Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser [150]
The working conditions in America’s slaughterhouses demonstrate what can happen when employers wield virtually unchecked power over their workers. When labor unions have too much influence, they can become corrupt and encourage inefficiencies. But the absence of unions can permit corporations to behave like continuing criminal enterprises, to violate labor laws with impunity. If the meatpacking industry is allowed to continue its recruitment of poor, illiterate, often illegal immigrants, many other industries will soon follow its example. The rise of a migrant industrial workforce poses a grave threat to democracy. Workers who are illegal immigrants cannot vote and have little ability to defend their legal rights. Without the countervailing force of labor unions, companies will increasingly seek out and exploit the most vulnerable members of society. As in the meatpacking industry, the progress made by American workers over the course of a century will literally vanish overnight. The rural ghettos of Lexington and Greeley should not represent the future of America’s heartland.
Any reform of the current system of industrialized agriculture will have to address the needs of independent ranchers and farmers. They are more than just a sentimental link to America’s rural past. They are a unique source of innovation and long-term stewardship of the land. Throughout the Cold War, America’s decentralized system of agriculture, relying upon millions of independent producers, was depicted as the most productive system in the world, as proof of capitalism’s inherent superiority. The perennial crop failures in the Soviet Union were attributed to a highly centralized system run by distant bureaucrats. Today the handful of agribusiness firms that dominate American food production are championing another centralized system of production, one in which livestock and farmland are viewed purely as commodities, farmers are reduced to the status of employees, and crop decisions are made by executives far away from the fields. Although competition between the large processors has indeed led to lower costs for consumers, price fixing and collusion have devastated independent ranchers and farmers. The antitrust laws outlawing such behavior need to be vigorously enforced. More than a century ago, during the congressional debate on the Sherman Antitrust Act, Henry M. Teller, a Republican senator from Colorado, dismissed the argument that lower consumer prices justified the ruthless exercise of monopoly power. “I do not believe,” Teller argued, “that the great object in life is to make everything cheap.”
Having centralized American agriculture, the large agribusiness firms are now attempting, like Soviet commissars, to stifle criticism of their policies. Over the past decade, “veggie libel laws” backed by agribusiness have been passed in thirteen states. The laws make it illegal to criticize agricultural commodities in a manner inconsistent with “reasonable” scientific evidence. The whole concept of “veggie libel” is probably unconstitutional; nevertheless, these laws remain on the books. Oprah Winfrey, among others, has been sued for making disparaging remarks about food. In Texas, a man was sued by a sod company for criticizing the quality of its lawns. In Georgia and Alabama, the veggie libel laws have been framed in imitation of British libel law, placing