Look for specials in this week's Sunday paper

December 28, 2004 8:53 AM

Unblemished and uniform in size. The price is low as consumers destroy Central American farmers by way of giant supermarkets.
posted by orange clock (44 comments total)

From the article:
To go upstairs was to leave Guatemala behind and enter a mall that could be in Bangkok or New York, with its synthetic Christmas wreaths, cheap clothing stores and oversized discount packages of napkins and symmetrical tomatoes in plastic trays at the Maxi Bodega.

The Baldetti family exemplified the generational change unfolding here.

Delia Baldetti, an 81-year-old housewife, will only shop for produce amid the heaps of tomatoes, chilies and papayas where she can bargain to her heart's content. Her daughter Elsa, a 56-year-old painter, shops both here and at Maxi Bodega, while Elsa's daughter, a 36-year-old business administrator, only has time for the supermarket.

Ain't globalization grand.
posted by zpousman at 9:13 AM on December 28, 2004

The very last section of the article offers quite the solution. A rare example probably because the other coöperatives don't follow it. Clearly, selling to national supermarkets in a very small group doesn't work at this point and the small coöp is not able to deliver what the marketplace wants. It's a bitch, but if no one wants to purchase what you have to offer and you don't have power enough to change the practices of the purveyors, there's little that can be done when you own an acre of land and depend on it; you try to do it on your own.

I could (and have) bitched all day about the heartless and exploitive nature of globalization and giant corporations, but there comes a time for adaptability. We should strive to help those who cannot adapt in one field and try to create opportunities where we can. We are not powerless or heartless, here. As the article pointed out, there are already several organizations working on the agricultural and marketing sides. I think they should take a cue from Aj Ticonel.

I don't know what could be done for farmers who can't or don't change their practices. If Mr. Chinchilla's tomatoes are as tasty as the produce of my childhood (and I'm sure they are) I'd snatch them up before the bland monstrosities at my local C-Town in a minute. He just needs to get them to me. Then again, he can't grow them well, he doesn't know why and likely is not able to get them to me.

Unraveling the whole globalization process and its pressures is a study for a lifetime. All I've figured out in the years I've been aware of it is that no one factor plays into it. It does bring benefits and it does bring heartache.

Obviously shopping as little as possible at large chain stores is not enough here in the United States and as far as what effect I could have in Central America, it is beyond me. Do I go over to the corner supermarket and say "Hey, I read about this guy in the New York Times; you should buy his tomatoes?" Perhaps. More personal solutions like that may have an affect, if the Aj Ticonel example of changing strategies to focus on export is anything.
posted by Captaintripps at 10:46 AM on December 28, 2004

Right, because in a competitive market, it's best to offer people substandard produce at higher prices. From the very first page:

Squatting next to his field, Mr. Chinchilla's rugged face was a portrait of defeat. "They wanted consistent supply without ups and downs," he said, scratching the soil with a stick. "We didn't have the capacity to do it."

I'd see the story here if the supermarkets were foisting off substandard produce and making people sick, selling at a loss just to kill off the competition. But that doesn't seem to be the case. This looks like a more organized, productive company is providing a superior product. Hell, they even tried to buy from the local farmers and they couldn't produce.

I'm sorry, I just don't see the Evil™ here.

Unraveling the whole globalization process and its pressures is a study for a lifetime.

And that's completely unrealistic. There is no "unraveling" globalization. The genie is out of the bottle, and has been for a long time. There's no going back. Ultimately, humans are moving towards a globalized social and economic structure that ends with a single world government and megacorporations providing the bulk of goods and services; there will still be entrepreneurs, but as we here in the States have learned, the Davids must fill a need not met by the Goliaths, and then either grow to become a Goliath themselves, or be acquired by one. Such is life.
posted by mstefan at 10:57 AM on December 28, 2004

"Globalization" is really "Americanization," isn't it?
posted by kozad at 10:59 AM on December 28, 2004

"Globalization" is really "Americanization," isn't it?

From the article:

For a time, the farmer's cooperative he heads managed to sell vegetables to the chain, part owned by the giant Dutch multinational, Ahold...

