The mayor’s office says it would be the first major U.S. city to enact such a plan.
It’s funny how the solutions for the failures of capitalism often end up looking just like socialism
Is city ownership socialist though? Are the workers unionized? Do they have the right to decide what is and isn’t stocked?
Is city ownership socialist though?
Not necessarily. That would turn it into something more like a public utility than like a for-profit business.
I mean, it’s “not socialism” when the fire department or the power utility aren’t private, for-profit corporations, but it is if the grocery store is? LOL
Are fire departments for profit?
You do get billed afterwords. At least my dad did when his house burned down 20+ years ago. However his insurance covered the bill.
My in-laws had a housefire a couple of years ago, and they live in the boonies outside of a small farm community.
The volunteer fire department handed them a bill afterwards and told them “give this to your insurance. We only want what your insurance will pay so don’t worry about it if they only pay part or don’t pay at all”
Its a dystopian racket, but at least its pulling a bit of money from the haves to get it to the have-nots and helps sustain a vital service to the community
That sounds kinda dystopian to me
There are less than 6500 food deserts in the country. Having access to cheap healthy food is available to the vast majority of people living in the US. We’re talking edge cases, capitalism has been quite successful with the food supply chain here.
Do you think 6500 is a low number? It’s not like each food desert affects only one person each. More likely than not, each is affecting more than a thousand people. Especially in a population dense area like Chicago. We are talking millions of people living in food deserts.
Also, after reading a bunch of your comments, I’m not sure you are fully aware of what a food desert is. But hey, that’s Capitalism.
About 5% of the population. Whereas the rest enjoy the best supermarkets on the planet. This should be about fixing the edge cases, not trying to pretend we don’t have amazing choice and wealth in food for the vast majority.
So you’re talking about “edge cases” and also claiming it effects over 17 million Americans. That’s a lot of human suffering.
We should strive to improve. But the modern food system which is overwhelmingly capitalist has produced the most food secure system to the most people ever. Calling it a failure over 5%, especially without context and scope is foolish.
The modern food system is not capitalist. We extensively subsidize farming, so that farmers will produce excesses despite a lack of corresponding market demand. This socially-funded excessive production is the foundation of our food security.
Capitalism does not produce such a system. Capitalism sees production in excess of actual demand as wasteful, and seeks to eliminate it.
We subsidize farmers, so we don’t have a famine. Has nothing to do with it being socially funded.
The stores all closed down due to high crime rate, I don’t blame them.
This is true. I don’t know why you’re being downvoted.
I know, the issue is well known. I’m sure I was down voted because the city is primarily black so to mention the fact of it’s high crime rate in a discussion that pertains to it is wrongly offensive to them, que sera sera.
A lot of the discussion related to retail theft is heavily racially-motivated and insincere. A short comment without nuance can look indistinguishable from a scary dogwhistle news segment, even if the short comment is accurate
The stores left because of the crime, not because there isn’t a market for them. I’m sure there are tons of people in Chicago who would love shopping at a local grocery store.
It’s not sustainable to run a business when your loss to crimes outweighs any potential profits
The stores left because of the crime
The crime stories (yep, they made a big buzz and media ran hundreds of stories about that one shoplifter in San Francisco) wildly overstated the actual amount of crime. It’s just so interesting that corporate news oversold that story, so much so that a person that didn’t know better would think that was a pervasive thing in urban areas and cities are all hellscapes of disorder and flames.
Meanwhile, shareholders rewarded Walgreens’ management with a boost to stock prices after they reported they’d be pulling out of ‘crime-ridden’ areas. They didn’t leave because of the crime, they left for the stock bump and told the crime story to make it look less-bad
By definition, if the business venture isn’t profitable, then there isn’t a market.
REI in downtown Portland pulled out and publicly said it was because of rising crime, but it was really because the employees were trying to unionize.
Yeah. We all know how much Walmart is struggling to make profits.
Invoking crime for this practice is just a tactic to pretend it isn’t red lining.
Food, shelter, water, power shouldn’t he for profit.
Medicine, education…
Holy shit…what have the Romans ever done for us?
And the aquaducts!
I’ll toss in that I’m fine with the luxurious versions of those things being for profit where it applies. But that’s the rub, the ruling class is probably going to define anything past a cardboard box and gruel as “luxury.”
Anyone else remember government cheese?
That melty golden-orange loaf of processed cheese product. 🧀 We call it Velveeta now.
Not me, but Im not American.
Since the pandemic I’ve been working from home and that gives me time to take food-shopping off of my wife’s share of the household work. I noticed pretty quickly that every supermarket under the Kroger group was gouging on prices, so when they acquired Safeway I discovered there’s a WinCo in my town. (WinCo is employee owned, has the feel of a warehouse/bulk store, and it beats Kroger/Walmart/Amazon/GoodFoodHoldings stores on price, by a lot. Plus, the employees don’t have the energy of beaten animals and that matters to me for some reason.)
