Food or drug administration?

Genetic Modification technologies are neither good nor bad, they are tools. Anyone can agree with this, including activists and Monsanto.

Can GMOs be bad? They certainly can, for simple logical reasons. When a genetic modification is introduced, the resulting organism is different by definition. The differences may be small or large, visible at first sight or after microscopic investigation only, immediate or delayed; they may relate to the shape, chemical composition or biological properties (such as resistance of reproduction) of the resulting organism. A GMO may therefore carry or produce toxins, hormones, proteins which were absent from the natural organism. Their presence may induce, on the short or longer term, allergies, epidemics, all of which may also be extended and multiplied by genetic alterations all over the food chain, as well as by contamination of other cultures.

It is therefore a logical property of Genetic Modification technologies to induce a high level of risks. Theoretically, risks of the same kind are also present in the random natural modifications described by the theory of evolution. They exist, however, at a much higher order of magnitude in GMOs, as modifications occur and spread at a completely different pace and on a totally different scale. Traditional graft hybrids were unable to affect most aspects of the DNA and definitely did not cross the animal/vegetal-barrier, generating moderate biological risks. It should also be noted that graft hybrids increased biodiversity, when GMOs now tend to reduce it, because of the existence of specific ‘kill-all non GMOs’ pesticides (namely the ‘RoundUp’), as well as for economic reasons.

Now that we have the certitude that Genetic Modification technologies can induce dangerous biological consequences on a very large scale, the only question becomes: how should we handle them?

Industrial GMOs appeared in the 90’s, during the peak of the Great Deregulation move. Instead of being submitted to at least the same control than pharmaceutical products, or even the same than mere food additives, they benefited from an extraordinary political decision in the U.S. It was legally decided (not scientifically established, which would have been impossible) that a ‘substantial equivalence’ existed between them and natural organisms. The meaning of this decision, which is still in force, is that no evidence of their innocuousness has to be established by their producer, under the control of independent public agencies like the FDA, before they are put on the market. Moreover GMOs should not be tagged as different for the consumer who thus becomes the unwilling guinea-pig of a free and large scale experiment from which no one can opt out.

In practice, free trade agreements do not allow any country to decide in favor of more reasonable precautions. The maximum limit to GMOs is the possibility to tag them locally or suspend their distribution when and only when positive evidence of their actual dangers can be legally set forth. As even complete bans could not protect entirely other crops from contamination (which already happened in the case of the Mexican maize), any shorter measure represents a superior level of risk.

The advantages of GMOs would deserve a specific discussion. Let’s say briefly that they are unclear. They probably can increase the productivity of certain crops, prolong the delay of conservation of fresh products, improve the visual quality or even the taste of insipid industrial food, and they certainly can increase the profits of Monsanto. This is well enough to build up strong lobbies in their favor. On the other hand, they cannot eliminate or even reduce the need for pesticides. They increase the cost of seeds now submitted to a growing monopoly. They tend to eliminate agricultural independence of other countries. It is also interesting to note that the generalization of GMOs preceded a spectacular surge in the price of agricultural commodities, particularly those, like soy, in which their market share is the largest. Once these macroeconomic downsides and the biological risks described above are put together, the cost/advantage balance seems to go clearly at this stage against the GMOs.

One would like to review more scientific literature on such a major topic. It unfortunately turns out that most of the relevant research is directly or indirectly funded by Monsanto, and should be considered as unreliable at best, a situation which in turn increases the level of incertitude and risk.

The problem is that no matter how powerful lobby is, it cannot resolve the issues it so actively keeps hiding. No matter how blind a government is, when pushing across all borders a potentially very dangerous type of product for a short-term trade-balance advantage, it cannot prevent disasters to occur. Innovation does not imply letting irreversible problems take place before we learn how to take them under control.

GMOs may have a brilliant future once we know how to handle them. This is not the case yet. Even though genetically induced pandemias have been avoided during their very recent industrial devolopement, biological and economic incidents have already taken place, from mass suicides of Indian peasants, to accidental contamination of crops and allergies to associated pesticides. Time has come for independent research, limited experiment, premarket control, not yet to wild and world-scale industrial applications. The exact opposite is happening.

This is how the world goes.

