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The implication that a "good" farmer should not be able to afford a car makes your statement about being pro-small farmers seem disingenuous. While I've read si
by slily 3y ago
The implication that a "good" farmer should not be able to afford a car makes your statement about being pro-small farmers seem disingenuous. While I've read similar comments a few times recently, the "but" is always ridiculous. If a farmer manages to carve out enough free time to drive to the city to protest for a few days, surely he or she is a mega-rich, evil factory farmer, etc. - same story as the Canadian truckers a couple years ago. Not to be provocative, but I find it interesting that city-slicker posh leftist ecofascists somehow managed to convince themselves that working-class people such as farmers and truck drivers are part of the "privileged oppressor" category by virtue of protesting against policies that hurt them.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- DrSiemer 3y agoCalling it just "a car" seems disingenuous. My post mentioned a Tesla, which is a luxury expense the average Dutch person is not able to afford. The whole point was to make a clear distinction between the working-class farmer and the mega-rich, evil factory farmer. The latter loves to act like they are the former.
- slily 3y agoI know a high school graduate who drives Uber part-time for a living and bought a brand-new Tesla with no downpayment recently (i.e. at elevated interest rates), so that's not a very good discriminator.
- DrSiemer 3y agoAnekdotal outlier. In 2022 there were 42,600 registered Tesla owners in the Netherlands. It's a luxury expense, no matter how you turn it. Besides, it was just an illustrative way of saying "plenty of farmers are pretty well off". A bit silly to focus on that part of my argument instead of the actual point, which is that most Dutch people feel those big earners are the bigger problem.
- slily 3y agoSure. But I've never seen any evidence that small farmers aren't aligned with the protests. Is there any, or are the wealthy farmers simply a convenient target?
- DrSiemer 3y agoSmaller farmers generally work hard for small margins. They are easily mobilized by the big agricultural companies that hide behind them. Whatever measures are taken should, in my opinion at least, focus on the highly automated mass polluting bio industry and subsidize smaller, eco- and animal-friendly businesses instead. The massive food surplus clearly leaves plenty of space to trim down a bit. The resulting CO2 decrease might even allow a few new houses to be built.
- slily 3y agoThat's a completely different conversation from the broad condemnation of protests that affect all farmers based on the premise that farmers shouldn't be able to afford nice things.
- jessekv 3y agoIt's a fair point, but, like other business owners (large or small), a farmer with a Tesla in the Netherlands is likely driving a company car and taking advantage of the tax incentives for company electric cars.
- t0mas88 3y agoForget about the car, many people have a company car and they're mostly EVs due to tax incentives. The real story with the farmers is that there are 3 very large farming companies responsible for more emissions than all traffic in the country combined. That's close to 10x more emissions than the whole aviation industry. These are billion euro+ sized businesses, with a huge environmental impact. They pay PR firms to paint these "small farmer" stories while they're just large industrial polluters. The main person for the political "farmers party" has a long history of being deeply involved with these companies. She's basically their lobbyist. Example: Van Drie Group, over 3 billion revenue last year from veal. In Dutch, but a bit more background here: https://www.groene.nl/artikel/het-merk-boer https://www.groene.nl/artikel/het-merk-boer