TRIGGER WARNING: Some mention of disordered eating and mental health appears briefly in this article. If you are likely to be affected by this trigger, feel free to skip the section as appropriate or read no more.
Whether it is in the form of cheap fuel to sustain oneself through a long workday, a nice meal to bond over socially as a family in the evening, or a means of showing off one's decadence and love of luxury through the buying of the finest and most exotic ingredients, food is something we all have the common need of and should act as a given basic right, and so the need for it, the ultimate universal leveller of all classes and groups in society. Its huge variety and the many different forms it takes and cultures it exists in act can help it act as the ultimate visual representation of the unity and diversity of people within society.
Or at least, that's what it should be like and it should be enjoyable for all. Sadly, it has turned into a source of conflict and inequality, an obsession, or a thing that has been turned into a mechanical afterthought and a rigid distraction from one's individual aims in a capitalist society merely to keep the cogs turning and the workplace functioning efficiently, even if potential disregard for one's personal wellbeing and needs is supposedly secondary in importance. As I sit and eat my dinner while typing away at this screen (yet another way of further proving this sentiment), I will further dig into and savour the capitalist undertones of food production. Tuck in dear readers....
According to Max Weber, society is a complex product shaped by humans' social actions (Fuchs, 2020), a sentiment further expanding upon Marx's materialist world view that people would use society and its relative assets to support their own needs and interests, and those of society collectively. This is reflected through the major overriding influence of class in the bourgeois capitalist society of his time, and their ability to exploit and use the resources and material production of the working classes to their advantage. This is not to say, however, that the idealist principles for a true utopian socialist society cannot be considered as having a role in the development of this society, and that social reformation would damage its structural integrity, but that the mutual relations between the different classes within society are merely relations of domination, and thrive off of the collective power of the masses. Structures, in the form they are described here, are built off of repeated organisational behaviours and distinct hierarchy to create an illusion of social and political stability. Indeed, this can appear to in part explain the conflict between the peasant and proletarian agricultural workers and those developing efficient technological means of mechanising agricultural production, with the latter focusing primarily on efficiency and ability to produce a large amount of food to sustain a rapidly growing population, notably with a rising middle class able to consume considerably larger amounts of available food and land. The existence of the mechanised systems of agriculture in question, as well as acting as important industrial ventures to bring in greater wealth to the bourgeois, appear further alienate the proletariat. This is especially true considering their operation relies heavily on maintaining constant capitalist relations within society (Peng, 2020), and assumes that this rising consumption will remain linear so they can continue to provide for it (thus claiming to effectively counter Malthusian economic principles in which society will be unable to function due to there being no suitable means of providing for the surplus population sustainably). This would thus present the implementation of these agroecological advancements in modernised agricultural systems to appear somewhat counterintuitive to the advancement of an evolutionary society ruled in socialist principles, especially seeing as the interests of the peasants which arguably form the foundations of this society are dismissed, and attention is instead diverted to supporting the capitalist interests of the wealthy. Moreover, increased potential for eco-fascism and greenwashing could arise due to the overshadowing of this exploitative ultra-capitalist agenda with comparatively palatable environmentalist principles which these systems also clearly advocate for.
