Market Feedback Worksheet
This worksheet helps evaluate the presence or absence positive-sum closed-loop feedback required by free market theory.
Description of Economic Situation for Evaluation: ______Industrial Corn Farming ____________
Part 1: Immediate Involvement
Gains, Benefits, Profits
List or describe gains received
Costs, Risks
List or describe costs realized
Investors, Owners, Stockholders
Return on investment
Federal subsidies & tax credits
Cost of seed, land, equipment, fertilizer, fuel, pesticides, etc
Risk of losing to drought, flood, frost, various climate events
CEO, CFO, Executives
Pay – usually high
Workers
Pay – typically low
Consumers
Cheap corn and corn products
Part 2: Indirect Involvement
Gains, Benefits, Profits
List or describe gains received
Health risks from exposure to severe heat & cold
Health risks from exposure to fertilizer & pesticides
Migration expenses
Health risk from over dependence on single staple
Health risk from pesticide contamination
Costs, Risks
List or describe costs realized
Families of Workers
Downstream (Environmentally affected water, air, land, & health)
Next Generation (duration of impact?)
Disruption of family life and schooling for work driven
migration
Depletion of ground water under neighbor’s property
Risk of sinkholes caused by ground water depletion
Contamination of river water
Dead-zones (caused by fertilizers) disrupt fishing industry
GM pollen contamination of neighboring properties
Depletion of soil & soil erosion impacting streams
Salinization of soil leading to decreased productivity (recovery
time up to 1000s of years)
Depletion of aquifers (recovery time up to 1000s of years)
Sediment banks downstream concentrated with pesticides &
fertilizers affect fish and stream health (decades for recovery)
Increase of super-pests in environment (pesticide resistant,
etc.)
Probable combined effects mean decreased food production
Depletion of fossil fuels (permanent)
Part 3: Source of Resource & Impact
Value Added
List work for which the producer owners should rightfully be paid
All farm related activities
Value Taken
List value derived from sources other than the producer
Pre-existing resource
Soil quality (depleted & contaminated)
ground water (depleted)
Resources derived from other properties
Ground water
Depletion rate vs. replenishment rate
Ground water & soil (100s to 1000s of years to replenish)
Fossil fuels (millions of years to replenish)
Evaluation
In a perfect free market, profit is made by those who do the actual work and take the risks, and all parties involved are properly compensated. All person’s and
properties affected are appropriately compensated for their involvement. The further an economic situation deviates from these relationships the less the
market is functioning according to the free market ideal. If entries in the profit and cost columns (Parts 1 & 2) correlate strongly the transaction is working
close to the market ideal. If they are highly different the transaction does not represent a free market. If the producer is appropriately compensated for value
added and value is only taken with consensual agreement and compensation (part 3) then the market is working as a free market. If value is taken without
consensual agreement and compensation then the transaction does not represent free market action.
Is this situation strongly characteristic of a free market, or not characteristic of free market ideals? (i.e.: do the profit columns and cost columns
highly correlate?
Modern methods for corn farming are not consistent with free market ideals
 Industrialized corn farming has very large long-term downstream impacts, and large impacts on local ground water and soil. No method
exists to compensate those downstream for these impacts nor future generations
 Health impacts for workers are potentially high but compensation is low