Occasionally I see posts on FB that assert that capitalism will kill us all. Usually I respond by wishing that progressives would be less hyperbolic in their claims. But yesterday when I was in Cub Foods I walked by a large garbage bin full of food. Blemished but otherwise good food. Apples with dimples. Unusually shaped pears. That sort of thing. On top lay a ten-pound bag of potatoes. I picked it up and inspected it. I couldn't tell the difference between this bag and the bags that were still on display for sale. I briefly considered buying it, but chose not to. And my reason for so deciding? It's ironic. I hardened myself to the waste of so much food because I remembered that waste like this was happening at this moment in tens of thousands of stores around the country. This is not Cub's fault. They didn't make the rules. Consumers get to buy apples without dimples. The problem is that the primary purpose of our food industry is not to feed our people. It is to make money for the shareholders of whatever corporation owns Cub. The way we have chosen to manage our assets - food in this case - our jobs, our money, etc. is an arbitrarily selected system. It's capitalism. None of this would be really problematic were we all being fed. But we are not. 37,000,000 Americans live with food insecurity. The waste and exclusion from services happens across all industries: health care, energy, security, and housing. No, capitalism will not kill us all, but it is killing many of us every day. Guess which communities suffer the worst.
