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In the past two months, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around economics.  HaHa, yes.  Let’s take a moment here to giggle.  Those who know me might laugh at the fact that I’ve avoided taking any sort of economics class since high school, and that I make a goofy “math face” whenever I compute money into financial statements.  And those who don’t know me that well will also argue that in order to make any real arguments in the world of food policy, one must understand the system in order to become a game changer. Valid in point.

So as of late, I have been studying the ins and outs of capital and what it has meant historically in terms of a bartering system for the idea of a free market system.  Woooweee, loaded words indeed.

Because when I think of a supermarket, and all the different lenses in which you can dissect the concept, I smile at the fact that it is still one of my favourite places to visit.  Even growing up, I was facsinated by the idea of them.  As kids, my older sister, char, and I would play supermarket sweep. (tangent: Sometimes it was ‘library’, sometimes ‘miss hong kong’, depending on how we felt that day. — but yes folks, to quote old folgies, we used our imagination instead of playing with technology, which back then anyone could hardly afford –) We would draw up our own JLAND currency and money on paper and cut them out, coins included, which was half the fun, and set up the room with all our play food, and whatever would could find in the pantry.  We would time ourselves to take turns hoarding things into our bright yellow and red plastic fisher price shopping carts, and take turns being a cashier.  My sister and char would always get boared by the time it was my turn, so it makes sense that my first paying job as a teenager was a cashier at Loblaws (now one of Canada’s largest supermarket chains)

Food is the funniest kind of physical product or “thing” to barter with in my books.  It holds so much more value than money, yet is quantified more and more so as we get super scientific in the way it is produced and cultivated, marketed and sold in this country.  Food is consumed like any other product, but because it directly affects so many people so many times in one day, it is hard to ignore issues like health — of the self, and of the environment.  It is essential to survival, yet is completely complicated when it comes to the power of having access to it.

The more I read on about neoliberalism, and the standardization of the dollar, the more I understand the terrifying brilliance in the politics of building a system that holds and maintains each person’s power in a certain place – whether it is that you have power by gains of capital, or those who are completely powerless as a number in society due to lack of capital.

Seriously, from being completely enraptured by micro and macro theories of economics — I can’t help analyze and pick sides and pick apart what’s fair or not in the world of global trade and protection.  And the more I read about these trade negogiations, the more I laugh at the fact that all I can picture is a huge boardroom of children in oversized suits playing tradesies with their lunches.

“I’ll trade you a fruit-roll up for my fruit cup! It’s tastier but doesn’t spoil!”

“Half my turkey sandwich for a weeks worth of PB&J!”

“Five month old Halloween candy for your solid easter bunny chocolate ear!” (true story)

And I can’t help but wonder — who that adult figure is that finally comes in and says: “Stop playing with your food!”

Whether or not we were taught how to ‘play fair’ in the playground or in the classroom, there would always be a bully (“developed” countries) picking on the smaller ones (less resourceful “developing” countries).  Sure, such bullies or the more popular kids can be marketed as shedding their fair share of tough love to the little people, but what happens when everyone’s security of food becomes threatened?  “If you can’t play fair, I’ll take it all away and then both of you won’t have anything to eat!”

Perhaps realizing the realities of environmental externalities, and systematic protectionist administrators keeping the rules of the game in play shakes things up a bit once in a while, but in the long run, who is benefitting from any of this when both sides are out of resources?

Also, in the world of make believe, we only affect our stuffed animal population, and perhaps the poor dressed up family pet thrown into the mix.  Ideally we only represent ourselves and our own risks in any sort of negotiating power relationship, but in reality, talk and play with money involves standards, taxes, tariffs, futures inflating demands of agricultural commodity crops, and most importantly the population at large who need to eat lunch too.  And not just today’s lunch, but the idea of having lunch for days, even weeks to come.  Such “leaders” of society or powerful capitalistic players are only acting on behalf of their own interests, and the interests of those powerful enough to affect others within their own country, but what about everyone else?

I do like variety in my selection.  Maybe that’s how all of this bartering began.  Trading you a chicken for a pound of flour.  But we don’t live in that nostalgic world anymore.  And it’s unfair to say it was ever fair back then either.  Question is, if we’ve transitioned into a global economy, and a global society, how do we take care of everybody?  Especially when the population is growing, and when the real cost of food (environmental externalities included) are high all over the world?

So can poverty and hunger ever be solved without looking a the greater socio political and systematic problem of the structure that keeps everyone in their place?  Can we ever really play fair?

In an adult world, do we ever stop acting like children when real lives are at stake?  Do these leaders who go home to their warm meals and families after a long day of work sit down to remember all those who are less fortunate that they like we were taught to do every night at the dinner table as children?  And would that even matter? Doesn’t everyone hoard and protect their own interests when they are hungry and when it’s part of the rules of the game?  It’s like that game show — Supermarket Sweep.

How fun would it be to be given the chance to run around a supermarket with play money?  To be given five mins to push a cart around in order to hoard as much as possible in order to win the game!  And you could always tell the smart shoppers from the more is more shoppers.  I remember one guy threw about 8 turkeys into his kart,

and I always wondered, he did with all of those turkeys.

Perhaps he traded the other team for some sweet potatoes.

Mmmhmmm.