It's not driven by capitalism (any more than any transaction ever has been), it's driven by consumerism. Twinkies would not be manufactured or sold if people didn't like gobbling them up at the available price. Stop blaming corporations (which are just made up of people) and simply blame your fellow citizens for being a bunch of idiots.
It is driven by both capitalism and consumerism.
Re:The Sugar Conspiracy
by brenschluss on Thursday April 07, 2016 @04:49PM
(#11450604)
> Stop blaming corporations (which are just made up of people)
The market is an emergent phenomenon. A market is indeed made up of corporations which is made up of people, but this does not mean that "just made up of people" is an adequate answer.
No way, you are just wrong. Markets existed well before capitalism and well before corporations, and they exist where neither of those things exist.
Re:The Sugar Conspiracy
by brenschluss on Saturday April 09, 2016 @06:22PM
(#11463637)
You're right, but your point doesn't negate my point that dissecting an emergent phenomenon to 'simply' be the sum of its parts is a comprehensible way to understand the phenomenon.
Re:The Sugar Conspiracy
by darkclarity on Thursday April 07, 2016 @01:08PM
(#11448831)
It got to a point where governments had to mandate that certain processed foods (e.g. bread, breakfast cereals) must contain extra vitamins and minerals - just to keep the population from damaging themselves.
While true, this isn't because humans are incapable of improving food. It's because the ways our species has been improving food recently have been driven by capitalism; we've been making it easier to grow and giving it more appealing taste so that it's easier to mass produce and sell. These qualities, especially the taste 'improvements', often result in significant reductions in nutritional quality. If Big Aggro were instead focusing on making our veggies more nutritious, I'm confident that they would succeed.