The Grand Food Bargain

My Food, My Way 35

The sticker price of food introduces one more global system hidden
in the checkout aisle of the supermarket: market economics. Before
food companies surrender their products to consumers, this mother
of all human-made systems is called into action. The Englishman
credited with enlightening America on how market economics could
benefit the country was Adam Smith. In his seminal book, The Wealth
of Nations, Smith wrote that when individuals act in their own self-
interest, societies attain greater prosperity.^ His book was published
in  6 —opportune timing to grab the attention of a nation of farm-
ers and guide them forward.
Smith’s teachings laid out the way societies could move beyond
subsistence living. When workers specialize in particular tasks, he
noted, their productivity increases. Higher levels of productivity mul-
tiplied across countless households and businesses result in the avail-
ability of more goods and services as well as rising levels of income.
More people can buy and consume nonessential products like im-
ported spices, better cuts of meats, and fashionable clothes. Higher
standards of living can be attained. Smith regarded as self-evident
his understanding that the ultimate goal of a market economy was to
maximize the country’s wealth, conveniently measured in terms of the
total amount of goods and services produced.
What set Smith’s ideas apart, at a time when basic subsistence and
government-imposed practices favored society’s elite, was his thesis
that the pursuit of self-interest by the masses had the unplanned
benefit of greater overall national wealth. Each person, Smith wrote,
“is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of
his intention.” In short, a market economy blesses selfishness as the
gateway to altruistic outcomes.
Of course, coupling individual self-interest with benevolent out-
comes was premised on certain qualifiers worth remembering as we
explore the grand food bargain and the modern food system. The
first is increasing reliance on markets functioning effectively. Smith
believed that markets were self-correcting. Competition would hold
supply and demand in check. Too much surplus and prices would
fall, whereby businesses would pursue other options. Too little avail-
ability and prices would rise, whereby businesses would produce more.
In actuality, what comprises competition and competitive conditions