Goddamn New York Times Part Eleventy Billion

I saw this onion article today, to which all I could say was that I wished it were only one section. As often happens though, I was reading that paper today* when I came across this article, from which the sentences that most made me yell at the screen are excerpted below:

For Pepsi, a Business Decision With Social Benefit

...PepsiCo’s work with the corn farmers reflects a relatively new approach by corporations trying to maintain a business edge while helping out small communities and farmers.

...The social benefits of the corn program are obvious in higher incomes that have improved nutritional and educational standards among the participating farmers, not to mention its impact on illegal immigration and possibly even the reduction of marijuana production.

...A growing number of major companies have adopted similar business tacks aimed at profitability that also prove to be economically and socially beneficial for needy people. One of the earliest examples was Danone’s development of a vitamin-enhanced yogurt product that sells for 11 cents in Bangladesh. The product is profit-neutral, but has given the company valuable insights into the 2.5 billion potential consumers who live on less than $2.50 a day.

...“We are seeing an increased focus by companies looking to see how they can use their core capabilities for public good rather than simply writing a big check,” said Gaurav Gupta, regional director for Asia at Dalberg Global Development Advisors, a consulting firm focused on international development. “They’re starting to realize that the marginal cost of doing a little extra good produces such a great impact — and not only in terms of good will, but also because it’s good for business.”

...etc. that's just from the first page, but you get the idea.

In case you don't, let's see how much Pepsi is a friend of small farmers:

Pepsi Plant in India Under Scrutiny for Groundwater Depletion

Coke and Pepsi Have Deadly Record

A few points here. First, factories in general use truly epic amounts of water, and processed food factories more than most. So if they open near farms it may be convenient for them to buy locally and save on shipping costs, but they will soon have to import anyway because the farms will have dried up and blown away, and many of the farmers will be entirely unable to support themselves. This might be a problem for the company, but not to worry, that's more than offset by the newly desperate labor pool of former farmers who will work at your factory for slave wages!

Second, the fact that, as the article says, 22 percent of the potatoes grown in Mexico are genetically engineered varieties designed to be useful for snacks, which are bought by PepsiCo to be turned into chips etc. Forcing farmers to grow cash crops and sell them to foreigners through foreign company mediators is another big part of the neoliberalism game plan. The alternative would be for them to grow, you know, food to eat, and then sell it to local people so that everyone can eat. A crazy goal for a farm, I realize. This is made impossible partly by the distorting effect of the factories' purchasing power, but also by the "food aid" that America sends to poor countries. The "aid" is free food from heavily government-subsidized industrial agribusinesses in the US. Having tons of free wheat dumped in a country absolutely destroys local farms' ability to exist. In Nicaragua they've had some luck trying to promote local maize instead of wheat, but they aren't doing great, while countries like Haiti have moved from being food independent to complete dependency in only a few years. (as a fun side effect, when crops are damaged from global warming or similar problems, America tends to turn off the tap, and food riots and starvation sweeps through the countries.) A very, very good film on one country having to come to terms with peak oil way ahead of everyone else, and concomitantly having to move away from cash crops and toward food is The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. It's free all over online, including here.

Third and finally, the idea of companies trying to do social good for poor people while also helping their bottom line is a goddamn joke, but I'm going to hope that I don't have to go into that too much.











*In other blog posts where I complained about articles in the NYT I've addressed why I read it, but to reiterate: it's important to know what's going on in the world, it's important to know the elite opinion of the coordinator class about the news of the day, and it's also nice to read well-written articles about many different topics. The NYT does all of these (especially the second one.) It is a real tragedy that there isn't a good, radical newspaper that does these instead. During the Great Depression and the strong class fighting going on around that time, there were many newspapers for many different kinds of people, but sadly we do not live in that time now.

Thus endeth my good reasons for reading the newspaper. My bad reasons are that lots of people I know read most of the articles in the NYT every day and it's nice to have a common frame of reference for talking about things. Also, there's the petty bourgeoisie inertia. Also-also, it is possible I enjoy the facile anger that can be had from reading this nonsense.