The short answer is, no, it's just not just "Americanization". There's a lot of multinational corporations that aren't based in the US.
posted by mstefan at 11:03 AM on December 28, 2004

mstefan: I meant unraveling as in figuring out the different threads involved in its existence, not unraveling as in stopping and reversing it.
posted by Captaintripps at 11:04 AM on December 28, 2004

Kozad: Another article from this morning's NY Times as a counter-example to your witless assertion:

Leading Chinese TV Exporter Has Huge Loss
posted by billsaysthis at 11:42 AM on December 28, 2004

Regardless of whether or not there's any evil at work here, this could mean a major social and urban problem in LA (and other underdeveloped parts of the world). Just as the green revolution in the '60s caused massive migration from the country to the city, with consequent urban and social problems, including slums, crime and political and legal instability.
Land-property issues played a big part in many of the coupes which lead to a string of brutal dictatorships all along the continent. Housing and Farmland ownership was (and in some cases, is) a major political issue in all of LA, and governments rose or fell on their promises and performance regarding building house for all the people who couldn't maintain their rural lifestyles. This could, and did, include expropriation of privately owned land with or without compensation, and provided a fertile ground for right-wing coups.
I'm not anti-globalization at all, as a Chilean I feel that it has favored my country greatly. But you can't just ignore or chalk up to some invisible hand the gross inequalities and social problems it causes among some of the poorest people in the world.
posted by signal at 12:07 PM on December 28, 2004

To some extent, the farmers' problem is one of distribution and marketing. If they could get their produce more easily to specialty stores in wealthy areas, customers would gladly pay premium for "hand-grown small-farm" anything.

"Authenticity" has a lot of cultural cachet right now, and anybody with the means to tap into it can make bank off of the anti-globalization/adbuster crowd. You don't even need a business model that involves exploiting the farmers, provided there's any way to make them stick with physically intensive farm work once they're rich enough that they don't need to do it to survive.

Otherwise it, y'know, ruins the authenticity.
posted by Luther Blissett at 12:14 PM on December 28, 2004

And, for the record, being anti-globalization to me sounds like being anti-industrial revolution. Reifying and demonizing "globalization" just serves to obscure the real issues and dumb down the debate.
posted by signal at 12:16 PM on December 28, 2004

I guess my flippant comment about globalization being synonomous with Americanization was bound to be perceived as "witless."

I meant it in more of a cultural sense than in an economic sense, however.

Yesterday I read an article about the last Mexican state without a McDonald's, and the eventual building of that McDonald's, and the ensuing celebration.

Traditionally, men at work in the city would build small fires and warm up the lunches their wives had packed for them in the morning. Now, they vastly prefer burgers and fries.

It may be a cliche to mourn the loss of the world's cultural diversity, but there are a lot of songs, dances, and languages that are never coming back, and the American way of life (include the nature of Western civilization if you feel like it) is in large part responsible for this.

(And sure, I like central heating, novacaine and the Internet, just to head off the neo-Luddite thread derailment comin' 'round the corner.)
posted by kozad at 12:29 PM on December 28, 2004

It only seems hopeless (culturally) because we're in it and a part of it. I can't think of a better example than former Roman provinces which are now culturally distinct members of the family of nations. America won't be around forever, and just as species and markets evolve and die, so has and will culture.

There were extinct songs, dances and styles of dress long before Americanization or Globalization ever came into play. I don't see any Olmecs, Carthaginians or Cro-Magnons running around any more. The hunter-gatherer way of life is almost extinct and that results little from globalization. It's not a happy thing, but what's going on now does not mean an end to diversity. America is not the beginning of homogeneity.
posted by Captaintripps at 12:36 PM on December 28, 2004

It may be a cliche to mourn the loss of the world's cultural diversity, but there are a lot of songs, dances, and languages that are never coming back, and the American way of life (include the nature of Western civilization if you feel like it) is in large part responsible for this.

That's absolute nonsense. Mankind has lost -- through time, cultural changes, wars, mass migration -- more "songs, dances and languages" than I'm sure any of us know about over the past 8,000+ years. American influence over the past hundred years or so is just a blip on the radar.

