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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 20, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Cheap commodities and health food

By David Perez

Not so long ago, I tried for the umpteenth time to stop eating meat and become a vegetarian. I knew it was going to be an uphill battle.

Not only was I a full-fledged carnivore, but there were countless places where I could grab a hot dog or a burger quickly and cheaply.

It was the cheap that did me in. One day I found myself with hunger in my stomach and only two dollars in my pocket. Tradition's chains still in my way, I just couldn't see filling myself up with fruit.

I did, however, stop inside a health-food store. The prices floored me. It wasn't like the various goods and products were totally unaffordable, but two bucks didn't go very far.

One block later, the golden arches got me. McDonald's was offering Chicken McNuggets for 99 cents that week. That meant I could get two orders!

And I did. Of course I mixed doses of self-pity with my imitation barbecue sauce, but my new diet was history.

Speaking about history, as I got on the train to go home, I suddenly remembered a passage from "The Communist Manifesto."

Something to do with commodities "breaking down Chinese walls."

Capitalist production

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote about how the capitalist mode of production, through its rapid and immense development of the productive forces, drew everyone and everything into its orbit and control.

In particular, capitalism demonstrated the ability to lower the unit cost of production through both a vast division of labor and constantly revolutionizing technology. This enables the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, to produce commodities in mass quantities.

Of course, it's the workers' labor power that makes this all happen-not to mention that the capitalist steals much of the new value added by labor power and turns it into profit. After all, if the boss couldn't make a profit off your work, you would never be hired.

Naturally, what is cheap one day could be expensive the next, depending on the fluctuations of the capitalist market, the growth of monopolies and other factors. Nevertheless, the trend toward lowering the cost of production is a universal feature of the capitalist economic system.

Mass production empowers the capitalists to sell relatively cheaply-or at the very least to undercut what they see as their competitor. This process is as relentless as it is inevitable. And it is global in character.

This is why Marx and Engels wrote, "The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down Chinese walls."

The bourgeoisie introduces cheap commodities into every area of the world. This has had and continues to have a devastating effect on the native products of whatever country capital sinks its teeth into.

For instance, the North American Free Trade Agreement has threatened the livelihood of Mexico's peasantry by flooding the country with low-cost U.S. agricultural products. The Zapatista armed uprising on Jan. 1, 1995, was timed to coincide with NAFTA's implementation-which the impoverished Mexican peasants saw as a direct attack on their way of life.

Corn is a staple in the Chiapas region where the insurrection occurred. Thousands of peasants eke out a living growing and selling it. Under the aegis of "free trade," a giant U.S. agribusiness like Del Monte can bring in massive amounts of very cheap corn and undercut the native agriculture.

This results in the now-common phenomenon of an underdeveloped country relying on imported foodstuffs as opposed to products it used to grow itself. In other words, it results in super-exploitation and imperialist domination. But all this is promoted as "development."

Resisting this artillery of cheap commodities is often more difficult than dodging bullets. That is why Marx and Engels accurately depicted this as "battering down Chinese walls"-an allusion to the Great Wall of China, which was built over centuries as a defensive fortress.

Fast food and faster profits

My personal Chinese wall, or so I thought, was my desire to stop eating meat. But the McDonald's arsenal caused it to collapse, appealing as it did to my lack of monetary fortune and years of habit.

The fast-food giant is able to offer cheap meat dishes because of the massive volume of food it produces and distributes.

The word meat should really be in quotes. The use of chemical additives in the average beef burger or piece of chicken is widespread everywhere meat is processed and sold. In fact, chemicals are used right from the start-at the birthing stalls and the feedlot.

The cattle industry's dominant role in U.S. capitalist agriculture-as well as the huge role played by the swine and poultry industries-has had a big impact on my eating habits, of course. Centuries of propaganda had convinced me, and tens of millions of others, too, that eating well meant eating meat.

When I finally got over the hype, I turned to good nutrition-only to find that capitalism's more deadly arsenal was its ability to produce commodities cheaply. My vegetarian days lasted only about a week.

There is a happy ending to this story, however. Now that Marxism clarified what my main obstacle was, I have found ways to combine a tight budget with a healthy diet. So off I go to better living.

And speaking of better living, I remember another thing Marx and Engels wrote in "The Communist Manifesto."

Something about capitalism being overthrown.

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