The Democracy of the founding fathers was Greek Democracy, predicated upon a slave society, and restricted to only the elite. This is the society we live in today, even with our reforms towards direct representation. The system is inherently biased towards the election of elites and against the representation of the masses. Hamilton called it “faction” when the working class got together and demanded better conditions, and mechanisms were built in (which still exist to this day) that serve to ensure the continued dominance of the elite over the masses. The suffering of the many is intentional. The opulence of the wealthy is also. This is the intended outcome.
Why would anyone grow food for a living if they couldn’t sell their produce at a profit?
You not understanding why someone might want to do good for others simply for the sake of doing good, and/or never being able to bring yourself to do so, doesn’t mean no one else does.
As always with bootlickers, it’s projection all the way down…
You are simply ignorant of human nature, I think.
That’s the excuse people always give. Human nature is a lot of things. Greed, avarice, jealousy, definitively part of that. Just as much a part though, are empathy, caring, and selflessness. Human nature isn’t a fixed predetermined set of rules. If it was, there would be no variability in humanity whatsoever. Human nature as used here is just another thought terminating cliche designed to stop intelligent conversation.
The material conditions within a given society determine the most likely expressions of human nature within that society. Of course a society structured around elevating greed, violence, misogyny, etc, would see that reflected in its institutions and among its people. Materialism is a science, “human nature” is pop culture.
You said it yourself: for a living.
Growing food with a main goal of profits in a private enterprise rather than just sustenance or profit through government grants without private market interference has a lot of downsides, including to farmers themselves.
For example, optimisation for profit means a lot of waste:
Perfectly healthful produce with aesthetic faults has to be left to rot on the ground as it won’t sell and nobody’s going to collect it for those that need it but can’t afford to pay the “market price”
If you have an exclusive deal with a grocery store or other intermediary, the excess of an unexpectedly good crop yield will likewise in most cases have to be destroyed because the buyer can’t receive all of it and you’re not allowed to sell to their competitors.
Likewise, any excess of a particular good harvest across a crop will also be destroyed to avoid losing money on the market value of the crop dropping due to increased supply.
All of this while a few megacorps sit between farmers and consumers paying the same or less to farmers and charging much more of consumers while the cost of living and business expenses of farmers keep rising, making it harder and harder to make ends meet if you’re not the aforementioned megacorps.
And that’s not even mentioning all the issues of long hours and some of the worst working conditions of any industry, all to save a buck or two to stave off bankruptcy and eventually starvation for a little longer while the megacorps and their billionaire owners and executives gobble up almost all the value of what you produce.
I’m perfectly happy not spending 90% of my time and energy feeding my family. You may think that would be a better life but industrial farming does have a lot of benefits, through either command or liberal economics. It’s there that the liberal system shines bright as a command economy requires local production to motivate workers for the above reasons.
Jesus christ, you people and your text walls.
Be Concise.
You asked a question that couldn’t be answered both concisely and accurately so I chose accuracy.
I’m sorry right wing thought can be put down into 3 words for a sound bite, and actual thoughts and explanations take longer. I guess reading beyond 6th grade is communism now.
You saw 4 paragraphs and decided to not even try ? Education really got bad
I could, I just don’t want to.
No I don’t think you could
I’ve read plenty of commie diatribes on Lemmy, you’re all the same. Expect everything for free, outraged that you have to do something productive for society, think that you could all go live in a commune somewhere.
Heard it all before.
And how have you inferred all that, O wise one ? I must be a commie for not wanting people rich enough to buy a country, that tracks. Why is that always this with you people ? “You know you have to work in society, you can’t expect to get things for free” tf kinda strawman are you doing ? Who’s saying that ? People in your deranged little mind that’s who.
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If a person would rather allow land to go fallow purely because of profit incentive, and that fallow land will result in the suffering of others, the only moral thing to do is dispossess them of that land. They weren’t using it anyway apparently, in this hypothetical.
Farming requires a lot more than land
You’re right, it requires people! It’s too bad there’s not an army of people underemployed in exploitative jobs that do not meet their basic needs along with an army of unemployed and often even unhoused people… We could just… pay them living wages to farm… there’s an idea!
Excellent, so we’ll need some profits on that food then, to pay them?
Let’s keep going with this thinking. We’re inventing a system from first principles
Profits aren’t wages, you obviously haven’t read much economics. Profits are what’s left AFTER wages and costs.
You’re failing to differentiate between gross and net profits.
Ever run a business?
How is everyone going to afford this food if you’re selling it for a gross profit? I believe that was your original point.
Yes, I have run a business haha. Profit doesn’t mean either gross or net profits, it means, and I quote from the dictionary,
That is profit. Now, people can break it down further, but, when someone is referring to profits, you should assume they mean the dictionary definition of profits.
I should, should I?
You previously suggested I’ve not read enough economics, so should I assume you have? Do they all use that word with that meaning?
Also, I’m wondering if you have an answer to the other question. How is everyone going to afford this food that’s being sold even if it doesn’t have a markup?
My government actually pays mostly corporate (but not all) farmers not to produce or actively destroy their products, rather than buy it and have communities freely disperse it.
And give it to who? Who’s going to farm that land when they’re not allowed to make a profit from it? It’s not easy work.
Maybe some of the millions of people who are currently unable to even afford adequate food for themselves because of the profiteering of these very landholders, who engage in such sabotage as mass slaughter and burial of animals to prevent price drops. You know, profits are after wages, right? Profits aren’t wages. You only make profits after you pay wages and costs. So… you pay wages.
When you place economic decisions from a profit driven one into the hands of the politician, you get just as perverse incentives. What’s even worse is that the government cannot fail so the system just gets progressively worse until the entire system collapses. I’m good with a liberal system as is with some moderate reforms to account for externalities.
I will just copy and paste part of my comment that I made to another, because your final argument is the same.
The problem isn’t the profit per se rather it’s the maximization of profit favoring capital over human beings that’s the problem. The meme strikes me as extreme.