It is the nature of things. As we move forward, relics of the past are lost and forgotten. Sometimes they are rediscovered. Sometimes not. Demonizing any one society for this is just silly.
posted by mstefan at 12:40 PM on December 28, 2004

The hunter-gatherer way of life is almost extinct and that results little from globalization. It's not a happy thing...

Oh, please. Not a happy thing? Yes, so many people would be living a higher quality of life if they were forced to spend 90% of their waking life scrounging around for nuts and berries in the woods whilst still trying to make time to hump the next male or female they find so that they can have more children to scrounge around for nuts and berries.

That's as goofy as asserting, in some sort of neo-hippy communist notion, that people would be more happy living a life of subsistance farming.

Good fucking grief.
posted by mstefan at 12:43 PM on December 28, 2004

mstefan: Hmm, you sound angry. Maybe you are.

I can accept a loss of cultural diversity, of which I think hunting and gathering is a part, without thinking of it as a superior way of life in any way.

I certainly wouldn't want to live that way and don't follow people like Jared Diamond along the path of "look how much better these people are."

Yeah, I don't think it's happy. There is knowledge there and something different from me. I enjoy such things. I certainly don't understand the knee-jerk reaction to a post containing none of the things you claim it did. Perhaps it's the RAGE#™.
posted by Captaintripps at 12:57 PM on December 28, 2004

One of the key problems with globalisation is that while it has created an international trading environment and put in place some legal restraints regarding behaviour in the global setting, these are all in regard to economic interests. There is very little in the way of international law aimed at protecting rights across the board in a way that exist at the national level in pretty much all countries (albeit with varying degrees of usefulness). Until a significant body of international law develops which addresses multiple interests at the global level, ie, social, environmental etc, there will remain virtually no protection for many within the 'global' community. Easier said than done of course.
posted by biffa at 1:02 PM on December 28, 2004

mstefan: Hmm, you sound angry. Maybe you are.

Not angry, perhaps just frustrated at this wistful notion about how wonderful the "diversity" was of years gone by. This idea of some idyllic agrarian utopia where man is best when he is at one with nature, harvesting his crops, screwing his woman and bouncing his babies on his knee.

It's complete utter rubbish. In my opinion, of course.
posted by mstefan at 1:37 PM on December 28, 2004

kozad, the first multinational corporation in the world was the Dutch East India Company. I think Royal Ahold, Dutch Shell, and other enormous Netherlands multinationals would be angry as hell for you to describe them as "American".
posted by Sidhedevil at 1:37 PM on December 28, 2004

Fortunately I feel safe in saying that I've never imagined such a "utopia."
posted by Captaintripps at 2:06 PM on December 28, 2004

True, Sidhedevil!

And insofar as taking the long view on the matter of cultural diversity and change, there can certainly be no argument with that.

But in my less philosophical moments, I would miss the shimmering beauty of the Balinese gamelan orchestras, were that to disappear along with the traditional musics of Mali, the Bahamas, Mongolia, etc.

By the way, there are many gamelan groups in America with mostly white players (I was part of one for a year or so), and it says something about all these issues we are discussing that Balinese Gamelan masters routinely encourage us American players to visit Bali and demonstrate our passion for the music in the hopes that their young people rethink their predeliction for American music over of the fuddy-duddy music of their grandparents.
posted by kozad at 2:13 PM on December 28, 2004

I guess I keyed off your "it's not a happy thing" comment. My apologies if I came off overly gruff there.
posted by mstefan at 2:13 PM on December 28, 2004

And, for the record, being anti-globalization to me sounds like being anti-industrial revolution. Reifying and demonizing "globalization" just serves to obscure the real issues and dumb down the debate.

But anti-industrial revolution, by say the luddites, wasn't really anti industrialization, it was merely let's take a look at how this change will affect our social structure and see if we can make the transformation in manner beneficial to many people rather than a few. It didn't work and large scale poverty, hideous working conditions, etc. resulted while a few people got filthy rich. To quote Saul:

"Accusations of Ludditism have become the all-purpose, pro-progress response. This revelatory because the well-trained, hard-working, conscientious craftsmen who became the Luddites, in response to their sudden exclusion by the owners of a few new machines, more or less had it right. And they had it right two centuries ago. They didn't call for an end to machines or progress. If you transform their language into ours, they were simply proposing a more inclusive, balanced, employment-conscious, profit-sharing, societally aware approach towards progress. It was a commonsensical, prudent, sophisticated aprraoch towards change, an approach which accepted complexity and took the other into considertion. In other words, their approach went beyond a few machines belonging to a few factory owners who saw progress as the equivalent of a gold rush and their ownership of those machines as something which trumped the public good...the results were unbearable social and work conditions, poorhouses, unprecedented urban slums, the continuation of labour defined soley by commerce...the rise of communism, with facism hard on its heels."

