Theresa Wellington- McGilton
26 January 2021
7 Cheap Things
A Cheap World
“7 Cheap Things” by Patel and Moore argued the point(s) that the ‘seven cheap things’ cannot exist without the other. The second point they argued was that the capitalist system demands a huge payment from the world as well as from the people in it. It goes on to explain that the world looks the way it does today because of the processes constantly going on. Right off the bat I’m intrigued with these claims. At first read my mind went to ‘payment’ and the way they used it in the text, in addition to the actual money they actually meant it in terms of resources, energy, and people.
The prime example they used to get their point across were the McNuggets. Aside from the enjoyment, when you consume them, not a lot goes through your head about what even makes them possible. The text gives thorough examples of how each step in the process is one of the seven cheap things and also shows how one makes the other possible. They start by explaining how the chickens are bred and then killed every year and they describe this as cheap nature. Next, they go into the processing of the McNuggets. The people who provide this labor get paid pennies for every $1 spent on the McNuggets, thus cheap work. Injury while working with poultry happens frequently and the workers then have to depend on family to either stay at work or to recover. The family help is unpaid so it is cheap care. The examples I listed were just three of the seven things that show how dependent they are on one another.
A familiar example of the capitalist system demanding payment from the world/ the people in it would be their contribution to the US poultry industry’s carbon footprint. Which means you can’t have low-cost chicken without abundant propane: cheap energy. We get this quick and easy meal, but for what? Climate change is one of many possible outcomes of something as small as the making of a chicken nugget. From there it snowballs and goes on to effect ecosystems and how they interact etc..
Theresa, Great work identifying the multiple ways in which the nuggets utilizes cheapness as a strategy not only with the raw material (chicken) but the workers. Seeing the way in which one object of food is made possible (cheaply) through the exploitation of so many people and places is precisely the process we want to become familiar with. Keep this in mind as you read other essays and arguments.
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