Adam Smith Institute

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Food fights

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food-fights

Oh dearie me, those who would control our lives for us, we little baa lambs being quite incapable of doing so ourselves, seem to have found a new phrase to explain their actions.

But individual action is not enough. It requires choice-editing, not personal choice.

No. Sorry, but no. I'm an adult and I, like all the others who share that distinction, am entirely capable of both taking my own decisions and also of bearing the consequences of them. While you've slightly disguised your intention by calling it "choice-editing" your aim is obvious enough. You want everyone to do as you would will it, not as they, in that irritating fractious manner of free people enjoying their liberty, would. And for that, Tim Lang, you need to be assailed, even if only in a blog post.

But we should go further, and subject Mr. Lang to derision as well.

...when we produced 80% of foods consumed here that could be grown here. Now it's near 60%. Why are we using others' land to grow food we could grow here?

It's called trade laddie. That voluntary exchange, that exploitation of comparative advantages, the division of labour that makes the modern world so stinking rich. The very thing that makes it possible for two grown men to spend their time, as we both do, pondering upon food policies rather than stooped double over a hoe in the fields growing the stuff.

Which rather leads us to our second reason, beyond the curtailment of our liberty, that we should oppose such "choice-editing". Those who would be such editors simply have no idea what they're talking about anyway.