quote:
The problem with Belloc’s distributist model is it ignores the historical reality that it’s ideal world in which the peasant farmer owned the patch of land he farmed would not be possible without the widespread wealth created by the Industrial Revolution.

I appreciate your sincere response, some here don't approach this with nuance and instead see a critique their second religion and start screaming "commie/socialist".

I think Belloc's intent is that decentralized or broadly shared ownership (vs centralized ownership) is the ultimate good that should be pursued. His background in Europe and friendship with many English (particularly Chesteron) gave him a view of English feudal society before Henry VII oversaw the creation of the oligarchy class with his dissolution of small scale land contracts maintained via monasteries and abbeys.

I think it is unfair to assume that he pines for a make believe world. Look up Mondragon for a real world example of how employee coops can and should be more widely encouraged.

He, like me, would be as disgusted by socialists seizing property as he would be by modern corporations racing to find harmful ways to max EBITDA.

Ponder one if the running jokes of our day "you'll own nothing and like it". Surely there are those on the left who are very guilty of pushing for policies that would deprive you of ownership.

For the unbridled Capitalists, how about some intellectual honesty. Does Monsanto want farmers to own their own seeds in 2024? Does john deere want them to own their won equipment and be capable of fixing it independently? Does the "_____ as a service" point to the future to come where the tools you use for trade, leisure, or needs are only available to you on a contract basis?

What evil awaits us as people own less and less property? As business interests, working with that allegedly disinterested/benign laissez-faire model, move to limit competition? Will an AI managed workforce that seeks shareholder gains over actual long term health work in a rational way that benefits any real portion of society? At a certain point, the net benefit of good numbers for 401ks diminishes.

This post was edited on 2/25/24 at 8:59 pm

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Posted by Toomer Deplorable

Team Bitter Clinger

Member since May 2020

17990 posts

Posted on 2/26/24 at 7:53 pm to Foch

quote:
socialists seizing property

And here we have it. Capitalism per se is not the problem since capitalism is based on the freedom of individuals to own properties and to possess material goods for the individual’s personal consumption or use free of state intervention or other means of coercion.

Corporatism — not capitalism — is the problem. Whatever monopolistic practices Monsanto holds is because the USDA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Agra®.

And make no mistake, this development is a bipartisan creation of the UniParty®. This is yet another reason why any vote in this UniParty® dog & pony show is ultimately a vote for the left or right wing of the Deep State.

How soon will the Left eat their own? Let’s start with the issue of GMOs, poisonous Roundup, and Monsanto…

…Joe Biden is going to appoint Mr. Monsanto, Tom Vilsack, as his Secretary of Agriculture. Tommy boy held that post under Obama.

The Organic Consumers Association writes [1] see also [2], [3], [4]:

quote:
“If, like us, you dream of an organic, regenerative food system led by independent family farmers, then news that Joe Biden has asked Tom Vilsack to return to his Obama Era post as Secretary of Agriculture should be a real cause for concern.”

…when you look behind the curtains to see what Vilsack was really doing at USDA from 2009 through 2017, it’s not pretty.”

He pushed through a corporate agribusiness agenda that began with his approval of more new genetically modified crops than any other Secretary, culminated in his shepherding of a bill to kill GMO labels through Congress…

But, Biden doesn’t care about any of this. Vilsack is Biden’s buddy and that’s all that matters to him. As the American Prospect reports, Vilsack has had ‘a decades-long relationship with Joe Biden, going back to when he endorsed him for president while mayor of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, in 1988’

Vilsack has remained very loyal to Biden. In the last year, he gave Biden more than $8,000 in campaign contributions (excluding money from his wife or to Democratic Party committees).”

This support didn’t just get him a job in the cabinet, he wrote Biden’s campaign platform on agriculture issues, stuffing it full of false solutions like corn ethanol and methane digesters run on factory farm dairy waste.”

We need a USDA Secretary of Agriculture who will be a hero, steering our food and farming system toward a brighter, regenerative future—not a Secretary who will continue to be a pawn for the same corporate interests that are causing, and profiting from, the mess we are in.”

Good luck with that dream under Biden…

Keep in mind that Biden’s new secretary of agriculture, Tom Vilsack, was on board every step of the way, with Obama. Vilsack was enabler, expert, political operative, cheerleader —

MEET MONSANTO’S MAN IN WASHINGTON, BARACK OBAMA

Obama? A warrior against corporations on behalf of the people? It’s long past the time for ripping that false mask away.

During his 2008 campaign for president, Barack Obama transmitted signals that he understood the GMO/Roundup issue. Several key anti-GMO activists were impressed. They thought Obama, once in the White House, would listen to their concerns and act on them.

These activists weren’t just reading tea leaves. On the campaign trail, Obama said: “Let folks know when their food is genetically modified, because Americans have a right to know what they’re buying.”

Making the distinction between GMO and non-GMO was certainly an indication that Obama, unlike the FDA and USDA, saw there was an important line to draw in the sand.

Beyond that, Obama was promising a new era of transparency in government. He was adamant in assuring that, if elected, his administration wouldn’t do business “the old way.” He would be “responsive to people’s needs.”

Then came the reality.

After the election, people who had been working to label GMO food and warn the public of its huge dangers were shocked to the core. They saw Obama had been pulling a bait and switch.

After the 2008 election, Obama filled key posts with Monsanto people, in federal agencies that wield tremendous force in food issues, the USDA and the FDA:

At the USDA, as the director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Roger Beachy, former director of the Monsanto Danforth Center.

As deputy commissioner of the FDA, the new food-safety-issues czar, the infamous Michael Taylor, former vice-president for public policy for Monsanto. Taylor had been instrumental in getting approval for Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone.

As commissioner of the USDA, Iowa governor, Tom Vilsack. Vilsack had set up a national group, the Governors’ Biotechnology Partnership, and had been given a Governor of the Year Award by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, whose members include Monsanto.

As the new Agriculture Trade Representative, who would push GMOs for export, Islam Siddiqui, a former Monsanto lobbyist.

As the new counsel for the USDA, Ramona Romero, who had been corporate counsel for another biotech giant, DuPont.

As the new head of the USAID, Rajiv Shah, who had previously worked in key positions for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a major funder of GMO agriculture research.

We should also remember that Obama’s secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, once worked for the Rose law firm. That firm was counsel to Monsanto.

Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court. Kagan, as federal solicitor general, had previously argued for Monsanto in the Monsanto v. Geertson seed case before the Supreme Court.

The deck was stacked. Obama hadn’t simply made honest mistakes. Obama hadn’t just failed to exercise proper oversight in selecting appointees. He wasn’t just experiencing a failure of short-term memory. He was staking out territory on behalf of Monsanto and other GMO corporate giants.

[1] https://advocacy.organicconsumers.org/page/25412/action/1

[2] https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/tom-vilsack-agriculture-secretary-everything-thats-wrong-democratic-party

[3] https://www.organicconsumers.org/blog/back-future-tom-mr-monsanto-vilsack-part-i

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/21/joe-biden-tom-vilsack-agriculture-secretary

This post was edited on 2/26/24 at 8:12 pm

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