The Butcher's Benevolence

The Star Tribune often attributes respectability and wisdom to 'the local food movement.'  The LFM posits that the local economy could be easily improved were citizens to start trying to purchase Minnesota-made products.

Yesterday the Strib offered SUPERIOR TRADITION CATCHES NEW LIFE (the headline indeed in all-caps):

The once mighty North Shore commercial fishing industry, decimated by invasive species and overfishing, is healthier than it has been in decades thanks in part to the local-food movement embraced by Dahl and most of his customers.

That movement, in which people eat food grown and caught locally, combined with demand from Europe for caviar and from the East Coast for gefilte fish, has helped revive an industry steeped in the history and lore of one of Minnesota's most beloved places.

Those Europeans and East Coasters sure are stupid, no?  Why can't they find locally-produced food products?  Perhaps we might impose a tariff to help educate non-Minnesotans in our recent moral advancements.

The local food movement is an economically dumb thing, a tool for upper middle class self-flattery; it's too bad the Strib has so cottoned to it.

The LFM wants us to feel ill-disposed toward trade.  Everybody would benefit if only we could stop buying distantly-made products, right?  We'd be so much better off were our neighbor to produce our computer, and our automobile to come from the couple down the street.