How working hard has led to ignorance and could lead to poverty

From Ancient Greece to WWII social elites belonged to the leisure class. In other words they did not work or did not work hard, using their vast free time not only for love and hunting (as a training for war), but also for reading, writing, travelling, learning all sorts of things. As others were working for them, from childhood to their death, the happy few had culture for environment and did take a decisive part in it. When they entered politics, they carried with them a strong base of information, having read law, history, philosophy and geography, seen at least a couple of continents and usually given some previous thought to what should be done.
Things have changed dramatically. The so-called working classes are working less and often not at all. Children go to school, teens also go to school or join the gangs and adults retire in their 50’s or at the latest in their 60’s, while work hours have been reduced by half (in some countries by 2/3) in less than a century. Unemployment adds to the phenomenon. At the same time the elites have become workaholics. Their unlimited pursuit of wealth does not allow for much rest. Business breakfasts are being prepared under the shower, meetings follow meetings, dead times are entirely filled by the operation of PDAs. At night, time has come for emailing more than for love. Deals are discussed even on the golf course, and hunting parties produce more business cards than dead game. Vacations, limited to 2 weeks, 4 in Europe, are used for  business encounters as much as or visiting family. Patronizing the arts is mostly a housewife activity, and collecting a speculative endeavor. Information is obtained from business news, press excerpts or Internet briefs. Almost no one reads books, but a best seller here and then.
Books stores, when they still exist, keep a small space somewhere in the back for the lunatics interested in ‘Non-fiction’, and Plato can only be found inside a bizarre mixture of ‘Religion & Spirituality, Self-help, Philosophy, Gay& Lesbian studies, Foreign Language Non-Fiction’. Books are produced only according to market segments, and are not supposed to be read by anyone not pre-approving their content. The word ‘Culture’ applies to about everything from folk dance to comic strips, and exclude literature and thought almost entirely.
As a consequence, thinking is an activity one pays other people to do, advisers, consultants and journalists mainly. These are however too busy themselves to read much or think deep. One can become head of state without having crossed more than one border, or knowing the names of most capitals and prime ministers. An entire region can be conquered without the least clue of its anthropology or sociology. Vast operations are conducted, with no one having worked on a plan B.
Even business gives no price to ideas (under the pretext that only implementation has any value), and cares only for proven recipes. Dissenting positions get the young ambitious employee fired more surely than laziness. The only wise new investment of the past 20 years, the Internet, was eventually called the ‘dot.com bubble’. Venture capitalists actually venture very little, having no new ideas on their own, investing only into what the next big guy has already invested in. Things have reached the point where lack of innovation is becoming the main economic issue for the near future.
While the lower classes are informed by propaganda and TV, ignorance grows everywhere among the elites. Universities have become temples of specialized knowledge. Academics pursue their careers completely sheltered from criticism from anyone else that a handful of experts, and are forbidden to publish outside their limited field of immediate expertise or even acquire a global vision. When called for assistance in real life, they can hardly be of any help, other than on minute topics strictly belonging to their own specialty.
The only consolation is to imagine the face of Karl Marx discovering today what the contradictions of class struggle have been leading to.
This is how the world goes

Capitalodespotism in Chinamerica and other places

Capitalism likes Free Market up to a certain point, i.e. as long as it means not to be hindered from selling and buying any quantity of merchandise. Capitalism, however, starts disliking Free Market when it allows foreign products to do better than your own and manpower to increase its costs, or when it prevents the governments under your influence to grant you subsidies and de facto monopolies, or to negotiate for you some privilege abroad.

The ne plus ultra is a combination of Free Market and Despotism, a good model of which is now in place in Chinamerica, a chimera which should stay alive as long as the two economies can complement each other. In order to do so, the West must keep the most advanced technologies, while the East keeps sheltering the cheapest mass production system. The West must continue to shift its intermediary productions to the East, while retaining most of the profit margins as a payment for its own technologies. In exchange, the East benefits from massive investments, becomes a dominant exporter, and grows at a rapid pace.

Despotism plays here a double role. Totalitarianism – a direct legacy of the Communist system – is used to control the cost of manpower and reduce sovereign risks in the East, while covert public subsidies and militarization allow the West to maintain its vital technological edge.

Unfortunately for its beneficiaries, such a synergy cannot last forever: a) Western governments are unable to justify their hidden support to totalitarianism, a system absolutely opposed to their own public opinion’s ideology. The Olympic flame crisis is nothing but an example of this difficulty. b) Transfers of production entail transfers of technology; while at the same time a constant increase of wealth in the East allows a gradual build up of an autonomous technological capacity. At some point the two poles are therefore bound to compete on the same technologies, losing their complementarities. c) Shifting production in the East also implies growing unemployment in the West, reducing in relative terms the size of Western markets and increasing social costs and pressures in the West. This reduction cannot be fully compensated in the East by the growth of its inner market, exports representing too large a share of the national income.

For the battle to come, the West is at first sight better placed than China, as India represents an excellent substitute for cheap mast production with less ideological downsides. A political liberalization of China is a very difficult exercise, never attempted to this day. Economic growth being a strong factor leading to it, the immediate outcome is likely to be a new surge of despotism and repression, making it very difficult for the West to keep a harmonious relationship with China, and fostering the shift to India.

On the longer run, however, the West is likely to lose the economic war, for lack of innovation. Mechanical engineering and electronics are already behind. Its advance in both computing, telecommunications, energy technologies is soon to be reduced to nothing. Its financial techniques are currently undergoing a fatal blow. Biotechs and materials are lagging. The absence of both large-scale military opponents and financial reserves of governments limits the prospects of military funding of R&D. The cost of manpower in developed countries has seriously weakened their agriculture. Remain the consumers’ brands. How long will it take before there are taken over by the actual producers?

If and when this happens, a new poverty in the West will call for a new despotism.

This is how the world goes.