Milk Shake Up

So, when is a picket line not a picket line? When is a protest not a threat to public order/ The answer, of course, is when they are being perpetrated by farmers. I'm sure that, like me, you couldn't help but have noticed last week's protests by farmers over the price of milk. They blockaded dairies and set up what can only be described as picket lines outside supermarkets which had the audacity to sell us members of the public cheap milk. Now, if they had been trade unionists, say miners, for example, we all know that the police would have been all over them, cracking heads with batons and breaking up this illegal secondary picketing. But they aren't trade unionists, they are farmers, a group that traditionally supports the Tory Party and takes a reactionary line to everything from ramblers' rights to blood sports. So when they decide to protest over the failings of capitalism, they apparently don't need to have any kind of ballot, nor do they have to confine their picketing to their own workplaces.

I could, of course, mention the fact that farming receives a bigger subsidy than the rest of British industry put together. I could mention the subsidised 'red diesel' they get. But the thing which really gets me about this dispute is that represents a fundamental misunderstanding of capitalism on the part of the farmers and their supporters. It's no good their whining on about how their profit margins are being cut by the supermarkets' price cutting, but the fact is that it is the market which sets the price. And in this case the market is dominated by four or five major players, (which, incidentally, seems to be the norm for any market in modern capitalism). But don't worry, as the classic economic doctrine subscribed to by the Tories (favoured party of the farmers) the market will, over time, correct itself. If the demand for cheap milk outstrips supplies, then the price will rise. Otherwise, the farmers will just have to find ways of producing milk more cheaply, or go out of business. At which point, the reduction in supply will force the price back up. That's capitalism, folks! At least, that's what us workers get told when it comes to pay and conditions. But if you are a farmer, it seems that you are allowed to say that the market is 'broken' and get the Tory government to intervene on your behalf. That's banana republics for you, folks!