Part One: I found that the essay that made me think the most was "The Idea of a Local Economy" . I agreed with Wendell's thoughts on corporations creating economic "oversimplifications" that cause environmental problems. However, I strongly disagree with his depiction of a free market when he said, "But the 'free market' introduces into the government a sanction of an inequality that is not implicit in any idea of democratic liberty: namely that the 'free market' is freest to those who have the most money, and is not free at all to those with little to no money." While individual who have more money have more options within a free market, this is not to say that people with less money have only one option. The free market works best when it creates options that were previously nonexistent, like phones and computers. While I and many others find it important to perform face-to-face interactions and conversations, innovations have allowed us to communicate with people far away from us with relative ease.
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| These are some of the communication methods capable today. |
Part two: My research topic was has Cargill gotten into any legal trouble with their business? They were alleged to sell seeds and pesticides and then buying the corn produced for cattle feed and the production of high fructose corn syrup. Would this violate any of the anti- monopoly or anti-trust laws we have in effect today? From my research I found no violation in this manner, however I found several stories of environmental damage, ranging from deforestation to water pollution. In addition, I found a lawsuit in 2005 against Cargill and Nestle for human rights violations for forced child labor.
Link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_Cargill
I also disagreed with a few points raised by Wendell. The major thing was the overall tone of the book. He made it seem like there was a rather simple, clear-cut way to fix the world, but something like that simply doesn't exist. It will never be easy fixing the economy. There's some things that will never be set right.
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