SOC349H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Veggie Burger, Commodity Fetishism, Animal Welfare
Document Summary
Meat has become available to people of all classes. Fast food chains has made meat for popular and affordable i. g. Mcdonalds can be found anywhere in the world. Cheap corn for cattle = cheap meat for consumers = meatification of diets. Corn surpluses the price of corn go down corn as cheap cattle feed. Health issues (antibiotics), environmental damages (water pollution, chemical fertilizer) Corn-fed beef is not as cheap as it seems if we consider the invisible costs . Externalities: costs arising from an economic activity that 1) affect third parties to that activity and 2) are not reflected fully in prices. Hidden costs: alienation [marx: people alienated from products, people alienated from nature: unaware of animal suffering. The labor in the production is hidden in fetishism. Commodity fetishism vs. alienation: people are alienated and commodities are fetishized. All kinds of things are hidden in alienation.
