Have you ever eaten a meal consisting of products that you do not know where they came from? If you answered no, think again. Food Inc. illustrates the process that food goes through when being produced and manufactured. More specifically, it allows us to have a sneak peak from what multinational companies are deliberately hiding from us. As some find these processes troubling already, this paper consist of what three theorists would think about it. Karl Marx will be the first to be addressed, continued by Emile Durkheim, and finalizing with Max Weber. Their concepts and main ideas will be represented by examples depicted throughout the film.
Karl Marx
Karl Marx would argue that Capitalism influences on the way food is produced in America
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Monahan Lang explains, “as long as the dominant ideology remains dominant, workers will have a false consciousness… not seeing oneself as a member of the group that is exploited” (Lecture). As exemplified by Vincent Edwards, a Tyson grower, “they [Tyson] got it all figured out. If you could grow a chicken in 49 days, why would you want one you gotta grow in three months? It’s more money in your pocket” (Food Inc.). Hence, Marx would find problematic that the growers are not able to recognize that the companies are maximizing their profits, while they become more indebted. Also, the lack of awareness from growers when altering animals in the production process might seem problematic to Marx. Perhaps growers are not mindful about these processes because they do not feel fulfilled by their job – they have become human ‘machines’ due to the repetitiveness within the …show more content…
Caroline, the Perdue grower, would represent egoism since she agreed to film the actual process that the chickens she raised were going through. Besides, she was reluctant to upgrade her poultry house to a dark, tunneled-ventilated house although she knew this risked Perdue terminating the contract with her. Contrary to her, Vincent Edwards, the Tyson grower, would represent altruism since the company’s decision on filming inside the poultry house became more important than his. He did not allow the film producers to film inside his poultry houses as mandated by Tyson
In the documentary, Food Inc., we get an inside look at the secrets and horrors of the food industry. The director, Robert Kenner, argues that most Americans have no idea where their food comes from or what happens to it before they put it in their bodies. To him, this is a major issue and a great danger to society as a whole. One of the conclusions of this documentary is that we should not blindly trust the food companies, and we should ultimately be more concerned with what we are eating and feeding to our children. Through his investigations, he hopes to lift the veil from the hidden world of food.
Modern industry has replaced the privately owned workshop with the corporate factory. Laborers file into factories like soldiers. Throughout the day they are under the strict supervision of a hierarchy of seemingly militant command. Not only are their actions controlled by the government, they are controlled by the machines they are operating or working with, the bourgeois supervisors, and the bourgeois manufacturer. The more open the bourgeois are in professing gain as their ultimate goal, the more it condemns the proletariat.
In Marx’s opinion, the cause of poverty has always been due to the struggle between social classes, with one class keeping its power by suppressing the other classes. He claims the opposing forces of the Industrial Age are the bourgeois and the proletarians. Marx describes the bourgeois as a middle class drunk on power. The bourgeois are the controllers of industrialization, the owners of the factories that abuse their workers and strip all human dignity away from them for pennies. Industry, Marx says, has made the proletariat working class only a tool for increasing the wealth of the bourgeoisie. Because the aim of the bourgeoisie is to increase their trade and wealth, it is necessary to exploit the worker to maximize profit. This, according to Marx, is why the labor of the proletariat continued to steadily increase while the wages of the proletariat continued to steadily decrease.
Marx believes there is a true human nature, that of a free species being, but our social environment can alienate us from it. To describe this nature, he first describes the class conflict between the bourgeois and the proletariats. Coined by Marx, the bourgeois are “the exploiting and ruling class.”, and the proletariats are “the exploited and oppressed class” (Marx, 207). These two classes are separated because of the machine we call capitalism. Capitalism arises from private property, specialization of labor, wage labor, and inevitably causes competition.
