5 ms·

The cost of picking fruit such that it being affordable is not coherent with the cost of living of Britain. Such is the case in a lot of places in the first wor

The cost of picking fruit such that it being affordable is not coherent with the cost of living of Britain. Such is the case in a lot of places in the first world. You can keep having affordable fresh fruit, or you can pretend you can pay laborers local prices, driving up the price dramatically, reducing the total size of the market (because nobody's going to be able to afford the new prices), and having even less produce being made, further driving up costs as economies of scale become less effective.

ALittleLight 7y ago
People should pay more for fruit and food if more money is required to fairly compensate laborers. The solution shouldn't be importing a disadvantaged population to exploit for cheap labor. If our modern economy is so weak we cannot afford fruits and vegetables we should confront and overcome that weakness rather than conceal it by importing an underclass.
- burntoutfire 7y ago
  Interestingly, it's a shift-by-one kind of situation. I.e. while British or German crops are picked by Poles, Polish crops are picked by Ukrainians... It seems that agriculture everywhere relies on underpaid migrant labor. I wonder if even Ukraine imports some migrant labor for this purpose.
  - vkou 7y ago
    Russia does, from the former Soviet 'Stan republics. I assume Ukraine does as well.
    - moltar 7y ago
      Russia even had North Koreans logging.
    - agapon 7y ago
      Ukraine does not. Russia is easier to get in and pays more.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
    Since we can't turles-all-the-way-down with this, where does the chain end? What do they do there?
    - chewz 7y ago
      They have children.
- occamrazor 7y ago
  Another solution is increasing the susidies to food production, which would shift part of the cost to people with higher income. This has some disadvantages (the market is distorted by subsidies and resource allocation may be suboptimal) and some advantages (a healthier diet is available for a larger proportion of the population).
  - ALittleLight 7y ago
    I agree that there are many potential solutions and I think society should figure out a good combination. Importing people to do hard work for low pay and poor benefits seems like a bad solution.
  - dillonmckay 7y ago
    See Big Corn in the US.
- 0DHm2CxO7Lb3 7y ago
  So the solution you propose means higher consumer prices (which hurts the lower class the most) and to prevent poor people from other countries the opportunity for a higher quality of life
  - ALittleLight 7y ago
    The solution I propose is to fairly compensate people for their work, give them high quality benefits, and tolerable conditions. I don't think that standard is being met by importing disadvantaged people who will work difficult and demanding jobs in harsh conditions for low pay. Worse, this policy effectively conceals the problem rather than addressing it. If fruit was too expensive for most people to buy, that would be a problem our society would need to solve. If we can pretend things are working fine by exploiting the poor, we don't have to face or solve that problem for a while. I also don't believe your summary. It's an easy excuse to pretend that allowing the poor to come slave away in demanding conditions to provide you with low cost goods and services is actually for their benefit. Their original countries are deprived of their economic energy and the poor in the richer countries are forced to compete with a vast influx of workers. The corollary of higher fruit prices is that the fruit workers get more money, more breaks, better benefits, and improved conditions. That's a worthwhile trade.
jekro9n 7y ago
Cost in financial terms is an emotional mechanic that the species can no longer validate. I imagine the younger generation with internet will begin to do exactly that as they read about contemporary politics where ministers of finance dictate what we’re allowed to put agency into for the emotional stability of elderly investors in that emotional model Lazy westerners can have fresh fruit: start digging. We’re outnumbered and pretending we can point big bombs at people and say “lol no we do what we want” forever is foolish. The west needs to import new social norms from elsewhere. Exporting it’s opinions alone isn’t sufficient anymore. And the billions outside the west don’t owe us the luxury of sitting around wanking our theories all day after shipping us all the gadgets to boot.
- MetalGuru 7y ago
  What are you even trying to say here? So many words for so little coherent meaning.
Tade0 7y ago
As an eastern European I think the British should pick their own fruit and pay the appropriate price if they like it so much, otherwise the market is artificially inflated. Germany has the exact same problem with asparagus. We can't be everywhere with our low wage expectations.
- jholman 7y ago
  I think that probably that would make you and your countryfolk worse off. To try to illustrate, I'll switch the analogy to my own country, which is Canada, where we fly in Mexican labour to pick crops. If we didn't fly in migrant labour, we'd have to pay Canadians, who are generally a spoiled, lazy, picky bunch (at least compared to the sort of Mexicans who fly here to work, who obviously are not lazy nor excessively picky). This would drive up the cost of fruit, which is perhaps fine. It would also drive up the cost of unskilled labour in other areas, perhaps construction or retail, because there would be less competition for those jobs. That's good news for the unskilled workforce in the rich country. Great. Of course, not only do prices go up, but actually just less food will get produced. You could argue that that's good, or bad. Fine. However, now all those Mexican labourers don't have foreign work, so they compete for work at home. That drives down the price of unskilled labour in Mexico, and if there's a minimum wage then it drives up unemployment. The industrious folks who were savvy enough to get the Canadian jobs will take the next-best jobs, displacing slightly-less-hard-working Mexicans from their jobs, and so on. Of course, this is also foreign cash that is no longer coming into the country, so it has effects on the balance of trade, i.e. on the ability of Mexico collectively to import nice things that they aren't making internally. That's probably bad news on a decade-long timescale, but it might eventually lead to a more robust manufacturing economy, I don't know. So, in summary, suppose Canada stops using Mexican farm labour (or Britain stops using eastern European farm labour). What are the consequences: All Canadians get more expensive food. Unskilled Canadians get more pay, probably offsetting the more expensive food for those people. Less food gets grown in Canada overall, probably, or at least less luxury food. Unskilled Mexicans are fucked over hard, especially those who are most vulnerable. Rich Mexicans can hire poor mexicans at even more exploitative rates. In the medium to long term, Mexico might have a worse balance of trade, but then again maybe that results in positive industrialization in the long term.
fyfy18 7y ago
The problem isn't just cost of living, it's that these are seasonal jobs. You will be out of work for 3-6 months of the year, so although these jobs typically pay slightly more than the minimum wage, it's not enough to survive the rest of the year. Plus a lot of these farms are in remote places which aren't that desirable for young people to live (compared to cities). Someone else posted that around 10% of what you pay for fruit and vegetables goes to the farmers, so maybe that's where we should start to fix the issue.

