I have seen a number of websites that support the ideas of Adam Smith but are against the idea of organic food, citing reasons of lower productivity and higher cost. Well if they are so passionate about the the free market economy why not just let the freemarket decide? In any case there are many items in the supermarket that are of questionable value.
What does lower productivity and higher cost matter if someone is standing there waving their money ready to buy? That just seems like a really silly reason to be against something. You could have the highest productivity and lowest cost product but it is not going to do you much good unless other people want it.
Actually local organic food is cheaper to produce. Once you factor in all the chemical, oil, and pharmaceuticals industrial farming is much more expensive than local organic. The reason it is cheaper for the consumer is because the government subsidizes industrial farming. So you pay extra for the cheap food through taxes. If everybody bought local organic, the middle class would have a whole lot more money. The lower class benifits from an industrial agriculture system because they get the best of both worlds, cheap food, and low taxes. The middle class all have to pay taxes for the subsidized farms, so individually they have to pay for the industrial food even if they decided to go organic. So if you buy local organic you're paying the actual price of food (direct cost), and you're paying for other peoples industrial food through taxes (indirect cost that mos people miss). Basically, the middle class is getting screwed, a pattern typically seen in a government that is shifting towards socialism... :sad: sigh
I don't see any free market websites saying that organic food should be banned. They are opposed to the idea of subsidies and support for organic food, but if people want to pay more for organic food, then that is the free market, let them do it. No it isn't. Subsidies - typically price supports, quotas, etc - don't subsidize industrial farms, they support all farms.