Good on Chicago doing this but there are already alternatives to Walmart and Whole Foods in some places if you look.
WinCo is legit. The bulk section alone makes going in there worth it. Need oregano? You can pay $5.99 for the jar at Kroger (in my area, Fred Meyer) or you can go to the bulk section of WinCo and pay $0.37.*
* Numbers not exact, but it is literally that drastic a difference.
you can go to the bulk section
Yeah. I got a bunch of resealable/airtight bulk containers and will probably never buy spices in those little 2oz shaker-jars again. My pantry is a small store by itself now, it feels better to get like a pound of a spice for $7 than it does to buy 2 ounces at a time for $7- and all those trips I don’t have to make to get a spice I just ran out of is totally worth it- my restocking trip is… from kitchen to pantry, takes seconds.
Ironically, way back in the 70s Kroger successfully defeated a hostile corporate takeover, in part by issuing their employees stock
in some places
That’s an important caveat.
Eh, where I live the employee-owned grocery store is of lower quality and higher priced than Walmart.
I went in expecting more, was sorely disappointed and left without buying anything.
It’s essentially the same products in a worse store for a higher price.
I know a lot of people like to beat the ‘employee-owned’ drum, but unless that translates to lower prices or better quality, I don’t see a reason for customers to subscribe to it.
I agree. At the end of the day it’s a business. But if two companies offer similar products go with the employee owned company.
The main thing about is decision making structure. Because employee or community owned stores are owned by the users. It means the end users have power over what is offered. As opposed to big box in which case it is non local non user shareholders.
But if two companies offer similar products go with the employee owned company.
Completely ignored my point about lower quality and higher prices.
It means the end users have power over what is offered.
What do you mean? The employees or the customers? I don’t really care if the employees have the power. That just moves who’s trying to take advantage of me.
As opposed to big box in which case it is non local non user shareholders.
It also doesn’t matter if they’re local.
What matters is if they give me a better deal. If they can’t do that, I will go with someone who will.
I almost completely agree with your first and last points. I was trying to say if they provide the same product at the same quality and price try to prefer the co-operative. I say similar because, personally I’d give some leeway to the co-op. But there are limits and co-ops are businesses and if they give sub par products and services than we shouldn’t buy from them.
The power is held by the owners. If it’s a consumer co-operative it is controlled by the consumer and a worker cooperative is owned by the workers. So the end users of products or the ones who have jobs. It depends on how it’s structured.
I somewhat agree with your last point. The big thing is ownership is wealth and control. If you control your store you get to chose the available options if someone else owns it it means someone else has control. So I’d rather I have control over it. Again with the previous thing. If someone else can do it sooo much better than I than I should someone’s product.
But we have to be careful because you can lead to the problem with data and big tech. I use an alternative to Google Cloud that is a cooperative but I have to pay. But with Google I don’t pay but loose my privacy. In that instance you have to determine what’s more important, given what I need it for is comparable to what I need what is important and I chose ownership and privacy over having neither of those.
Hmm… products and services still cost the same but now there are less people in the chain to make a profit.
Sounds like a win-win for me.
If there are less people In the chain, shouldn’t everything cost less?
That’s what they’re saying. Wholesale price is the same, retail should go down due to less people in the chain.
They just phrased it poorly.
you would think so
I was referring to the overall cost of products, like what the businesses pay to bring them to market.
Yes, things should cost less for customers because businesses are making less profit.
Small town in Kentucky did a similar thing with a municipally ran gas station.
Main streets with Mom and Pop stores are really nice. It seems like you’d get more soul from than a government store. But I don’t know how you would incentive then sufficiently, as it’s really tough to run a small storefront when competing with online.
The real problem is that we fucked over main streets 75 years ago with deliberately car-dependent zoning policies and massive subsidies for car infrastructure. Now all we’re allowed by law to build are shitty stroads with big-box stores.
Problem with mom and pop stores is the owners are still operating to maximize profit.
This intrinsically involves giving the least while charging the most. They’re going to be screwing everyone over as much as they can, while hiding behind the ‘mom and pop’ shield.
Healthy food ftw!
paving over huge areas of the earth with concrete and forgetting how to grow your own food creates bad situations. every community/neighborhood should by law have a green/garden area of a certain size that is capable of growing most of the food required to sustain the local residents.
That’s not at all feasible for places with long, cold winters, or southwest areas without enough water, among others.
And before you say “well people shouldn’t live there then”, they live in those places because of the other resources. For example, let’s say logging in Montana, or oil fields in Texas. You’re not going to get the world to stop needing those resources any time soon.
That’s not at all feasible for places with long, cold winters, or southwest areas without enough water, among others.
I wonder how people in these areas survived without grocery stores, then.
