Colin Todhunter -- food as weapon

[Rosamma Thomas]

The food system is not broken. It is a weapon. And it is intended as such. It concentrates power, severs people from land, deskills and displaces producers and commodifies nourishment. It benefits financial capital and corporate actors while externalising its costs—to health, biodiversity, labour and culture. 

https://countercurrents.org/2025/06/its-not-a-broken-system-from-food-to-development-its-a-masterpiece-of-control/

[mp]

Indeed, - "the state" as a form of "civilisation, for 7000 years,
invariably has, at the base level, been running on central command and
control of::

- ploughing, grains, slaves, tax and debt,

- thus controlling the price of bread and the people at the bottom.

James Scott wrote nicely about that sort of thing.

Control the food supply, control the people, - did Kissinger say that?

Anyway, nothing has changed there.

Except, of course, financialisation structures built on top.

Money as virtual grain.

And then all the mad layers added in the recent century, all the way to
derivatives and casino speculation.

On the price of bread, rederick Kaufman wrote a useful piece some 15
years ago:

https://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/16/the_food_bubble_how_wall_street

---------------------------------------

[Helena Paul]

Yes, and I want to highlight the casinos - the global markets, Wall Street and the rest, where the cunning make as much from falling prices as they do from price rises... and where everything from war to starvation and murder can be transformed into profit. So that now 90% of Americans have less than the top 1%.

Instead of tackling injustice, we encourage it, so that it too becomes a commodity ...

On 20/06/2025, 13:23, "mp" <radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com <mailto:radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of m...@aktivix.org <mailto:m...@aktivix.org>> wrote:




Indeed, - "the state" as a form of "civilisation, for 7000 years,
invariably has, at the base level, been running on central command and
control of::


- ploughing, grains, slaves, tax and debt,


- thus controlling the price of bread and the people at the bottom.


James Scott wrote nicely about that sort of thing.


Control the food supply, control the people, - did Kissinger say that?


Anyway, nothing has changed there.


Except, of course, financialisation structures built on top.


Money as virtual grain.


And then all the mad layers added in the recent century, all the way to
derivatives and casino speculation.


On the price of bread, rederick Kaufman wrote a useful piece some 15
years ago:

https://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/16/the_food_bubble_how_wall_street <https://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/16/the_food_bubble_how_wall_street>

---------------------------------------


On 20/06/2025 11:00, Rosamma Thomas wrote:
> The food system is not broken. It is a weapon. And it is intended as such.
> It concentrates power, severs people from land, deskills and displaces
> producers and commodifies nourishment. It benefits financial capital and
> corporate actors while externalising its costs—to health, biodiversity,
> labour and culture.
>

> https://countercurrents.org/2025/06/its-not-a-broken-system-from-food-to-development-its-a-masterpiece-of-control/ <https://countercurrents.org/2025/06/its-not-a-broken-system-from-food-to-development-its-a-masterpiece-of-control/>
>


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