The Art of Deception: Economics and Virtue

Ah, dinnertime, when the kitchen table becomes a smorgasbord of scrumptousness. But before I can prepare to eat, I have to take my before-dinner allergy medication. Of course I take the brand name; why risk my health on that cheap stuff the drug companies say is not nearly as effective? Wrenching the sarcastic thought from my mind that always makes me want to throw a mudball at the nearest CEO, I view the battleground: the steak is hot and juicy, the potatoes steaming, waiting for what combination of cheese, bacon bits, and sour cream I chose to place upon its inviting warmth. Oh boy, I am gonna dominate my stomach with home cooked goodness. In the ensuing moments of pure bliss, all that my mind revolves around is how my taste buds are claiming they are in heaven. How am I supposed to know that my potato may have been genetically altered to grow its own pesticide? Why should I care? This meal couldn't get any better! In truth it may not matter, because even if I wanted to find what was being done with the food I ingest, the information I would be seeking is not readily available.

The real question may be this: Which is the driving force in regards to information access, greed or caution? The answer should not surprise anyone, but looking at the pharmaceutical industry brings the glaring influence those money-grabbing fingers have. As Arnold Relman and Marcia Angella point out, about 23% of all drugs patented from 1990 to 2002 were new and improved; the rest were either copies of other popular drugs, or slightly altered versions. In 2001, only ten out of sixty-six drugs approved by the FDA were classified as new (Relman 458). Have ou asked you doctor about that unnameable drug they won't explain in a commercial? This would explain why budgets for marketing/advertising are higher than research and development; companies are money first, production second. The same could possibly be said with Monsanto; Michael Pollan desvribes Monsanto as a company who is quickly becoming monopolistic in the genetically modified food market. The FDA and E.P.A have no information of whether some foods, such as a potato adapted to create its own pesticide in its cells, have adverse effects on the human body. Apparently, the belief is if two safe producs are combined, the result is a safe product (Pollan 409). That argument holds no water if brake fluid and bleach are combined; they explode into flames. If used in the way common sense dictates, these items are not harmful, and the same can be said of potatoes and pesticides. But when it comes to combining products, the opinion of our government is if a warning label is not demanded, then who cares if a product has it? Thus, the current debate is more about how much it matters; if the consumer has been eating these products for years without knowing, why tell them?

It's the same with a little child; when I was eight years of age, I would eat anything as long as it was chicken. So, when the food was roast beef or meatloaf, it was called "dark chicken" or "gray chicken" and I proceeded to eat happily away. The phrase "ignorance is bliss" never meant so much. Monsanto is hoping to take advantage in the same way; if nothing different comes about, why should anyone care what's in the food? The answer: Because if the consumer knows, then sales will go down. For no explainable reason other than apprehension, Michael Pollan could not bring himself to eat the New Leaf potatoes Monsanto had created, even though he considered them perfectly safe. As he wrote, "what makes [the potatoes] different- is that I have this choice [to eat the potatoes]. And until I know more, I choose not." It's human nature to go with what one knows, and nobody truly knows if a genetically altered food is safe or not. So instead, the real question may be this: How much do you want to know about your food? The steak and potatoes I was looking to devour earlier might not seem so delectable if I know what I'm truly eating. Is the juice that makes the steak perfect contaminated by some chemical I have never heard of? Seems if knowledge is power, then the producers are looking to increase their abilities by neglecting our power of choice.

While big-shot companies are silently infiltrating every aspect of our lives, they are doing something not unlike what Israel put Palestine through, as shown in the film Paradise Now. In the movie, two men (Khaled and Said) are in a precarious position: they are lower-class, their lives are controlled by an outside force, and they see no way to deal with this perceived threat except through suicide bombings. Quotes such as "If we cannot be equal in life, we can at least be equal in death" and "[with a bomb] we control soldier lives" stick out as the main line of thinking for the potential bombers (Paradise). These two men were thinking defensively, about how to get rid of the stranglehold the Israeli occupation had on their lives.

According to Krzysztof Kulakowski, being under an oppressive regime turns people towards one line of thinking, where everyone is classified into two groups: "us" and "them." Here is where basic psychology comes into play; Andrew Maslow's hierarchy of needs illustrates human priorities. On the basic level, we need nourishment and shelter for our bodies. Then, safety is required to ease the mind and allow daily activities to go on uninterrupted (Kulakowski 289). When the social infrastructure has been rearranged into two classes, the need regarding safety becomes emphasized. "They" are viewed as a threat, "we" as allies. A 24-hour day becomes a long, drawn out battle, where one wrong move could potentially ruin countless lives. Those effected by such thinking focus their lives around the safety level of needs, depriving themselves of higher levels such as belonging and self-esteem in the search for safety. Wouldn't you become irrational if you couldn't be that creative or establish a strong network of friends because you didn't feel safe? My friends say I instantly snap into a defensive mode of thinking when I am uncomfortable. This usually causes a bit of tension when I view what everybody else sees as a joke in another manner. If feeling unsafe in an easygoing social situation brings this effect, imagine what problems may arise when the results could determine life or death.

