The video for blog post #5 includes information on the Center for Consumer Freedom. They are an organization that is attempting to inform Americans and people elsewhere in the world of the truth about corporations who are taking advantage of their power in the market. These few companies have become so large and powerful that they now dictate the everyday decisions that we all as human citizens should be making for ourselves, mainly, what to eat and drink. However the majority of people are unaware of the fact that these decisions are usually being made for them by corporate giants many miles away. These same exact ideas and messages are also present in Raj Patel's book “Stuffed and Starved” that we read in class. He speaks of the massive power these corporations have over almost every little aspect of the global food system, including importing, exporting, availability, prices/amounts/types of food, wages, supplies, and the labor conditions of workers who are growing the food. Like our discussion in class on certain fruits such as apples or bananas. There are many different types of apples across the world, and there are many different places that cultivate bananas. However when you travel to the supermarket you see three maybe four types of apples to choose from, and usually one single brand of bananas. Those people with the power are the ones who decided what apples and bananas to place in your supermarket based on expenses and profits. What ever product or transportation options allow them to save the most money will the be the ones the decide on. Making this even worse is the fact that it is a very small handful of companies, not 10, 20, 50 of them, who hold all of the decision making power over what the entire world gets to consume. Patel refers to these companies as “Bottleneck Corporations”. This is an analogy that sums up the idea of the tiny amount of companies that have almost all the power over the entire population of this world.
To resist or change what these companies are doing feels almost impossible. Most people, including myself feel stuck, how are we supposed to shape the market with our consumption? When these are the products that are placed in our reach, we have almost no other choice but to purchase them if we want to eat and feed our families. It is difficult and unobtainable for many people to travel sometimes far distances to local farmers or organic markets, and it is impossible to buy certain items from anywhere else then the grocery store. The majority of people in this world have very little money and cannot afford organic, healthy foods that are not produced by these corporations. Many families have no other choice but to continue feeding these companies money by going to fast food restaurants and grocery outlets to supply their families with food. It isn't a coincidince that the people who have the least amount of choice are lower-income, racial minorities. These lower income families are overwhelmingly blacks or Latinos who live in inner-city neighborhoods with very little room to move up anywhere. When you are poor and live in this type on environment, how are you supposed to stand up against this global food system? You are forced to shop at the corner mart, or take your children to McDonalds for dinner because a local farmers marker full of fresh vegetables and fruits are surely out of your reach. Yes, it seems like simple supply and demand, if we were to start demanding different items, and chose to object to brand names, supermarkets and these companies, things would change. However in these hard economic times and with the way that race and class play into this system, to say that we have the choice or ability to change or revolutionize this global food market is very unrealistic. This idea of “consumer freedom” is not free at all.
We have grown up believing that we make the decision of what is for dinner, and that everyone is equally able to provide themselves with exactly what they want, but after reading “Stuffed and Starved” and watching this film, it is obvious that's not the case. There are hundreds of thousands of options in almost any grocery store in America, giving us the illusion that we have such a wide variety of brands, types, flavors, companies and products to choose from. These few four or five corporations are almost entirely, completely in control of what, why, where and how humans consume on the face of this earth. The vision of ACTUAL consumer freedom seems almost impossible to accomplish.