No solution to any problem is ever final. Every solution will eventually develop a new set of problems that then need to be solved. Often the past can inspire future solutions. Sometimes the past is instead used to justify the continuation of present problematic practices.

We are approaching a point where the problems inherent in the modern global approach to food and agriculture (and energy) are increasing, meanwhile the advantages of those systems are waning. Set aside the issue of how far away the peak of oil may be; set aside climate changes which may well be entirely outside our control; and still the global food production, processing and distribution systems are showing far too many problems. How many salmonella and e coli outbreaks, how many recalls of beef from restaurants and grocery shelves across the nation, or across national borders, how many food riots, does it take to raise the importance of the question; isn't there a better way to feed ourselves?

What the modern era of agricultural technology accomplished in its time is not the issue. Most would grant that technology fed many more of the world's hungry, saved lives and all the rest. This does not mean, however, that more of the same is the best answer for avoiding the problems that loom. Modern agricultural technology has been based on cheap power, cheap water, cheap labor, cheap land and expanding resources. Anyone who would argue that this is our situation today is looking at the world through some mighty rosy spectacles.

We face a period where we need to be looking at efficiency, sustainability, and productivity in very different ways than they did in the Fifties. But, as this happens, there still remain in place government subsidies, economic supports and incentives that artificially lower the cost for the agribusiness status quo. Sometimes these same programs also inflate the cost of alternatives. And this is before private sector business interests begin fighting with every tool at their disposal to keep market share. [Google "Monsanto + lawsuit" to see this phenomenon on full display.]

Even with this resistance consumers willing to pay more for local organic free-range carrots, and so on are a growing market exists. There are those who then sneer about PC leftist yuppies driving their Prius to Whole Fools and why aren't good ol' American (well, not from China anyway) carrots at the supermarket good enough for them, those Francophile cheese eatin' ingrates. And don't forget organic is all pony-tailed hucksters trying to make a buck.

The more I think about it, the more I like knowing that the carrots on my dinner plate came from an organic farm I can visit run by a guy I talk to twice a week at the Farmers' Market. This winter I'll go to Whole Foods or Hannaford and buy commercial carrots from California because I'll need every nickel for heating oil. Maybe next year I'll join that root cellar collective.

Now, isn't that being "conservative"?

Posted by: Chris White on August 11, 2008 4:41 PM

Ricpic, I'm not certain that "limited government" was ever consciously adopted as a principle of traditional conservative thought, strictly speaking, or at least not outside the United States, where true conservatism never really existed because the US had no crown and no aristocracy.

Prior to 1789, European governments believed themselves to have the right to intervene in every branch of human affairs, and few people questioned this belief. Where these conservatives differed from today's big government "liberals" (with whom they may actually share one or two fundamental principles), was in their belief that human nature exists, that it could not be readily changed, and that to attempt radical changes in social organization in order to alter human nature was both impossible and blasphemous.

English liberals in the Whig (Liberal) party in the late 18th and early 19th century fought for limited government, including lower tariffs, votes for Catholics, and the rights of Parliament. Burke was part of the Whig movement, but when he turned against the French Revolution many of his former admirers and friends turned against him, so although he insisted that he always remained a Whig, his former Whig fellows thought otherwise.

English Tories supported the rights of the Crown. As the Industrial Revolution progressed and its social disorders grew, it was the Tories (who came to be known as the Conservative party) under Sir Robert Peel who fought for limited working hours, higher wages, and better conditions for workers.

American political thinkers may use words like "liberal" and "conservative", but I think the history of American political life makes more sense if you think of all American political thought as taking place within a very broad liberal spectrum.

Alias Clio

Posted by: alias clio on August 11, 2008 4:47 PM

Tschafer:

So neo-Cons are atheists? I always thought that they were supposed to be Orthodox Jewish Zionist Likudniks? Live and learn, I guess...

Years ago I had a friend--who has since died--that described himself as a Jewish Atheist. When explained to him that I thought it was a logical contradiction, he just shrugged it off saying that Judaism was not only just a religion but a cultural identity. I think many of the Neo-conservatives are of that mould.

Although there are Neo-Conservatives who are Christian, I think neo-conservatism is the conservatism you get when you try to exclude the Christian God from it: perhaps it's a conservatism that is more "inclusive": A Conservative lite. I think its appeal to a lot of Jewish intellectuals, atheistic or not, lays in the fact that they can be conservative and non-Christian at the same time. I am probably wrong about this, but I started noticing the term "Judeo-Christian" being bandied, about the same time that neo-conservatism started scoring some goals. Previously it was the Ten Commandments, as issued by God and lived by Jesus Christ.

The dividing line between neo-Conservatives and Conservatives is metaphysics; but that of course is a world of difference. Jewish Conservatism and Christian Conservatism are similar but not the same. Neo-Conservatism is an injustice to both.

Posted by: Slumlord on August 11, 2008 11:38 PM

Alias Clio,

I agree with every part of your comment. Especially good is your point that European governments, prior to 1789, no matter how authoritarian, believed that "human nature exists." This is the great divide. If human nature exists it follows that there not only should be, there must be limits on the scope of governmental tampering. If, on the other hand, man is merely plastic to be molded...well, all the horrors inevitably follow.

One minor caveat. I agree that up to the late '60s all American political thought did fall within the broad classic liberal spectrum. What is so jolting about the emergence of today's "liberals" is how thoroughly illiberal they are, what a throwback they are to 1789 and all that follows from the loosing of the totalitarian impulse.

Posted by: ricpic on August 12, 2008 9:33 AM






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