Have you heard the latest?
More and more peoples around the world these days have the unfortunate misfortune of having adequate food — not merely vegetables either!! — thanks to the ruthlessly profit-seeking food producers and their unconscionable engagement in the division of labor, capital accumulation, and international trade.
It’s right there in The New York Times, which is, as you know, the paper of record.
“DealBook: How Big Business Got Brazil Hooked on Junk Food.”
Dastardly! Those Big American Businessmen must have kidnapped the Brazilians, strapped them into chairs, and pumped Doritos into those poor souls with a syringe. Heaven knows, the fecklessly irresponsible Brazilians can’t be held responsible for their own diets.
How bad is it?
This bad: “As growth slows in wealthy countries, Western food companies are aggressively expanding in developing nations, contributing to obesity and health problems.”
One expert quoted in the story (no hungry people consulted) says, “Part of the problem … is a natural tendency for people to overeat as they can afford more food.”
Worse than Hurricane Irma!
Thanks to the Times’s aggressive investigative journalism, we know that these brazenly food-selling companies do not even nag their international customers to be careful about their diets. Ergo, it’s chips and other indiscriminately convenient snacks for everybody, no strings attached.
It’s become all too easy to be well-fed and overfed and mis-fed.
Thanks a lot, capitalism.
Oh for the good old hunting-and-gathering days when human beings spent much of their time starving, and the world had the human population of Binghamton. No problem with anyone gorging on Twinkies and Doritos back then. No problem of epidemics of corpulence.
We’ve lost that swell paradise … perhaps forever.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration based on original photo by David Goehring on Flickr.