this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
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That really just sounds like the market forces of supply and demand.
I mean, profit is still a primary factor of being in the agriculture business, sure. But if a company isn't profitable, they stop being a company.
If there's a surplus of food, and a finite amount of time for it to be consumed, it's going to be sold at a loss or it's going to rot.
While Bobby's thought makes perfect sense, it's more of a cycle and not (just) necessarily an intrinsic flaw of capitalism.
The intrinsic flaw of capitalism is when the supply-side realizes that the value of goods is "whatever they'll pay", and end up mini-maxing profit...reducing costs by limiting yield, then jacking up the price because of reduced supply. Maximum profit for minimum work.
Applying that to industries that are pretty much essential for life (implying a pretty static level of demand)...agriculture, healthcare, etc...when not all people have the same amount of money, is truly evil.
Brace yourselves, because that could easily be a result of the impending agriculture consolidation that'll come after Trump finishes destroying all the remaining smaller farms. Easier to collude when there's a small number of giant conglomerate farms.
Edit: okay I realized I wrote all of that to essentially describe artificial scarcity. But the last paragraph (before this) is pretty important.
You're making a good argument that we should partially socialize the systems needed to support life, like agriculture, and healthcare, but I would go further and include housing and a few other things.
At that point, we are talking about a strong welfare state.
So the modern solution to all this was invented like, 90 years ago by FDR.
We need another FDR.
Those are based on the promise of immense profit in the future.
Literally every company on Earth has that in their business plan.
Thats not true at all. Plenty of businesses don't even have the possible upside of immense profits in the future no matter what happens.
AI companies continue to run at a loss and may even get bailed out because realizing all that loss would tank the economy. Not because they promise immense profit.
Sorry I was trying to redirect your thought process to an alternative explanation, not start a debate about diversity of business plans.
They don't typically sell at a loss, because that drives prices down. They dump it. Canada throws something like 40%+ produce in the landfill. Some stores even have a mandate that surplus food can't be donated or taken home by staff, it has to dumpstered.
As a side note the big chain here added RFID type rink price labels. They can changes prices on a whim. Government hasn't approved the surge pricing model the grocers are asking for, however they list some items at an over inflated price, then almost every day it is on sale at a different price (which amounts to surge pricing). I.e. Our coffee creamer can be as low as $3.50 or as high as $9.00. Its not related to best before date, because its a soy based creamer that has 3 months BB date.
I think the intrinsic flaw of capitalism is that it is a social power hierarchy. All power hierarchies invite abuse, such as producers extracting maximum profit on essential goods. Capitalism is particularly virulent and unstable compared to better-known historical power hierarchies for several reasons particular to it's own scheme, but it's core flaw is the same.