by kevin, on July 19th, 2009
This is the second book we’ve read this year that points out a very troubling consequence to what outwardly appears to be unprecedented economic growth from industrialization. In Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, author and activist Bill McKibben shows that “the median wage in the United States is the same as it was thirty years ago. The real income of the bottom 90 percent of American taxpayers has declined steadily: they earned $27,060 in real dollars in 1979, $25,646 in 2005.”
Mr. McKibben further points out that “even though productivity was growing faster than it has for decades, earnings fell 5.2 percent between 2000 and 2004 when adjusted for inflation.” And the difference between those at the top and those at the bottom has increased dramatically. The CEO of a large corporation earned thirty-five times as much as the average worker in 1973, today they earn two hundred times as much.
How is this possible? With such abundance and wealth, how can we possibly be moving backward? Mr. McKibben’s simple and powerful conclusion is that growth, by itself, is not enriching.
Much of the book focuses on the industrialization of food production. The author tells of his experiment to eat locally for one year, something no longer easy to do today. Food in the typical American grocery store travels an average of 1500 miles. Although the book covers similar ground found in Food, Inc., Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and others, it does so in a very personal way that focuses on the author’s local agricultural community as the means to tell a bigger story of factory farming. And this makes it seem far less doom and gloom. It’s a story that is positive and hopeful. Although a direct connection isn’t made, issues raised are very similar to those of the Slow Food Movement.
As you may suspect, there’s a correlation between the application of fossil fuel energy and increased crop production. According to the book, between the years 1910 and 1983 U.S. corn yields grew 346 percent, but agricultural energy consumption for the same period increased 810 percent. More food was produced, but to do so required energy consumption at a remarkably faster pace. And since fuel costs were so cheap over that time, it was hardly considered. Today, a box of cereal requires seven times more energy to package as the cereal itself provides.
What price have we really paid to industrialize our food supply? The book presents a pretty good argument for smaller size and shopping local. Time has shown that you can get more food per acre with small farms and more food per dollar with bigger ones. So long as growth and the dollar are the principle tools of measurement, large scale industrialization will rule, and we will continue to lose touch with those who actually grow our food. But is there a different way? Read the book and see what you think. Let us know.