[Tossrock]

Because large agribusiness conglomerates extract their profits largely by creating negative externalities through pollution and underpriced illegal labor? That was kinda the whole point of the article. Government exists to create policy regulating externalities, and they're failing to do their job here.

[oh_sigh]

Sure, that's true, but even in the world where large agribusiness was perfectly regulated, economies of scale would still favor them over small-time milk producers.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

Pollution is a negative externality, I agree. Paying illegal immigrants to work in the U.S. is illegal, but it is not a negative externality. I'm also not convinced that small farms are better about either of these things than big ones are.

[samatman]

Sure it is.

The profit goes to the lawbreakers, the loss goes to the citizens of this country who can't do that job at a decent wage.

It's a classic negative externality.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

> The profit goes to the lawbreakers, the loss goes to the citizens of this country who can't do that job at a decent wage.

By that definition, every transaction where someone accepts a low wage causes a negative externality against someone who would accept a higher one. This does not match my understanding of externalities.

[handoflixue]

The article included reports shows that the larger farms are responsible for more pollution, because the sort of techniques you use to handle the waste for 1,000+ cows are radically different than the ones you'd use to handle a small business herd. Search for the phrase "manure lagoon"

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

The same amount of milk needs to be produced either way. I'm skeptical that ten farms with 100 cows each will cause less manure than one farm with 1000 cows. It all has to be dealt with one way or another.