Nutritionism and Today’s Diet Nutritionism is the ideology that the nutritional value of a food is the sum of all its individual nutrients, vitamins, and other components. In the book, “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan, he critiques scientists and government recommendations about their nutritional advice. Pollan presents a strong case pointing out the many flaws and problems that have risen over the years of following scientific studies and government related warnings on the proper amount of nutrients needed for a healthy diet. Pollan’s main point is introducing science into our food system has had more of a negative impact than a positive one, we should go back to eating more of a traditional diet. I believe food science has given us
This is because it allowed for the emergence of the powerful Bourgeoise, "In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.” As Marx explained , the Bourgeois exploited the Proletariats through the means of the long hours the laborers had to endure to receive very low wages, which maximized Bourgeois profits. Furthermore Marx claimed that "The conditions of Bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them ...it has also called the into existence the men who are wield to those weapons -the modern workers.” The elites have created a very exclusive market, In order for the market to be placed effectively; the Bourgeoisie depended on the exploitation of others to remain wealthy. Marx perceived this tactic that allowed the bourgeoisie to overthrow their predecessors could be used against the bourgeoisie in the long term. Nevertheless, the way to abolish the Bourgeois was for the Proletariats to revolt against the factories in their areas and destroy the technology inside the factories, this allowed for the return of skilled
Michael Pollan makes arguments concerning the eating habits of the average American. Pollan suggests, in spite of our cultural norms, we should simply “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.”
Almost everyone has eaten fast food at some point in their lives, but not everyone realizes the negative effects some fast food can have on our nutrition. My family especially is guilty of eating unhealthy fast food meals at least once a week because of our budget and very busy schedules. In Andrea Freeman’s article entitled, “Fast Food: Oppression through Poor Nutrition,” She argues that fast food has established itself as a main source of nutrition for families that live in average neighborhoods and have low-incomes. Freeman begins the article by explaining how the number of fast food outlets is beginning to grow in poor communities because of the cheap prices and quick service these restaurants are famous for. The overabundance of fast
From time to time I volunteer to assist with distribution of food at a local food pantry at a local church. It never dawned on me that there all kinds of clients that needed the assistance until I required to write this paper for my Sociology class. I never noticed race or gender because I only saw that there were people in need based on individual circumstances. Hard times fell upon many of people and they sought assistance the best way they could. I noticed as I passed out bags of perishable foods, there were a number of people requiring assistance. There were Caucasian men and women but most were predominately African-American. Based on the initial observation, many of them were from different social backgrounds. Some of the clients were
Marx had rather extreme views on the extent to which nature in his time had become humanized as a result of human labor. He commented, “Even the objects of the simplest, “sensuous certainty” are only given to him through social development, industry and commercial intercourse. ”[2] "Throughout their labor, humans shape their own material environment, thereby transforming the very nature of human existence in the process. ”[3] One always seemed to know their role in society.
In our fast pace society, we base everything on time and money. This need to save money and time has transformed the way we see food and purchase food. Food is an essential part of all cultures. It plays a role in every person’s life. The population has the power to choose what we eat and how the food industry is shaped. There are many important questions that we need to ask ourselves in order to keep the food industry in check. These questions are: How do we know our food is safe? What should we eat? How should food be distributed? What is good food? These are simple yet difficult questions.
Sociology is the study of society and people. Food and food ways are often elements associated with particular societies and therefore, studying such a topic can offer valuable insight into the ways of that society and the people who live in it. Although eating is a vital part of survival, with whom, how and where we eat are not. Studying such ways can illustrate and represent the identity of a person or group. The nature of people and their beliefs can be indicated when analysing their food habits. Who individuals eat with is a particularly revealing factor into gaining an understanding of their identity, culture and society (Scholliers P 2001). For this reason commensality is a term frequently used in sociological research concerning food and food ways.
“Under capitalism workers receive only a small fraction of the wealth that they alone produce, while the lion’s share goes to the capitalist owners and to the bankers, landlords, insurance companies, lawyers, politicians, and all the other parasites who live off the back of labor and perform no useful work.” (SLP). Thus, laborers are paid much less than the value of the labor that they contribute. As Karl Marx said, this is stealing, or exploitation of labor. The wages for these laborers are often too small to live off of.... ...
America is a capitalist society. It should come to a surprise when we live like this daily. We work for profit. We’ll buy either for pleasure or to sell later for profit. It should come to no surprise that our food is made the same way because we are what we eat. We are capitalist that eat a capitalist meal. So we must question our politics. Is our government system to blame for accepting and encouraging monopolies?
Marx explained how employers can exploit and alienate their workers; this is described in more detail and is known as ‘the labour’. theory of value’. Marx also goes on to explain how in a business. falling rate of profit can lead to an inevitable crisis, revolutions. can emerge and then finally lead to the socialist state.