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KalliopeKefallinosSecondPaper 11 - 20 Jun 2010 - Main.KalliopeKefallinos
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The Conspicuous Consumption of Food and Babies | | | Now, if the goal of the organic movement is simply to promote "Slow Food," then perhaps treating organic food like an Hermes Birkin handbag is permissible. After all, the Birkin is made of the finest quality leather by skilled craftsmen using traditional leather-working methods. If the goal, however, is rather to change all Americans’ eating habits for the better, the organic movement as currently practiced cannot be the answer. | |
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< | My problem with this is that I don't believe the goal of the organic movement is to get Americans to eat better. In fact, I wouldn't even classify it as a movement. It's a business mechanism that gives grocery stores another way to price discriminate. So, I do think the organic movement is acheiving its "goal." I don't think suppliers of organic food care whether or not people are healthier. They care about profits. I think you might be able to make a stronger argument if you go into more detail and consider whether the movement is truly designed to better peoples' health. If that was the goal, than the healthier food should be accessible to members of all classes. I don't think the organic movement it trying to make the lower classes healthier by having them overpay (with money they don't have) on "better" produce. In fact, the additional cost of organic food probably doesn't mirror it's marginal health benefits. For example, organic produce typically costs 200% more. If someone on a budget decided to forgo going organic and use the $1 saved on every avocado to buy one more unit of say, salmon instead of red meat, they would probably be better off.
Have you read The Undercover Economist? It discusses price discrimination in grocery stores extensively, and i think youw ould enjoy it if you are interested in why the upper classes are buying these avocados and how whole foods gets them to do it. In fact, I believe the author actually talks about whole foods. I think you would like it, and I think it would help this essay. | | | International Adoption Movement
The second phenomenon I want to present through the eyes of Veblen is the current international adoption movement. Historian Kirstin Lovelock writes that, initially, international adoption emerged as a humanitarian response to the world's war-bedraggled children. The first transnational adoptees were the displaced children of Europe during and after World War II. In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of international adoptions in the U.S., from approximately 6,000 children in 1994 to over 20,000 in 2005. These children are coming predominantly from China, Ethiopia, Russia, and South Korea. | | |
-- JessicaGuzik - 19 Jun 2010 | |
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Thank you for your re-write. I will make my final changes within the next couple of days on the other document page you made, "KalliopeKefallinosRevisedPaper." My only immediate response is that I'm a bit confused--in your earlier comments you stated that I was making sweeping conclusions and needed more statistics/ facts, but in your revision, you went on to eliminate all but one of my sources. Did you read the different articles and find the facts laid out therein useless or superfluous?
-- KalliopeKefallinos - 20 Jun 2010 | | |
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