Pepperoni Turns Partisan

Mark Thoma asks Why are Republicans in the grips of "Big Pizza"? in response to Paul Krugman noting that Pepperoni Turns Partisan.

At a still deeper level, health experts may say that we need to change how we eat, pointing to scientific evidence, but the Republican base doesn’t much like experts, science, or evidence. Debates about nutrition policy bring out a kind of venomous anger … that is all too familiar if you’ve been following the debate over climate change.

Pizza partisanship, then, sounds like a joke, but it isn’t. It is, instead, a case study in the toxic mix of big money, blind ideology, and popular prejudices that is making America ever less governable.

Emphasis Mine

Here we have the profit motive driving pizza companies to promote a certain ideology (of individualism) that is detrimental to the health of their customers. This ideology has captured a political party through money and support. Thus, the state is bent to supporting the pizza companies.

Individualism is not the problem, but the profit motive. Individualism can be constructed to grow healthy human beings.

The laws of motion of Capitalism forbid the pizza companies from acting in any other way. Under Capitalism, they continually grow profits in order to survive. Not to do so results in destruction.

We must change how society operates in order to avoid these problems.

Change requires overcoming the perverted ideologies, and comfortable prejudices.