December 15, 2007

Freeloaders

The Tennessean has some video of "dumpster divers" - folks in Nashville who get most of their food from stuff thrown away in the trash. One of the cable networks recently did a story on the same trend, and the people in that story justified their food "shopping" choice by railing against wasteful corporations and capitalism. The usual leftwing Marxist drivel. Yet they freeload off the capitalist system they abhor by taking food they didn't pay for from Dumpsters they don't own.

Update: Here's the Tennessean story to go with the video.

Update: Got some blowback from the Left side of the Tennessee blogosphere, accusing me of not caring about poor people who have to eat out of Dumpsters, and objecting to my characterization of the "freegan" movement as driven by "marxist drivel." My response follows...

My Leftish critics ought to read the Tennessean story. These aren't poor people diving in Dumpters to surive. These are middle class people with corporate jobs who are getting their food from Dumpsters.

These middle-class "Freegans" are eating the fruits of capitalism, quite literally, without contributing a cent to support that system.

CNN:

What is a freegan? A freegan is a social activist who, repulsed by the waste produced by modern society, has taken to eating food and collecting goods that have been thrown away. Freegans are driven by an anti-capitalist dogma, mixed with environmental, anti-globalization and some vegan ideals.

As the movement's manifesto declares: "Freeganism is a total boycott of an economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations and where massively complex systems of productions ensure that all the products we buy will have detrimental impacts most of which we may never even consider. Thus, instead of avoiding the purchase of products from one bad company only to support another, we avoid buying anything to the greatest degree we are able."

I have been unable to find a link to the recent cable news story that I referenced in my initial post. I think the "marxist drivel" in it was actually in the post-story live chit-chat between anchor and guests - but if you go to Google News and search for "freegan" you'll find many examples of stories which show freeganism to be rooted in anti-capitalist thought - what I called "marxist drivel."

Here are some examples:
ABC News, Dec. 16, 2007

Des Moines Register, Dec. 2, 2007

The Des Moines Register piece says this:

"Basically, freeganism is a boycott of the kind of production methods and overconsumption that has increased at a frightening pace in the last 50 years in most of the developed world," said Madeline Nelson, who helps run a major freegan Web site and group in New York City...

Hey, if you want to eat out of garbage cans, more power to you. Just spare me the anti-capitalism rant while you freeload off the capitalist system - and by all means do NOT ask me to shell out tax dollars to pay for your healthcare when you get sick from eating food from Dumpsters. You shouldn't want my dollars anyway, being as I earned them through the capitalist system.

Again, I'm not opposed to people eating for free or using stuff other people throw away. I AM opposed to poseurs who claim to be doing it because they're anti-capitalism and all that.

You're anti-capitalist? Fine. Go live in the mountains in a tent you made from sticks and the hide of a dead bear, and wear clothing you made from fur of animals you killed with a hand-carved wooden spear, and eat only the animals you kill (or find already dead) or whatever roots and berries you can find, because if you use tools and wear clothes and eat food produced by the capitalist system, you aren't anti-capitalist any more than the anti-global anarchists with their cell phones and iPods are - you're just against paying for it.

Update: One of the critics takes issue with my assertion that freegans are "leeching off the system," because they, by taking things out of the trash, actually lower the trash hauling bill for the corporations that threw the stuff away.

Said commenter needs to take Econ 101. Freegans may help the grocery store by lowering their trash-hauling bill, though I doubt it. But they still are leeching off the system because they are not paying for the food, which means that the farmers that grew the food and harvested it, and the companies that processed it, shipped it, etc., are not being paid.

Correction: Those farmers and processors and distributors actually are being paid - just not by the freegans.

There is no free lunch. Just because the freegans don't pay for stuff doesn't mean the cost of producing and distributing the stuff doesn't have to be paid. If the Freegans aren't contributing monetarily to the system that grows and distributes food, that just means the rest of us food-eating folks will pay higher prices over the long term.

Those of us who pay for our food at Whole Foods and Publix and Kroger and the local donut shop are subsidizing the freegans.

Don't agree with me? Than answer this: What happens if everyone becomes a freegan? That's simple. There would be no food in the Dumpsters for any of us because all of the grocery store chains and the wholesalers and the farmers would all go out of business.