"People can not afford the basics. They do not want to have to rely on food banks. They do not want to have to come to social services. They want to be able to provide for themselves, from their incomes ..."
#BonnieRibinson, Salvation Army, 2026
Why? Either way we're not talking about growing all our own food. That's possible, on a strict vegan diet, if most of your waking hours involve gardening. But not practical.
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#FoodBanks #UnquestionedAssumptions #FocusOnPolitics #RNZ #podcasts
It always has and always will make more sense for humans to provide nutrition collectively. Why is doing that via food banks any less desirable than doing it via supermarkets?
If you look at it from a whole country perspective, even if 100% of our nutrition was provided through food banks, we (the public) would still be paying for it all. Just like we do now. The same way we do with public health, education, media, etc.
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So why is one (tax-funded food banks) widely seen as a sign of political-economic personal and personal failure, while the other (food shops) are seen as the right way to do it?
The difference is that in the shop model, capitalists get one more way to clip the ticket on our food supply. In the food bank model, they only get to take a cut from the incomes of of growers and wholesalers, not retailers too.
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What capitalists really fear is that the public provision model of food banks could spread up the value chain. Eg a not-for-profit wholesaler buying directly from growers - at fair prices, with no economic rents imposed - and supplying food banks. So the only people able to make any money out of supplying our people with nutrition are those growing food, and doing necessary work to get it from field to plate.
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Capitalists are smart enough to know they can't hedge against this risk by criticising food banks for feeding people - especially children - who would otherwise starve. So instead, they humiliate people for using them, by seeding the mediasphere with the unquestioned assumption that doing so makes us somehow second-class citizens.
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Aotearoa's food banks expose another inconvenient truth that capitalists prefer we all ignore.
Food banks can easily feed all comers. As long as they get enough donations of food, or funding to buy it wholesale. As you'd expect in a country whose fertile land could feed its current population many times over, and yet still imports food in huge quantities.
So, unaffordable food prices are *not* caused by a shortage of food, but by capitalists imposing private taxes on it at every level.
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The same is true across every market in our economy suppling basic goods; housing, electricity, etc. The cost of living crisis we're living through is not caused by a shortage of *stuff*, but by a shortage of *cash* in the pockets of the people who need the stuff.
Unaffordable prices are not caused by inflation, driven by "wasteful public spending". They're caused by excessive profiteering, and decades of cuts, to the public spending that pushes more of the money supply to the bottom.
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@strypey If there was a public facility in every city where a person could get a meal, shower, and place to sleep, no questions asked, then a lot of the pressure would be taken off people.
There would still be restaurants and hotels that charge money, but a basic level would be guaranteed.
In fact, there IS such a place, but it is intentionally made very undesirable so people will not choose to go there. It's called the county jail, and is far more expensive than a voluntary facility would be.
@light @strypey It certainly would not be the entire economy. Ideally you'd have a place where anyone could get a place to sleep, a meal, and a shower. Private concessions could offer dessert, entertainment, etc. for money. It should be civilized enough that people who could afford a hotel sometimes use it out of convenience. Like a Japanese capsule hotel.
It would be cheaper than jail or any of the current handouts. Those spend a LOT on gatekeeping.
@light
> if that's the entire economy, I think that would unnecessarily limit innovation
Intriguing. Why do you think so?
To be clear, like my guru David Graeber, I'm agonistic about markets. I'm open to the idea that they can serve genuinely useful purposes, and think it's clearly ahistorical to believe that trying to suppress them solves more problems than it creates. But I don't see innovation as being dependent on them, or even necessarily helped by them.
@strypey @light@noc.social @mike805 Hmm. Maybe I misinterpreted you. I thought you were arguing for government control over the food economy, which I think would limit innovation and diversity.
>What capitalists really fear is that the public provision model of food banks could spread up the value chain. Eg a not-for-profit wholesaler buying directly from growers - at fair prices, with no economic rents imposed - and supplying food banks.
How should we implement this in a decentralised way while still remaining non-profit?