From On Equilibrium.

Sure there are shrill accusations and questionable conclusions from both perspectives but it's rather telling that there is more concern for the affects of gay marriage on the structure of society then economics.

And when will DVD distributors drop the region encoding? When will true globalization come to consumers?
posted by juiceCake at 2:24 PM on December 28, 2004

...they were simply proposing a more inclusive, balanced, employment-conscious, profit-sharing, societally aware approach towards progress.

In short, socialism or some variant thereof, in order to protect their own self-interests. I seriously doubt that most of them were thinking about "the other"; they were thinking about themselves getting the short end of the stick.

And, fundamentally, such notions run contrary to human nature and the Gekko rule.
posted by mstefan at 2:37 PM on December 28, 2004

In short, socialism or some variant thereof, in order to protect their own self-interests. I seriously doubt that most of them were thinking about "the other"; they were thinking about themselves getting the short end of the stick.

I won't argue with your opinion because it's just that, you're opinion. I would argue that not everything is motivated by self-interest and if you do benefit it doesn't mean that is the sole reason. But then that's complexity you see. Besides, it's not necessarily socialism but if you want to label it that, that is fine. Look through the history of the United States and many European countries and you'll find "socialism" everywhere. They weren't trying to oust governments or change the nature of government whatsoever. But these days economics, free market, and free people mean the same thing. Rather glosses over the real issues as you said before. Why are they not allowed to gloss over but you are?

And, fundamentally, such notions run contrary to human nature and the Gekko rule.

How so? One on hand you say it's self interest on their part and on the other (unless i'm mistaken) imply that self interest is not contrary to human nature and yet their's is? And what of the uproar about the social consequences of gay marriage? Why is it ok to be socially concerned in one arena but not in economics.
posted by juiceCake at 2:43 PM on December 28, 2004

My point is not that globalization or the industrial revolutoin are good or bad, but that they just are abstract economic and social phenomena which it makes no point to be "anti-". We're in the middle of it, and of course we should try for our societies to be as humane as possible, but declaring yourself against impersonal historical processes, and trying to give them labels like "evil" or "good" seems a bit simplistic, at best. Reminds me of the "war on abstract nouns" craze up north.
posted by signal at 2:48 PM on December 28, 2004

One on hand you say it's self interest on their part and on the other (unless i'm mistaken) imply that self interest is not contrary to human nature and yet their's is?

You misunderstood me. Economics is fundamentally driven by human greed and avarice; no economic decision is truly made "for the greater good". There is always the ulterior motive. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. My point was that the Luddites weren't in it for the greater good of all mankind, encouraging industrialists to "think of the little guy". They were in it for self-preservation. That's not a bad thing, but it puts your comments in a different light, eliminating the implied moral high ground there.

And what of the uproar about the social consequences of gay marriage? Why is it ok to be socially concerned in one arena but not in economics.

Honestly, I think that the issue has little to do with being socially concerned and is more wrapped up in religion, faith and man's tendency to cling on to irrational belief systems based on the idea of adherence to dogma yielding eternal rewards after your body is rotting in the ground. Apples and oranges, in other words.
posted by mstefan at 3:43 PM on December 28, 2004

MStefan: personally, I think we should prohibit people from even hiring anybody to transport produce between farmers and the retail consumers because that hurts the cultural phenomenon of inconveniencing the heck out of people who just want to buy tomatoes. Not only should we outlaw the big groceries stores with stable supply and decent prices, let's outlaw farmers' markets and make people beg and perform cultural songs and dances for their salad ingredients. That will preserve things nicely.
posted by esquire at 4:03 PM on December 28, 2004

no economic decision is truly made "for the greater good".

