The Individual
[NRO Staff  03/09 09:34 AM]

Here's e-mailer Christian Mastilak again:

Hey all,

The readers who think the "crunchy agenda" would involve lots of newly restrictive regulation apparently haven't read the book. Rod outlines how existing regulation already intrudes on the power of individuals (producers, and thus indirectly consumers) to act, and how existing regulations seriously tilt the playing field in favor of large agribusiness. (I admit I'm no expert in agricultural regs and am taking Rod's word on these things, but nobody has claimed they aren't true.)

So if we take Rod's claims as true, at least for the sake of argument, then we should read Rod's prescriptions as increasing the power of individuals. Rod's prescriptions are largely around eliminating the bias towards large agribusiness and against smaller family farming operations. Individual power is already restricted in a particular way that most of us don't see because we're not farmers; Rod proposes removing those restrictions.

To the extent that anyone complains about Rod's ideas, he is likely ignoring the producers' stake in the indiviudal-power issue and is seeing things only from the consumerist standpoint. Which is exactly Rod's point in all of this debate. The consumerist philosophy looks at the world from a Wal-Mart perspective (Always Low Prices!) and ignores the rest of life, including producers, hidden costs, and especially non-economic factors (i.e., the human soul). I'm not sure what those emails add to the debate except to show that there's a lot of educating to do about exactly what Rod (and, more broadly, the crunchy manifesto) supports and why.

By the way: "seriously reform" doesn't necessarily mean the dire things people think it means. New Zealand "seriously reformed" its farming industry by introdcing free-market reforms, ending subsidies and encouraging its farmers to compete on the world market. Now farming there is more efficient — for example, the same lamb meat output from fewer animals — and more environmentally sound - more diversity, rotation, etc. All of which the objecting reader ought to support.