“Consumers aren’t stupid at all, and that’s the biggest danger.”
Tel Aviv, September 19 – Raisers of dairy and produce renewed their collective pressure on the government today to tighten restrictions on the import of the products they grow, to shore up their domestic industries, rather than go down the dangerous path of allowing Israelis to decide for themselves which products to buy.
Organizations of the dairy, egg, fruit, and vegetable farmers in the country appealed to the Ministry of Agriculture on Tuesday to impose lower limits on inexpensive foreign imports of the items those farmers raise, in the face of the imminent danger that Israelis might elect to spend less of their hard-earned money on those products than if those foreign imports remained unavailable.
“In fact we demand further curtailment of our own production maximums,” stated Ofer Pitsek of the Egg Farmers’ Association. “God forbid anyone be able to pay less for eggs, butter, whatever. The profit margins of our industries far outweigh the economic needs of everyday citizens, who far outnumber us. It’s basic democracy as we’ve practiced it for decades.”
“Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if people had the option of lower prices on milk?” challenged an aghast Oleg Opli of the Dairy Cooperative. “We need to increase milk prices, or we won’t be able to afford our extensive lobbying efforts. I’m sure the consumer appreciates the position we’d be in if they could actually decide which product is better. The consumers need us to determine quality for them, because, let’s face it, consumers are stupid. Really it’s for their own good.”
“Also maybe consumers aren’t stupid at all, and that’s the biggest danger to us,” he acknowledged.
The lobbying groups, in their respective industries, have long seen themselves at the vanguard of economic arenas that formed the core of Israel’s economic production – which was true in the early decades of the modern state’s existence, but holds only a fraction of the importance to the economy in more recent times. Those established, semi-governmental institutions, however, seek to maintain their constituencies’ clout in matters of economic policy even as their share of Gross Domestic Product has, relative to other sectors of the economy such as technology and tourism, dwindled by several orders of magnitude in the intervening years.
“It’s the principle of the thing,” argued Pitsek. “The principle being, we’ll rail against the Haredim for extracting unsustainable economic subsidies from the taxpayers, but heaven help you if you get in the way of our customary control over imports that might compete with our constituents.”
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