GMOs and Conceptions of Social Justice

 Regarding the DQ: If GMOs  "pose no unique hazards to human health," and the chief objection to them is the companies that exclusively control them, why can't we move against those companies with antitrust  action to break their monopolistic hold?

Forgive the incoming nerdiness, but the policy here is interesting (I had to spend an entire year studying this field for my high school debate league and have followed the topic ever since).  

One of the main policy tools used by companies such as Monsanto is the intellectual property rights protection laws--i.e. patents.   Frederick Kaufman notes that the U.S. patent law has allowed to create a monopoly over GMO crops. This treatment of food is fundamentally problematic. Kaufman writes:

A copyrighted movie or book remains the same movie or book, but when food becomes a legal construct or an intellectual property right, it stops being food. Of course, you can eat patented popcorn the same way you can consume its unpatented cousin. But unlike an iPhone or a flatscreen TV, everyone needs food, and we need it every day. The world’s largest purveyors of industrial agriculture would like to convince the rest of us that the global food market is as free as the market for any other widget—even though no one can opt out of purchasing breakfast, lunch, or dinner for any extended period of time, or in any meaningful way. Since everyone must participate in the food market to the tune of 2,700 or so calories a day, food property rights allow those who hold food patents a guaranteed portion of profits from a guaranteed purchase, which is fundamentally unfair. (1) 

Kaufman has some reason to be concerned.  Food Democracy notes that between 1997 and 2014, Monsanto filed 145 suites regarding patent violations, and won every single one (2).  However, patent law comes from a long tradition of government sanctioned sciences.  Article I, Section 8, gives Congress the enumerated power to promote "sciences and useful arts."  By guaranteeing that developers and innovators will reap the benefits of their investment, the government protects and incentives investment.  Studies have empirically shown that countries with strong patent protection lead to diverse and advanced development (3).  However, Kaufman argues that property rights should be less strict when it comes to the bare necessities for life. 

And here is where we find the crux of the issue: property rights.  It can be easy to dissolve the issue down to a simplistic "abolish property rights" or "eat the rich" narrative, but the empirical data shows that patents do have some benefit.    What we have here is conflict between conflicting interpretations of social justice.  The classical market-economy interpretation favors a negative liberty framing of the issue; that is, a just society does not provide obstacles to human action.  Thus, any attempt to wrest corporate control of GMOs away would require the state to infringe upon the negative liberty of the company.  Kaufman, on the other hand, is advocating for a just society that favors a positive liberty.  Where as proponents of negative value non-interference, proponents of positive liberty advocate for individual empowerment and self-realization.   Thus, an individual is free once they are autonomous to make decisions that further their own interest and values.  Yet this second framework is relatively unpopular, and the support for negative liberty has been baked into the system for centuries.  

Allow me to illustrate the how this mentality creates systemic favortism. In the neighborhood of 2016/17, three major mergers between the GMO/pharmaceutical companies Monsanto and Bayer, Dow and  DuPonte, and Syngenta and ChemChina mergers were initiated.  Alleah Douglas, published a fascinating report in the Global Law Review in 2018, discussing the international antitrust laws relevant to the mergers (4).  In her article, she notes that the Monsanto-Beyer merger would consolidate the American market to where 80% of U.S. corn-seed sales and 70% of the global pesticide market under just three companies.  In particular, Douglas notes that the Monsanto-Beyer mergers is a clear violation of the following American antitrust laws:

The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 

The Clayton Act of 1914

The Federal Trade Commission Act

The Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act of 1976

So if the merger clearly violates the laws on the books?  How did it get approved?  The Washington Post published an article in 2018 that reported the Department of Justice allowed the merger after the companies sold $9 billion worth of assets.  Additionally, the article states: "U.S. antitrust officials investigated the Bayer-Monsanto deal for more than a year, ultimately concluding that it could result in increased costs for the country’s agricultural sector" (5).  Despite these reservations, Maken Delrahim, the assistant attorney general, argued that requiring the company to sell assets is would resolve the anti-competitive merger rather--more so than regular oversight by antitrust regulators.  However, Bayer's net worth post-merger is estimated to be over 126 billion euros (roughly $150 billion) (6).  So the DoJ reasoned that requiring Beyer to sell 6% of their assets would preserve a vibrant economy.

In conclusion, when asking why the GMO companies are immune from antitrust action, we have to understand that their position was obtained from a underlying interpretation of social justice.  The status quo's bias for negative liberty favors noninterference over self-realization.  

(1) https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/12/plant-patent-law-why-overhauling-it-will-do-more-to-help-the-food-movement-than-prop-37-ever-could.html

(2) https://www.fooddemocracynow.org/blog/2014/sep/6/monsanto_has_sued_farmers_16_years_never_lost_case

(3) https://www.jstor.org/stable/4132712

(4) https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=gblr

(5) https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/justice-department-approves-bayer-monsanto-merger-in-landmark-settlement/2018/05/29/25d56ec8-6358-11e8-a69c-b944de66d9e7_story.html

(6) https://www.statista.com/statistics/306594/total-assets-of-bayer-ag-since-1995/#:~:text=Bayer%20Group's%20total%20assets%201995%2D2019&text=Bayer%20Group%20is%20a%20chemical,of%20over%20126%20billion%20euros.

Weekly Total: 5

-Commented on Patrick's Post about gluttony
-Commented on Tyler's Post about solar panels twice
-Commented on the Sept. 14-16 DQ page
-Wrote essay

Semester Total: 15 (I think...)