"The Case of Contamination"

This article talks about people's identities being challenged and cultural identities becoming challenged because of global economy. Why do they feel threatened? Because the world is changing. One example of this is the pull of the global economy, for Asante farmers if chocolate prices happened to fall like they did in 1990 they might have to find new crops to grow, new sources of livelihood and they don't necessarily like that idea. Underlying all of this change is the fact that relationships are changing. Not too long ago a father could expect to pass a long a farm or a business to his sons and family, nowadays everything is changing.

"Cocoa prices have not kept up pace with the cost of living. Gas prices have made the transportation of the crop more expensive. And there are new possibilities for the young in the towns, other parts of the country, and in other parts of the world."

However looking deeper into this article if everyone in the world is slowly moving towards more consumerism, less traditional values it is going to create somewhat of a "utopia" which is what we should be afraid of. With everyone becoming the same it will then become difficult to get different cultural opinions, and different view of products, markets, institutions, and what makes our world go 'round. We shouldn't be afraid of what capitalism is producing, we should be afraid of this "utopia".

The article also talks about decision making and how often our decisions are not made by logical and time-consuming thinking, they are instead made at times irrationally and almost always immediately. This type of thinking is what we have been talking about in Rizzo's class. We can't predict how everyone or even one person will react to something. Economists can't know it all.