The point I am trying to make is this: We are in a similar position as Khaled and Said. Though every aspect of our lives is not controlled by an invading force, we are having more and more strings attached to life itself. After knowing that some foods you have been eating may or may not have been genetically altered, does the term "grocery store" seem more like a dangerous maze than anything else? The simple act of buying groceries or medication has become a guessing game; for reasons Pollan could not really explain, he did not eat the Monsanto potatoes, even though he had researched them and determined they were safe. I personally prefer my food all-natural, or as close as possible -- it is coming to the point where I almost feel the need to shout "Hallelujah!" whenever the organic food industry reports something positive, such as the report that a growing number of consumers consider organic food as the better option. In the poll, 76% of people surveyed believe organics are healthier, and 79% say it is better for the environment (QSR). The public has its views, and the corporate world is listening, even if they don't want to admit it. Because people keep on buying the cheaper option, processed/altered food, the businesses don't necessarily have to care for the time being. They just want to keep the consumer from this question: Is there legitimate cause for concern that we are destroying our bodies by eating? And what about those new prescribed drugs we take for any ache, pain , or inconvenience we become afflicted by? It's almost as if us consumers willingly open ourselves up to be taken advantage of, just by a brand name. Sure, it may help out, but are we spending ten times the amount we would pay for a brand name from a decade ago? What really is in a name? As if life wasn't tough enough already, now we cannot even fulfill the basic priorities on Maslow's pyramid without some form of danger.

The companies I have mentioned are not solely responsible for their dominance, however. Here is an example why: We pay ridiculous amounts of money to watch our favorite sports teams play everyday. Professional athletes make millions per year to play a game, just so we can be duly entertained for a few hours at our whim on some channel or another. As a sports fanatic, I follow this world much more closely than my friends, memorizing statistics from games and theorizing what will happen in the future. Given the chance, I might gladly shell out a few hundred dollars for a seat at a good football game between two great teams (assuming I didn't have these darn college expenses). If I am willing to pay an outrageous sum of money for entertainment, what about necessities such as food and medicine? The priorities in many people's lives, including my own, are so screwed up that the perfect opportunity arises for a quick profit. Would I, as a fairly broke college student, be able to afford the food I desire if it is more expensive? Money truly does make the world go 'round, and for a person in a tight financial position, it becomes a much bigger driving force in decision-making. Though cheaper is not necessarily better, it is more affordable, and that alone gives Monsanto, Merck, GSK, and others the ability to keep on with little to no arguments. Keep the buyer happy with a low price, and the only care that person has is rummaging a few quarters out of the bottom of his/her pocket for sales tax.

There are good points on both sides of this argument over the incorporation of genetic engineered foods. On one hand, all these additives may have consequences nobody knows about yet. However, if people don't know they're eating it, and nothing adverse occurs (at least for the time being), who cares where the food came from? Now that I face the probability of having eaten something modified by humans, the concept is not so frightening a topic to debate. So long as the taste remains the same, people will have the ability to discriminate between the two types of foods, which is the same as taking their right of choice away in the food industry. That same right of choice is being ruthlessly attacked in the drug industry, and the motives are sickening and inexcusable. There is no good reason for a company supposedly vested in "our best interests" to be spending more money convincing us of that fact than proving it. While companies such as Merck and GSK are not blocking off roads and cutting food supplies at will, they do control vital aspects of consumer lives, specifically the medical and food industries. I sincerely doubt Americans will be taking up arms anytime soon, but the only way to protest such an oligarchy is to avoid supporting it; how is that done on such a large scale as the American population? Perhaps it is not a matter of how ethics and economics are intertwined; indeed, maybe it is more of an issue of how apathetic the consumer is. If one does not care, one will continue to buy products, and nothing will come about. After all, what dictates their next move is whether the line on the graph keeps rising on those quarterly reports, right?

Sources:

Kulakowski, Krzysztof. "Cooperation and Defection in Ghetto."Academic Search Complete 17.2 (2006): 287-299. Galileo. EBSCOhost. AGH University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland. 25 Oct. 2007. .

"Large Majorities See Organic Food as Safer, Better For The Environment, And Healthier- But Also More Expensive." QSRMagazine. 11 Oct. 2007. 6 Nov. 2007.

Pollan, Michael. "Playing God in the Garden" The New Humanities Reader. Richard E. Miller, ed. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton. 2006.

Relman, Arnold S., and Marcia Angell. "America's Other Drug Problem" The New Humanities Reader. Richard E. Miller, ed. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton. 2006.

Paradise Now. Dir. Hany Abu-Assad. Perf. Lebna Azabal, Hamza Abu-Aiaash, Kais Nashif, Lotuf Nuesser, Ali Suliman. 2005. DVD. Warner Home Video, 2006.