ALittleLight 7y ago

People should pay more for fruit and food if more money is required to fairly compensate laborers. The solution shouldn't be importing a disadvantaged population to exploit for cheap labor. If our modern economy is so weak we cannot afford fruits and vegetables we should confront and overcome that weakness rather than conceal it by importing an underclass.

burntoutfire 7y ago
Interestingly, it's a shift-by-one kind of situation. I.e. while British or German crops are picked by Poles, Polish crops are picked by Ukrainians... It seems that agriculture everywhere relies on underpaid migrant labor. I wonder if even Ukraine imports some migrant labor for this purpose.
- vkou 7y ago
  Russia does, from the former Soviet 'Stan republics. I assume Ukraine does as well.
  - moltar 7y ago
    Russia even had North Koreans logging.
  - agapon 7y ago
    Ukraine does not. Russia is easier to get in and pays more.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
  Since we can't turles-all-the-way-down with this, where does the chain end? What do they do there?
  - chewz 7y ago
    They have children.
occamrazor 7y ago
Another solution is increasing the susidies to food production, which would shift part of the cost to people with higher income. This has some disadvantages (the market is distorted by subsidies and resource allocation may be suboptimal) and some advantages (a healthier diet is available for a larger proportion of the population).
- ALittleLight 7y ago
  I agree that there are many potential solutions and I think society should figure out a good combination. Importing people to do hard work for low pay and poor benefits seems like a bad solution.
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  See Big Corn in the US.
0DHm2CxO7Lb3 7y ago
So the solution you propose means higher consumer prices (which hurts the lower class the most) and to prevent poor people from other countries the opportunity for a higher quality of life
- ALittleLight 7y ago
  The solution I propose is to fairly compensate people for their work, give them high quality benefits, and tolerable conditions. I don't think that standard is being met by importing disadvantaged people who will work difficult and demanding jobs in harsh conditions for low pay. Worse, this policy effectively conceals the problem rather than addressing it. If fruit was too expensive for most people to buy, that would be a problem our society would need to solve. If we can pretend things are working fine by exploiting the poor, we don't have to face or solve that problem for a while. I also don't believe your summary. It's an easy excuse to pretend that allowing the poor to come slave away in demanding conditions to provide you with low cost goods and services is actually for their benefit. Their original countries are deprived of their economic energy and the poor in the richer countries are forced to compete with a vast influx of workers. The corollary of higher fruit prices is that the fruit workers get more money, more breaks, better benefits, and improved conditions. That's a worthwhile trade.

