Cigarettes and Food

You're probably already wondering what the title means, because cigarettes and food pretty distinct things. You need food to survive, and it will kill you relatively quickly if you don't consume it, while cigarettes kill you very slowly if you do consume them. Obviously both junk food and cigarettes are unhealthy, but excess fat or sugar are pretty harmless compared to nicotine and tar. Unless, of course, you consider the impact that unhealthy eating and smoking have on health, namely that heart disease and other diet-related factors kill more people than smoking does. Is there a connection after all? Quite simply, yes, and it's illustrated quite well by the fact that Kraft, one of the world's largest food processors, is owned by Phillip Morris, one of the world's largest tobacco companies.

Phillip Morris bought Kraft in the 80s, when litigation against Phillip Morris started to become a serious threat. No longer able to completely rely on tobacco products for continued profits, Phillip Morris diversified into ventures that would provide more reliable profits. Food processing is not a high-growth industry, but it is consistently profitable (people need to eat) and thus makes sense for a company looking for stability. The products are also, somewhat surprisingly, marketed in similar ways.

Unprocessed foods are generally healthier but less profitable than processed foods because processing involves additives that allow the product to be marked up for greater profit. As corporations, food processing companies' sole goal is to produce profit for their shareholders, which means marketing the unhealthy processed foods as strongly as possible. The concepts in advertising these food products sound quite similar to those used in advertising cigarettes: the products are not unhealthy (a claim cigarette companies gave up in the 80s), the consumer should have the choice to decide, and marketing to as young an age as possible is ethical. However, companies try to mask the damaging effects of their product, by labeling products as reduced fat when it still contains high levels of fat, for instance, and sow confusion about sound dietary advice.

Advertising to children is unethical, no matter what company is doing it. The tobacco company Camel faced overwhelming criticism when it introduced its Joe Camel cartoon character because it was found to appeal to children and thus form harmful lifelong dependencies. Unfortunately, food companies advertising to children face far less criticism, even though young children cannot make informed choices and have trouble differentiating between programming and advertisements, thus establishing possibly harmful lifelong consumption habits.

It would, however, go against the legal mandate of a corporation to take the moral high road and explain dietary advice properly, reducing sale of their profitable products, or stop advertising to children. Their sale of unhealthy products is very simple to oppose, though. Avoid products that are highly processed, and try to eat local food when you can, as this supports local farmers rather than agribusinesses (corporations), is better for the environment, and tastes better. I'm sure most of you are fairly knowledgeable about nutrition, but it may be worth your while to learn about the differences between the various kinds of fat, to avoid the confusion of "reduced fat" labels etc. Finally, ending advertising aimed at children is stopped most effectively by parents, who have control over their children's viewing habits and who can argue against schools bringing advertising into a learning environment. You could always write to your local political representative, though.

Essentially, the sooner we realize that all corporations have the same inherent flaw, namely that profit is their legal mandate, the sooner we can start working around that flaw and achieving a more enlightened business environment. What do I mean by this? I mean that if all consumers were educated, corporations would no longer have unethical practices because they would not be profitable. (This assumes that corporations cannot hide their actions from an educated populace, which is not unreasonable.) The connection between tobacco and food companies goes beyond mere ownership and shows how this flaw connects all corporations.

Next week: the connection between the mining and pharmaceutical industry! (Just kidding.)

Success in Iraq

The war in Iraq is not an issue I have examined closely and researched in order to understand historical context or actions that could end the conflict, but I have given some thought to the direction that the war could take in the future. The way I see it, there are basically two ways the U.S. can achieve its goals in Iraq: change its goals, or for the first time in history, that I know of at least, build a functional state through military occupation.

The goal of U.S. forces in Iraq is to establish a stable government that persists after it is gone. This is a goal that cannot be partially fulfilled- a government is either stable, or it is unstable. Changing this goal is therefore tantamount to failing without admitting that you failed. This is the U.S. government's current path, because I strongly doubt that withdrawing from Iraq in the near future would leave any semblance of government. That being said, withdrawal is preferable to the Bush administration's current plan of "Keep fucking up," but they're opposing Congress and the majority of Americans, so that plan will end when Bush's reign ends.

You might think it obvious that a lack of government in Iraq is bad, but the reasons why are subtle. Iraq is often compared to Vietnam, which is true because both wars were unjustified and highly unpopular. Two important differences are the nature of the opposition in both cases, and the economies of the two countries. The economy is important because the Vietnamese government currently likes the U.S. government, at least as a trading partner, and the public does not resent the U.S. because it has benefited from export-led economic development. The Iraqi people, on the other hand, would not benefit from trade because Iraq has oil, and oil often leads to inequality and corruption. Saudi Arabia may officially be an ally of the U.S., but its people have a militant dislike of the U.S.. Finally, as the U.S. left South Vietnam the Vietcong moved in, but there is no unified heir to power in Iraq. Rather, there's a brewing civil war between the various factions.

The only way I could see this civil war being averted was if Iraq had a government that could mollify and control the various factions. Unfortunately, historically governments are made by motivated citizens of the nation, not by occupying forces, but if the occupying forces leave then the government will be formed after the civil war, if at all. As I mentioned before, achieving its current goal would be a completely new event in history, to my knowledge. That doesn't make it impossible, just difficult. It would be one thing if the U.S. had popular support, at home or in Iraq, but it has neither. The U.S. would have to convince its people once more of the possibility of success, and then would have the impressive task of convincing the Iraqi people. On top of that it would have to unify the opposing factions to at least form a functioning government together. All of this would require a will and finesse of American politicians that rivals history's greatest leaders, and the U.S. currently has George W. Bush.

From the cases that I have read about, important reforms are brought about by motivated people who have power, charisma, and the intelligence to see what is necessary in the long run and bring it about. Both governments need people like this. The U.S. needs to decrease violence and improve living conditions in order to convince the Iraqi people to let them stay, which would require more soldiers and more money, both of which require the support of Congress, as well as presumably the American people. It is also possible for the U.S. to appeal to the rest of the world for assistance, but given the U.S. past actions this is unlikely. The Iraqi government would need to be reformed to allow participation of all factions, which would require the involvement of key religious figures, many of whom direct or condone the militant aspects of the factions. One idea is to separate Iraq into regions, by sect, that have greater autonomy, which would limit militants to their own zones. (I'm not sure Iraq can be separated this way, because Shiites and Sunnis seem pretty mixed.) The Iraqi security forces would also need to become effective, which would hopefully result from the U.S. funding and the reduction of sectarian tensions. This government would finally have to establish an economy that does not rely on U.S. assistance, as well as the various other functions that a state must fulfil.

My ideas are rough and fanciful, but you can see that nation-building appears to be an extremely difficult, but nonetheless possible, process. It would have been nice if the U.S. had tried some of these things three years ago, but wishful thinking doesn't make the world any better. I suppose that by now things have degraded to the point where success in Iraq truly is impossible, especially given the less-than-stellar presidential candidates running in the U.S. Iraq's future may be solely in the hands of the Iraqis, which unfortunately may become a more violent Iraq. It would hardly be good for world peace and stability (or the "War on Terror,") but may well be good for Iraq in the long run.

While on the subject, I would highly recommend watching this presentation on "How to fix broken states" by the ex-Afghan Financial minister Ashraf Ghani. He explains himself better than I could explain him.