Was the anti-slavery movement in the UK driven by economic motivations?
posted by biffa at 4:55 PM on December 28, 2004

NAFTA, CAFTA ... all ways to help agri-business move into new territory.
posted by nathanrudy at 4:56 PM on December 28, 2004

esquire quips:
...make people beg and perform cultural songs and dances for their salad ingredients. That will preserve things nicely.

Heh, absolutely. Want those cukes? Show me the Bagobo harvest dance, and dance it good!

biffa writes:
Was the anti-slavery movement in the UK driven by economic motivations?

Honestly, I couldn't answer that. And keep in mind that I said "no economic decision is made for the greater good"; I didn't make a blanket statement that no decision at all is ever made for the greater good.
posted by mstefan at 6:46 PM on December 28, 2004

mstefan: Anthropologists have established since the 1960s that hunting and gathering people spend, on average, about 30% of their waking hours procuring food. And these are hunters and gatherers in the more marginal environments where agriculture or horticulture does poorly.

Also, the adoption of agriculture is associated with marked increases in physiological stresses and malnutrition, as mapped on the skeletons of early agriculturalists.

The notion that the current linguistic die off is at all comparable to past ones is manifestly ridiculous. 500 years ago there were 2500 languages spoken in the Americas. Now there is probably less than 10% of that number. 150 years ago there were 29 languages spoken in British Columbia. Now every one of those languages is either extinct or almost so. In the past, yes, things changes - but diversity was replaced by diversity. Now, we see diversity replaced by homogeneity - a human monoculture.
posted by Rumple at 10:32 PM on December 28, 2004

Anthropologists have established since the 1960s that hunting and gathering people spend, on average, about 30% of their waking hours procuring food.

That would have to encompass a rather limited scope of what involves "procuring food". For example, hunter/gatherers spent a great amount of time migrating from one area to the next in order to be able to procure that food. While it wasn't the act itself of picking a berry off a bush, the time spent finding that bush (or enough bushes to feed their entire clan, etc.) could be extensive. There's a reason that man didn't start to leap forward technologically until we developed systems whereby every individual wasn't spending large amounts of their own time being directly responsible for their own immediate survival.

And I reject the idea that you can even state with any kind of certaintainty that the loss of langauges spoken in the last 500 years outstrip any other period. Give me a concrete number of languages spoken by man 8,000 years ago. Now, prove to me that we've stopped speaking a greater number of languages in the past 500 years than the previous 7,500. Somehow, I doubt you'll be able to do this, but I'm open to be proven wrong.

And, on a completely separate note, that loss of some 2500 languages is not a bad thing in of itself. Language is, first and foremost, a means of communication. Not an art form, as there seems to be some implication here. Having a huge number of languages only inhibits human progress and frustrates its very purpose -- the exchange of ideas between human beings. Ideally, we'll work ourselves down to a single language at some point.
posted by mstefan at 11:19 PM on December 28, 2004

With their 70% free time hunter gatherers had an abundance of time for leisure activities such as death from broken legs and communicable disease.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 12:08 AM on December 29, 2004

Were that we could get all those nifty and unique things other languages have into the coming überlanguage. I want those tenses which describe knowledge I know for sure and knowledge I know only second-hand while I'm speaking.

Oh, and mstefan, no problem about the gruffness. It is the interconnected network after all.
posted by Captaintripps at 12:11 AM on December 29, 2004

Theonlycooltim: health got worsewith the widespread introduction of agriculture so your comment makes no sense.

mstefan: no one can say how many languages there were 8000 years ago. However, a similar catastrophic die off of 90% of the languages would most assuredly leave some indirect traces in the archaeological record - for example, largescale cultural integration or homogenization, massive widespread epidemics, etc. Anyway, who mentioned anything about 8,000 years ago? You did, so you make the case. As for my time frame, the last 500 years, the number of languages is pretty well established from early historical records. If a language is lost by evolving into a new language - or splitting into two new languages - as was the likely case for long term linguistic diversity, that is a vastly differnent kind of loss than the replacement of a suite of unique languages with a linguistic monoculture. If you can't see the inherent value of linguistic diversity then you are a Philistine.