When reflecting on this issue, the clear paradoxical nature of this logic regarding the revolutionising of agricultural production in relation to the principles of agroecology is clearly evident in that, the principles of agroecology are built on the logic that there are always the sufficient land and resources for producing food, but that the rising consumer demands under capitalism and the mechanisation and use of comparatively less sustainable methods of agriculture (i.e. through deforestation, use of chemical fertilisers, and the creation of monocultures as opposed to polycultures). These are all principles that would clearly be advocated within the socialist schools of thought. This rising consumption can also be very much attributed to globalisation and Westernisation having led to the increased consumption of meat and processed foods, both of which putting a greater strain of land and water available for this, thus leading to comparatively more unethical methods of production being adopted than prior to capitalism. With meat production, for instance, this would not have become the exploitative practise it is today, also featuring unnecessary additions to the final product to assist this if less of it needed to be produced quickly and effectively to provide for rising global demands. Indeed, it was the most natural thing to function on a diet consisting primarily of meat (and many still would do in certain environments by which limited other food is abundant, such as with the Inuits or small scale hunter gatherer societies), usually hunted, and it was purely due to evolution through natural selection allowing for the digestion of dairy and plant matter that humans evolved to adapt to a diet more similar to today's diet. It is for this reason that one should not consider meat consumption and the likes as inherently evil, unnatural and unsustainable, and should instead be diverting their attention to dismantling capitalist systems and revolutionising society, as well as reducing their consumption of these products in general, as opposed to greenwashing and pushing capitalist agenda through an alternative completely plant based diet assisted by the ironically capitalist means of marketing and facilitating this (i.e. through consumerist means of marketing alternative products, these often being comparatively more expensive to use).
Moreover, this extends to the argument that when linking back of the heavy marketing of lifestyle and health, much of this also extending to diet, it can be seen that maintaining good health is a process that involves spending vast amounts of income and supporting capitalist principles. The rise of disordered eating as a byproduct of insecurity around food, lack of control, and pressure to appear in a certain way due to a combination and accumulation of multiple physical and mental health issues further acts as a reminder of this, and something that capitalism fails to help people recover from (especially considering that many underlying factors leading up to these issues do largely stem from capitalism). I for one, as a former eating disorder sufferer, who still struggles somewhat with forming a healthy relationship with food, know this is something rarely easy to treat and something that you can feel you never lose entirely, largely because of these issues and how heavily ingrained they are within current society.
This attitude fails to make any attempt to recognise the major issues faced by many low income people in poor physical health (namely poverty, poor standard of living, lack of available green spaces and places to exercise, and the knock on consequences of poor physical and mental health) as issues brought about by capitalism, and that this is what is mainly at fault, as opposed to laziness and inability to take responsibility for one's own health through eating healthily (the strategy which many capitalists monetise and thrive off of in expanding potential economic ventures). It is without doubt that the working classes are often put at the most unfair disadvantage in this regard, with what has been coined as the "Glasgow Effect" being an excellent example of this. This principle is based off of observations that comparatively deprived urban areas with a predominantly white British working class population generally have the poorest health and standard of living (Swift, 2023). This is largely caused by the failure of capitalism in achieving economic growth through the outsourcing of previous core industries for areas in the UK such as Glasgow. This has meant that a considerable loss of income and rise in unemployment, therefore leading to inability to invest adequate funds into improving the standard of living for the people, and exacerbating socioeconomic disparities evident between the wealthiest and poorest members of society. In the case of Glasgow, there has been reported to have been a rise in unemployment by 4.7% since 2022 (above the Scottish average of 3.1%), and a rate of economic inactivity (as in neither employed nor seeking work) reaching 25.5% (ONS, 2023). Because of this, it can be clear why many residents of these deprived areas of the UK face significant inequalities regarding their health and quality of life, with life expectancy for those in deprived parts of Glasgow being 54 versus 82 for less deprived parts of Glasgow for these reasons, according to a 2008 report by the World Health Organisation (WHO). While many of these affected families struggle with poor access to high quality and nutritious food, merely putting them to blame and incentivising them to make improved choices is not a solution to the issue, and only serves to act as a rigid distraction from the flaws of an unequal society and the underlying issues posed by the prevalence of capitalism.
It is through an effective analysis of the structural flaws of the current unequal UK society that one can observe the clear need for true socialist change through true revolutionary influence. Food should be seen the way it is, as a basic right and a universal leveller enjoyed and required by all to act as a compulsory means of pleasure and fulfillment which helps bring others forward in enabling positive societal change, as opposed to something exacerbating division and that instils an unjustified sense of fear amongst the people purely down to the way capitalism has had it become viewed.
No comments:
Post a Comment