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The Forum > Article Comments > Imagining ‘The Good Society’ > Comments

Imagining ‘The Good Society’ : Comments

By Tristan Ewins, published 6/5/2008

Visions for Australian society and economy: what makes a 'Good Society' and should such a thing be measured in purely material terms?

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'The Good Society' would not have the flattening homogenity of today's totalitarian workplace. Yes, you do lose the right of free speech and assembly once your time and skills have been sold, once you walk in that door to work for your employer. Yes, the goods and services you produce are not yours to decide upon, except after they're marketed as commodities for you to buy with your wages. Yes, commodities become cheaper when you increase your productivity. Yes, most everything is increasingly becoming commodified, including the Earth.

Is this what we want....a little more cheapness?
Posted by Mike B), Wednesday, 21 May 2008 12:05:34 AM
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In fact, it is dubious, whether industrialised production does make many goods cheaper. Christopher Cook, author of "Diet for a Dead Planet" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5W_9Qi1ydM) has shown that industrialised food production in the US creates more infficiencies than it creates efficiencies by the time you add up the costs of transport, processing, packaging, refrigeration, storage, distribution, marketing, retailing, etc.

On top of that much of the food in the US is manufactured in horrific Dickension conditions using immigrant workers whose bodies are usually wrecked in less than 12 months. Also, we destroy our soil quality and the nutritional valued of even unprocessed food is steadily declining.
Posted by daggett, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 12:30:29 AM
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GMO food is cheaper to produce and that's why it's being touted by the powers that be. Cheaper means using less labour time and sometimes that's good in terms of getting the end product more quickly and in greater quantity to the consumer. But, somtimes using less labour time aka increasing the productivity of labour, leads to industrial accidents and a more dangerous workplace. It can also lead to the production of commodities which qualitatively poorer e.g. GMO food.

If democracy is part and parcel of 'the good society', why is it that when most people would rather consume non GMO food, GMO food is going to be produced and consumed?

As far as making commodities cheaper goes, is there "more to life than increasing its speed?"

Mike B)
Posted by Mike B), Wednesday, 21 May 2008 9:02:03 AM
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Mike B),

I agree that we need to slow down the pace of life, but even on the basis of hard economics, (that is, in a broader sense than what usually passes for economics) I think the case against industrialised food production, including GMO (genetically modified (organisms(?))), still stands up.

Even at the pure economic level, I think we would find that localised production and consumption is cheaper if we remove all the overheads I mentioned above - transport, processing, packaging, refrigeration, storage, distribution, marketing, retailing, etc.

You should check out the broadcast at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5W_9Qi1ydM and read Christopher Cook's book if you can get hold of a copy. It was a revelation to me.

---

I am not familiar with all of the case against GMO. There may be an outside chance that one or two GMO's may just be worth the trouble, but intuitively, it seems highly unlikely that tampering with genes will do more good than harm. To place the hopes for the salvation of humankind in such a magic bullet as opposed to what has been created by hundreds of millions of years of evolution of plant species (modified by hundreds of years of plant selection by humans) seems like folly.

Also I don't agree with the big seed companies such as Monsanto using these technologies to exert control over the world's farmers.

So, you can count me against GMO for the foreseeable future.
Posted by daggett, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 6:05:53 PM
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I think most people would prefer to eat organic food. I think the reason most people don't eat organic food is insufficient wages. I think a good society would include satisfaction of desire as well as need. I don't think that can happen within the wages system; because wage labour implies not control of what is produce by the producers. Their is market influence, in that, if workers don't want to eat something, they can shop elsewhere. But this is hardly a conception of the good society. This is just a formula for continuing to live under the rules of capital; a political-economy where wage labour is denied control and ownership of the social product it creates in the workplaces of the nation.
Posted by Mike B), Saturday, 24 May 2008 1:48:25 PM
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