jekro9n 7y ago

Cost in financial terms is an emotional mechanic that the species can no longer validate. I imagine the younger generation with internet will begin to do exactly that as they read about contemporary politics where ministers of finance dictate what we’re allowed to put agency into for the emotional stability of elderly investors in that emotional model Lazy westerners can have fresh fruit: start digging. We’re outnumbered and pretending we can point big bombs at people and say “lol no we do what we want” forever is foolish. The west needs to import new social norms from elsewhere. Exporting it’s opinions alone isn’t sufficient anymore. And the billions outside the west don’t owe us the luxury of sitting around wanking our theories all day after shipping us all the gadgets to boot.

MetalGuru 7y ago
What are you even trying to say here? So many words for so little coherent meaning.

Tade0 7y ago

As an eastern European I think the British should pick their own fruit and pay the appropriate price if they like it so much, otherwise the market is artificially inflated. Germany has the exact same problem with asparagus. We can't be everywhere with our low wage expectations.

jholman 7y ago
I think that probably that would make you and your countryfolk worse off. To try to illustrate, I'll switch the analogy to my own country, which is Canada, where we fly in Mexican labour to pick crops. If we didn't fly in migrant labour, we'd have to pay Canadians, who are generally a spoiled, lazy, picky bunch (at least compared to the sort of Mexicans who fly here to work, who obviously are not lazy nor excessively picky). This would drive up the cost of fruit, which is perhaps fine. It would also drive up the cost of unskilled labour in other areas, perhaps construction or retail, because there would be less competition for those jobs. That's good news for the unskilled workforce in the rich country. Great. Of course, not only do prices go up, but actually just less food will get produced. You could argue that that's good, or bad. Fine. However, now all those Mexican labourers don't have foreign work, so they compete for work at home. That drives down the price of unskilled labour in Mexico, and if there's a minimum wage then it drives up unemployment. The industrious folks who were savvy enough to get the Canadian jobs will take the next-best jobs, displacing slightly-less-hard-working Mexicans from their jobs, and so on. Of course, this is also foreign cash that is no longer coming into the country, so it has effects on the balance of trade, i.e. on the ability of Mexico collectively to import nice things that they aren't making internally. That's probably bad news on a decade-long timescale, but it might eventually lead to a more robust manufacturing economy, I don't know. So, in summary, suppose Canada stops using Mexican farm labour (or Britain stops using eastern European farm labour). What are the consequences: All Canadians get more expensive food. Unskilled Canadians get more pay, probably offsetting the more expensive food for those people. Less food gets grown in Canada overall, probably, or at least less luxury food. Unskilled Mexicans are fucked over hard, especially those who are most vulnerable. Rich Mexicans can hire poor mexicans at even more exploitative rates. In the medium to long term, Mexico might have a worse balance of trade, but then again maybe that results in positive industrialization in the long term.

fyfy18 7y ago

The problem isn't just cost of living, it's that these are seasonal jobs. You will be out of work for 3-6 months of the year, so although these jobs typically pay slightly more than the minimum wage, it's not enough to survive the rest of the year. Plus a lot of these farms are in remote places which aren't that desirable for young people to live (compared to cities). Someone else posted that around 10% of what you pay for fruit and vegetables goes to the farmers, so maybe that's where we should start to fix the issue.