They always had some kind of food importation. Unless you want to go all the way back to the first few people in the area who did subsistence hunting and gathering. But that’s also not feasible for more than a few people.
and yet people in all of those places manage to grow their own food. humans are a resilient and adaptable species. but anyway, this is a tangent. even if the land has a playground on it, it doesn’t matter. people can decide how to use a blank space in a neighborhood. if food grows well there, then grow food. if not, make it a farmers market and people can bring the food there. the point is…we shouldn’t pave over the earth and then complain about food deserts.
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did you ever think you’d grow up to be someone who berates and swears at people on the internet?
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fair. and i will piss off…to my garden to harvest my roma tomatoes because the ones at the local store, are shittier and super expensive! co-located food/housing is common all across the world and is super awesome. :D
Having a garden (even a community one) aint the same as having an agricultural industry to supply a city dicknips.
Tone policing is the lame retort of the person who knows they lost the argument.
if not, make it a farmers market and people can bring the food there.
The suggestion is that this is essentially what is happening. The exact real estate that these buildings will occupy are not likely to be greatly fertile lands. They might not be farmers markets, but it’s the same point you’re making here.
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Those stores left because of crime. Instead of fixing the root cause of major social issues, their Band-Aid is taxpayer funded stores? Why not just skip the middle man and send food to people directly? Or just set up taxpayer funded food banks. That’s effectively what these “stores” will turn into anyway. This just seems like performative nonsense, not intended to solve anything.
Is it “performative nonsense” because it’s Chicago, or was this city in Florida doing it years ago and this one in Kansas also “performative nonsense,” too?
Why do you think these examples are analogous? The stores in the towns described in the articles you linked didn’t shut down because of poverty or crime. In the examples you provided, collective supermarkets seem to be a good fit. Contrast this with the Chicago mayor, who cites poverty. If people can’t afford food anyway, and the business is going to face sky high theft, the plan doesn’t make sense. Cut out the middle man and just send poor people food. It would cost far less than trying to set up supermarkets from scratch and running them at a loss in perpetuity. Plus it means helping poor people, rather than forcing them to shop lift if they’re hungry.
Lack of shopping opportunities and an inability to pay for food are two separate things. They may often co-occur, but just sending food too poor people doesn’t solve food deserts.
And separately from that, poor people deserve to be able to look at their produce, buy stuff last minute, or browse and buy what strikes their fancy too. All the reasons everyone else uses supermarkets should be available to poor people as well.
If the stores are government run, there is no profit motive. That means lower prices, which means more accessibility for the people who need it.
And who will be sending poor people food? Let me guess, we need to leave it up to churches and charities? Lol
Look at you tripping over yourself to lick the boot. Sad.
If the stores are government run, there is no profit motive. That means lower prices, which means more accessibility for the people who need it.
If these stores are going to be run at a loss anyway, why waste enormous sums of money on premises and other costs when they could just start food banks and give people the food directly? Or, as I suggest above, the government could send people food directly.
I’m suggesting that we give people free food and I’m the boot licker? Okay Bezos.
why waste enormous sums of money on premises and other costs when they could just start food banks
This runs into the problem of charity out-competing potential business ventures. Government subsidized private groceries, or public-private partnerships or just plain government run grocery stores can alleviate the problem of a food desert while still bringing the benefits of an active business to the area. The local government can increase or reduce its investment as needed, and it doesn’t create a service that inherently can’t be competed with by private business in a space that’s already unprofitable/too risky to operate a business within
This runs into the problem of charity out-competing potential business ventures.
But this is moot as the city is planning to run loss-making stores where private stores are non-viable. There is no risk of outcompeting businesses which aren’t even there. And if there is a concern of outcompeting private stores, running stores offering cheaper products than any private store could do so in the area would destroy those businesses just as effectively.
The decision has been made to entirely sacrifice any pretence of private enterprise in the supermarket space in certain areas in Chicago. I’m merely arguing that, given this decision, there are more effectively ways to use public funds.
No, you’re just pushing the tired old, “religious groups and charities should be feeding people, leave the government out of it” bullshit. It doesn’t work.
you’re pushing the tired old… “leave the government out of it” bullshit.
They literally said government was the solution in the message above yours. Regardless of the merits of @JasSmith@kbin.social 's argument, you’ve mischaracterised what they’ve said and that isn’t fair or productive for discussion.
No, you’re just pushing the tired old, “religious groups and charities should be feeding people, leave the government out of it”
I’m literally saying the government should give people free food. You’re arguing with a straw man.
He’s going to find our real quick why those stores left in the first place
Wal-mart regularly closes stores that try to unionize.
Whole Foods is a division of Amazon, and their store decisions generally float around hurting labor until labor gets fed up.
But that is only the pattern that both of those employers have shown repeatedly for years now so maybe I am prejudice against companies owned by multibillionaires.
