I have determined to be a more happy person regardless. Because the life I am living is now and so many things are beyond my control that I should not despair too much about them.

Regarding Berry, I couldn't help but notice his criticisms, even if they are accurate, eerily reflect positions from places like the democraticunderground.com or dailykos.com almost to the point. BTW-I like your blog Jean.