Commentary
When I was young, my father would often say grace before dinner, thanking God for the food we were about to receive. Inevitably, he would conclude with, “And God bless the hands that prepared it.”
As a child, my parents were quick to teach me that this wasn’t just a blessing for my mother, who stereotypically prepared all our family meals. Instead, they would point out that “the hands that prepared it” meant everyone from the farmer, to the farmhand, to the butcher, to the truck driver hauling the product to market, to the grocery store workers, and everyone in between.
Since I grew up in a fertile farm area of
black muck land, “farmhands” to us usually meant
documented seasonal workers from Mexico—laborers who came north annually to harvest crops such as onions, celery, Boston and iceberg lettuce, carrots, and spinach.
Not only was I learning to pray for the diverse people who came together to create my meal, but I was also learning the basics of entrepreneurial capitalism.
Kirk begins by
explaining that a ban on “price gouging” in the United States would require going after farmers, distributors, and trucking companies. “When there are price controls, producers … produce less because they make less money, and there will be supply shortages—and then prices will really go up,” he said.
Kirk, the 30-year-old founder of
Turning Point USA, then introduces a new generation to the Nobel award-winning economist Milton Friedman, with the video clip “
I, Pencil,” taken from Friedman’s 1980 PBS television show “
Free to Choose.” The segment was in turn inspired by author Leonard Read’s
1958 essay “I, Pencil.”The clip outlines the complex process that creates a “simple pencil”—from sourcing raw materials including wood, graphite, and metal, to the assembly and distribution that happens before it eventually ends up in someone’s hand.
Kirk then expounds on free market capitalism in his
next video, saying, “We have it so good in the United States of America that we don’t even teach our kids [that] a grocery store is a modern miracle.”
We can, however, thank the pandemic lockdowns for the fact that people were briefly forced to appreciate their local stores in a way they never had before. The learning process came as folks searched for toilet paper, hand sanitizer, cleaning supplies, and various food items, often being told by store associates that “the truck had not come in yet.” Worse yet, people were often told that coveted items “were not on the truck” and there was no assurance they’d be on the next truck. That’s how truck drivers came to be regarded as
heroes of the lockdown.So while there were undoubtedly
various reasons for shortages during the lockdowns, it at least became clear to a large segment of the population that a lot had to happen behind the scenes before items would magically reappear on store shelves.
And that was a good thing, because we are currently living in a time when the majority of people are both apathetic and clueless as to where their food and dry goods come from. For instance, shoppers may look for organic blueberries without realizing the product they’re buying was shipped nearly 4,000 miles from Peru to the United States—the country that ironically
leads the world in blueberry production. Meanwhile, there’s been a clarion call for goods “
made in the USA,” but the fact remains that only about 11 percent of American-bought goods are manufactured here, compared to 80 percent 40 years ago.
A trip to Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts takes you back in time to an original store as it looked in 1838. The
Asa Knight store was “an imposing two-and-a-half-story emporium” where customers would pay for items using credit earned by selling Knight their own eggs, butter, cheese, and homemade crafts and clothes. Knight would, in turn, sell those items in the cities where he bought the goods to stock his shelves.
(While the Asa Knight store is no longer in operation, it’s probably the closest you’ll get to recreating a visit to
Oleson’s Mercantile from “Little House on the Prairie” or
Ike Godsey’s store from “The Waltons.”)
And while some might credit
modern globalization with the abundance and variety of U.S. groceries in recent times, the influence of a global market can just as easily be seen in Asa Knight’s 1838 emporium.
Old Sturbridge Village teaches visitors that New England stores carried cotton textiles from England, France, and India, linens from Central Europe, and silks from Italy and China. They could also purchase “teas, coffees, spices, sugar, raisins, and dyestuff from China, Arabia, Greece, the East and West Indies, and South America.”
Early American newspaper ads, as well as storekeepers themselves, often hyped foreign imported goods, reflecting the early-American fascination with items from abroad. It was as much about showcasing the romantic allure of overseas goods, which were highly coveted at the time, as it was about making the sale.
Of course we’ve done a complete turnabout in 2024, with items tagged “made in the USA” being a draw for discriminating consumers shopping for everything from denim jeans to jewelry.
Indisputably, the choices given to American consumers have grown exponentially since Knight’s little store opened its doors. The Cato Institute
tells us that “between 1975 and 2022, for example, the number of products in an average U.S. store has grown from around 7,000 to 40,000.”
The supermarket has expanded significantly, increasing by more than three-fold, from 8,948 products to an impressive 31,530. However, a discussion with Benjamin Lorr, author of “The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket,” sheds light on the changes in American grocery stores that signal a departure from Friedman’s libertarian economics towards a more troubling direction.
Lorr raises concerns about the insatiable nature of American appetites and the dual role of markets as both a force for good and bad. In a struggling economy like the current one, price becomes the top priority when selecting food, potentially leading to negative impacts on laborers such as farmhands and fishermen as industry seeks to extract efficiencies from labor.
For example, truckers are now expected to double their output while receiving 40% less in wages, leading some to liken their jobs to “sharecropping on wheels.” Entrepreneurs face an uphill battle in securing shelf space in supermarkets, competing against larger players and those with better access to venture capital.
Lorr’s book emphasizes the challenges posed by a supply chain catering to the supermarket’s demands and encourages consumers to buy local produce directly from farms whenever possible. While the core concept of the modern grocery store still holds true, opposing philosophies threaten its existence, with socialist policies and unchecked globalism tarnishing the once pristine ideals that gave rise to these establishments.
As supermarkets navigate through uncertain times, it raises the question of whether they can withstand the challenges ahead. Now more than ever, we may need to seek blessings for those involved in bringing food to our tables.
(Note: Views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and do not necessarily represent those of The Epoch Times.) Please rephrase.
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