It sounds like you do have a prejudice against those store chains. Those stores were closed because there was an insanely stupid amount of theft.
Funny how that’s the same excuse used by stores in my area that were trying to unionize. Weird that these two things always seem to align. It’s almost like monopolies are bad
Vote qith your wallet
How? If you have only 1 grocery store and you need to survive, then you must buy from that store.
Oh my fucking god dude.
FOOD DESERT
By definition there is little to no choice for these people.
They do, but Walmart has about a billion more votes.
What wallet? I’m broke
“Voting with your wallet” means fuck all when some people’s wallets are hundreds of thousands times bigger
Source?
“Theft”
https://reddthat.com/post/4806295
Show some data
Why?
Because of the exorbitant amount of theft at those locations.
Bullshit. Those large stores come in to an area and drive out local competition, then when they don’t make the % to keep the shareholders happy they fold up and leave. Mom and pop shops are the backbone of communities and these pricks destroy that.
Does high crime in an area mean that people shouldn’t have access to stores that sell food?
Excellent point. If stealing is what keeps people fed, then the taxes that keep that store open are worth it. But also I think the reported rates of theft are wildly overstated, here in Australia we had our two largest stores basically admit they made up the whole “epidemic” so they’d have an excuse to raise prices.
It’s usually just an excuse over in the US, too.
If businesses are operating at a loss they cannot sustainably remain open.
Do you believe every USPS office is profitable? No, many are not, but people need access to mail. Roads don’t generate a profit either. Government services shouldn’t need to be profitable.
Sorry guys, this grocery store isn’t profitable, guess you don’t really need access to food
It’s almost like we should care more about people instead of profits
Cute strawman
They definitely seemed to be implying the city shouldn’t do this in their top post, so no, not a straw man.
Since when is the city in charge of businesses moving?
Stop it! There’s no more straws left!
No, it means they’ll have to get in a car and drive to the next location, hopefully without stealing from there too.
Not everyone in poor areas has a car. Or easy access to one, or the spare money for gas to drive out of their way to find a grocery store.
Then stop stealing
The real Uncle Iroh would not like you, to put it mildly.
- Accused me of straw Manning
- Proceeds to assume everyone has a car
This is the e real reason, I don’t get why you’re being downvoted.
Because Stores say shoplifting is a national crisis. The numbers don’t back it up. The surge in theft is mostly just made up, and what isn’t made up is kind of an irrelevantly small number.
Stores expanded too much and then got hit by the pandemic, a tight labor market, and changes in buying patterns. Those sort of things have a lot larger impact on their profitability than whether shrink was 1.6% or 1.4%.
The average shrink rate says nothing about a single store or single area’s shrink rate.
Some stores are higher than 1.4%, but it’s still in the low end of single digits, not like 15%. Raising prices a couple percent to compensate wouldn’t even be noticed.
Does shrink include the cost of security, security measures, vandalism or injured employees? You have this one thing you think describes the whole thing and the reality is you’ve chosen your bad guy and you’re going to confirmation bias yourself there.
Because wehh corporations wehh mom and pop shop (which they don’t go to because it’s inconvient) bla bla poor people. People like thinking they have a deeper understanding of something even if it’s objectively not true because it makes them feel intelligent, no matter how stupid it makes then look. The reason these stores closed is really simple, crime in low income areas caused these stores to not be profitable or simply not worth the endless hassle. I don’t even get why they’re mad though, they cry about mom and pop shops and when the large corporations leave and there is all the space for them they get mad the large corporations left. Idiotic.
So I’d like to chime in here as someone who lives in a low income food desert. The food desert isn’t because of theft. In fact, many chains have tried to open up here over the decades. The city government is so hostile towards them though, that these stores don’t even get to the opening stages. The city wants to charge these stores exorbitant fees for no reason. Charge 10x as much for electricity than the town with a smaller population 15minutes away. Is this everywhere, no, but it is in more places than you’d think.
Let me guess, your response to that would be “Well just vote those people out! It’s your fault for keeping them in there!” And my response to that is, vote them out and replace them with who? No one has run against these people since they were first elected into office in the 1960’s. Oh sure we’ve tried to get people to turn against them, but they’ve stacked the system so it’s damn near impossible. The only thing we can do is wait until they die, which doesn’t seem to be any time soon.
You remind me of this guy I’ve debated with who had this outlandish claim that “If CEO’s are paid less, then they’d work less.” But there’s no actual proof to that, and trust me, he looked. He then went on to say he’d rather be paid in company stock than cash. Like he’d legit forego minimum wage to be paid in 100% stock.
So I’m going to say the same thing to you that I’ve said to him. You’ve been all up and down this thread blaming theft as the reason why food deserts are a thing, can you provide nonbiased studies proving that?
A sav-a-lot even tried to open and they protested because it wasn’t good enough for them.
