Food Justice + Neoliberalism

    From this reading, I took away the idea that Alkon wants us to see both the differences and the similarities between food justice progression and neoliberalism, and how the two can and are being used to forward food justice and related movements. It is highlighted that other researchers/scholars tend to argue that food justice movements are using neoliberalism ideas to advance or are neoliberal. A core idea of neoliberalism is minimal government intervention in a capitalist free-market. An increasingly common core step for many food justice groups is to market their cause in some way. This can be done by starting an organic farm, joining a group to provide fresh food for all, telling others to not buy from the businesses they oppose, or telling others to buy from like minded groups only, and many more. The point I believe she is making is that even though many food justice advocates/groups may oppose some neoliberal agendas like only using the free-market as their tool, they utilize neoliberal strategies to push their own, then attempt to dismantle something that one could also define as neoliberal.

    Personally, I think this has lots of truth to it, but I am not sure if neoliberalism is the absolute correct path of capitalism. According to Alkon, workers co-ops and food workers movements have shown to pave paths of success through neoliberalist strategies, which is great for those groups and can serve as proof of neoliberal strategies being linked to food justice progression, but I don't think it is neoliberal in itself. The strongest example in my opinion is groups mentioned like the CIW that can force a food justice advocates agenda onto a big corporation (or 11 of them), this is real systematic change happening at the business level with minimal governmental interaction needed. It is a real example of Alkon's point that even if CIW used neoliberal-labeled-tactics to gain the ground their on now, they are also using their power to rework places affected by neoliberal ideas, like how they were able to make wages better for countless farmers. 

    The last thing I want to say is that I don't exactly understand why, for example, an advocacy group using the capitalist market we live in to progress their cause gets labeled as neoliberal. I get that neoliberalism involves free-market tools, but that does not mean free-market tools = neoliberal. To me it reads the same as saying a worm is a harbinger of death for apples because it ate an apple, but killing apples was never the worms ultimate goal. How exactly is any group neoliberal for simply existing and operating inside a neoliberal market. "Scholars" who are quick to labeling these groups as neoliberal are defining their means as their ends.