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KalliopeKefallinosSecondPaper 6 - 22 Apr 2010 - Main.JessicaGuzik
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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. | | | point taken. i thought it made it easier to read haha
-- KalliopeKefallinos - 16 Apr 2010 | |
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What an interesting essay. I just wrote a long comment, and it got deleted because I wasn't logged into the Wiki. I'll try to recreate it.
First, I think this essay would benefit from becoming two essays so that it's more cohesive as a piece of writing and because I think you can't do each issue justice in < 500 words.
I have barely any criticisms of the writing....you write well and your ideas are easy to follow.
I think you need some statistics to back up some of your points, because your conclusions about organic food consumption and baby adoption seem to be drawn based on many sweeping conclusions. For example, the article you use to support your point about adoption is only talking about a subset of adopters who try to exchange their adopted children for "better" ones. In order to make this point convincing, we really need to know what percent of people adopt.
I think I'll go through this and let you know which parts I think need to be changed. I think you could easily devote the entire 1000 words to organic food consumption, if you want to.
-- JessicaGuzik - 22 Apr 2010
sorry typo....*we need to know what percent of people who adopt exchange their babies for new ones.*
-- JessicaGuzik - 22 Apr 2010
On my second reading of this, I figured out the problem I have with the part on organic foods. You idetify two different problems, but they get tangled up into one.
First, people use food as a status symbol. Second, people aren't eating healthier. Once again, I don't think the second issue is worth discussing (see my comment in the essay) I don't believe thatt he health benefits of organic food are proportional to the increased cost....so I therefore don't think the healthy food solution had any potential to come from the organic movement.
-- JessicaGuzik - 22 Apr 2010 | | |
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