As for "picking berries off the bush" etc, you might well think that this "would have to encompass a fairly narrow definition of what constitutes procuring food" but you would be thinking wrong. Consult any introductory text in Anthropology or read Marshall Sahlins "Stone Age Economics". Counter-intuitive as it may be, farming takes a lot more effort than hunting and gathering, and in its incipient phases at least, it allows for more people but unhealthier people. Most communicable disease probably stem from prolonged contact with domestic animals.

To say that ideally we will have a single language is a statement of ignorance equal to "ideally we would only have one species". Someone appears to have filled you with the misconception that humans are rational self interested optimizing economic agents enacting "human nature". That widespread idea is a simpleminded and naive attempt at naturalizing 19th century free-market ideals.
posted by Rumple at 12:45 AM on December 29, 2004

To say that ideally we will have a single language is a statement of ignorance equal to "ideally we would only have one species".

Language is not an end, it is a means to an end. What is the direct (or even indirect) benefit to me and the other billions of people who have no idea what the hell we're saying to one another, unable to communicate beyond simple hand gestures? If you're looking for ignorance, it's as close as your bathroom mirror, my friend.

Make the argument to me that my life is richer because I am unable to exchange ideas with someone who only speaks Cantonese.
posted by mstefan at 1:14 AM on December 29, 2004

Oh and as far as the whole hunter-gatherer thing is concerned, I think reality flies in the face of the idea that it was more efficient than agriculture and industrialization. Unless you somehow believe that mankind was rocketing towards personal enlightenment and becoming the predominant species on the planet whilst plucking fruit and nuts in the wild, only to be stopped in our tracks by civilization.
posted by mstefan at 1:21 AM on December 29, 2004

And keep in mind that I said "no economic decision is made for the greater good"; I didn't make a blanket statement that no decision at all is ever made for the greater good.

You were arguing I think that people act in their self interest to establish more equitable frameworks for distirubtion of wealth ('socialism') yet there are clear examples of individuals acting to make social changes which aren't in their economic self interest.
posted by biffa at 2:01 AM on December 29, 2004

no economic decision is truly made "for the greater good"

That's funny. I wonder what Alan Greenspan thinks he's doing.
posted by krinklyfig at 2:42 AM on December 29, 2004

"health got worsewith the widespread introduction of agriculture so your comment makes no sense."

And the industrial revolution sucked for a while too, but lifespans now are longer than lifespans in 1750.

Do the anthropologists have any ideas on how the hunter gatherers spent the other 70% of their time? That's important too.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 3:29 AM on December 29, 2004

Just an FYI, the life expectancy of someone living and working in Bradford during the heart of the industrial revolution was around 20 years old. This site has it at just over 18 years old.

I've noticed that since I started buying my vegetables from a local greengrocer that they simply taste better even though they might look a bit manky.
posted by jackiemcghee at 4:03 AM on December 29, 2004

That's funny. I wonder what Alan Greenspan thinks he's doing.

Making the rich richer and keeping everyone else buying at Wal-Mart. What the hell do you think he's doing? Or is Greenspan the next coming of the Messiah for you, or something?
posted by mstefan at 8:37 AM on December 29, 2004

mstefan: ever hear of speaking more than one language?

re: agriculture - a system which allows for the creation of a surplus allows for some people to not work in food production. Through most of history, and still in many parts of the world, this has taken the form of exploitation of peasants by elites, and, secondarily, of a "middle class" of craftsmen who have often been the ones driving technological advance. Agriculture has, historically, been good for the few and bad for the many. And there are many more many because of surplus, and they die like flies when the crops fail, as they do.

Nowhere do I say hunting and gathering was more "efficient." Agriculture makes you work harder, and you get more food as a result. But it introduces social forces which are the roots of social inequality, for all the good and bad that produces in the world.

In any case, I see from your other posts that you are a ditto-head so I won't bother trying to educate you any more.
posted by Rumple at 12:09 PM on December 29, 2004

mstefan: ever hear of speaking more than one language?

Sorry, I'm too busy being oppressed by The Man™ and the inequitable social conditions being foisted on me by agribusiness.
posted by mstefan at 1:16 PM on December 29, 2004