Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Why Is Food A Commodity?

Back to reading "My Ishmael" with my teenage son this morning. Right now this is probably one of the highlights of my day. I take great pleasure in doing this. Out of all the things I can pass on to him Ishmael's teachings are probably one of the most important.

After reading two chapters with him today I have to ask: What guy came up with the bright idea to make a food a commodity? I remember first watching Daniel Quinn's "Food Production and Population Growth" video and him making the comment about doctors being paid to deliver babies. His point went was doctors don't get paid by the pound to deliver a baby. Likewise, why do farmers have to get paid by the pound to produce food. Can't their services fall under the category of service? I had the hardest time with that point when I first heard it, and I still do to this day. Having been conditioned for close to 25 years to imagine there is no other way to be paid for food production, is a hard habit to break out even if it is only an act of imagination.

2 comments:

airth10 said...

Strange thoughts about producing babies and food and why the cost structure differential. I guess if babies were produced for food, then they might be viewed as a commodity.

In a similar vein of puzzlement one could ask why can a painting cost more than a house?

Curt said...

I was think more along the lines of if doctors got paid by the pound per baby we'd all of a sudden have a big baby problem.