The contemporary U.S. industrial food economy definitely follows the Keynesian school of thought. One of the primary reasons of this is that corn, arguably the starting point of the entire industrial food economy, has been subject to subsidies since the New Deal. Since corn is subsidized, everything that follows from it is subsidized as well. That hamburger from Micky D’s we’ve all eaten at some point in our lives was partially paid for by Washington, DC. That Sweet Tea you had with it? Subsidized as well.
Additionally, on p. 63 of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan wrote that “Cargill and ADM exert considerable influence over U.S. agricultural policies.” A neoliberal reality would be be free of any governmental policies; the fact that such policies exist means that the reality of the industrial food economy cannot be neoliberal since the market is not truly free. You can bet that big agribusinesses are lobbying hard to maintain the Keynesian reality that maximizes agribusiness profit.
Furthermore, the industrial food economy has been and still is susceptible to voluntary price controls which, as Friedman put it, “lead to the destruction” of the free-enterprise system loved by neoliberals. In the 1990s, ADM was involved in an international conspiracy* to fix the prices of lysine and citric acid, both of which are staple agribusiness products. Agribusinesses are greedy (look at how they screw over the small corn farmer) and see price-fixing as a means of fattening up their pocketbooks, so I see no reason why they wouldn’t engage in similar price-fixing schemes in the future. The existence of such price controls undermines the argument that the industrial food economy follows a neoclassical system.
The U.S. government coddles the food industry with corn subsidies and other agricultural legislation. When the government isn’t playing mommy, it’s busy turning a blind eye to price-fixing (it took a whistleblower to bring out the ADM scandal). The signs are there, you can’t miss them, and they point to Keynesianism.
* This price-fixing scandal was the topic of Kurt Eichenwald’s book The Informant. Also, I noticed it was turned into a Matt Damon movie. Winning.
I agree with your post and your observation that the industrial food economy cannot be neoliberal because the market is not free and government policies do exist. I'm unfamiliar with economics (zero background), but I thought it was a huge arrow pointing straight to Keynesian.
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