This Horse meat scandal has been amazing to watch.  Suppliers, retailers, slaughterhouses, packaging facilites and processing plants all dodging the blame. At first they tried to point at a map and blame the French, The Irish, the Welsh, the Polish, the Romanians, the eurozone itself; anywhere but here.

They’re now running out of geographical locations to blame so the new tactic seems to be to point at the nearest institution and blame that. The boss of Iceland decided to blame ALL local councils whereas The National Beef Association blame consumers for wanting cheaper produce.

Is it too cliche to blame capitalism itself? If you can’t trust what goes into your lasagne, what chance do we have of knowing what goes into our electronics? These complicated supply chains act as hiding places for corrupt, illegal or ill-gotten goods. The only reason we can’t see ‘the invisible hand’ of the market is because we refuse to look at it.

My guess, is that this is just the tip of the iceburg.

See my project on reclaiming culture for my take on solving the problem.