Barons : Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry

A shocking portrait of corporate corruption in America’s food industry, its implications on democracy, and what we cando to improve it.

Barons is the story of seven corporate titans, their rise to power, and the consequences for everyone else. Take MikeMcCloskey, Chairman of Fair Oaks Farms. In a few short decades, he went from managing a modest dairy herd torunning the Disneyland of agriculture, where school children ride trams through mechanized warehouses filled with tensof thousands of cows that never see the light of day. What was the key to his success? Hard work and exceptionalbusiness savvy? Maybe. But more than anything else, Mike benefitted from deregulation of the American food industry, aphenomenon that has consolidated wealth in the hands of select tycoons, and along the way, hollowed out the nation’srural towns and local businesses. Along with Mike McCloskey, readers will meet a secretive German family that took over the global coffee industry in lessthan a decade, relying on wealth traced back to the Nazis to gobble up countless independent roasters. They will discoverhow a small grain business transformed itself into an empire bigger than Koch Industries, with ample help from taxpayerdollars. And they will learn that in the food business, crime really does pay—especially when you can bribe and then double-cross the president of Brazil. These, and the other stories in this book, are simply examples of the monopolies and ubiquitous corruption that todaydefine American food. The tycoons profiled in these pages are hardly unique: many other companies have manipulatedour lax laws and failed policies for their own benefit, to the detriment of our neighborhoods, livelihoods, and ourdemocracy itself. Barons paints a stark portrait of the consequences of corporate consolidation, but it also shows we canchoose a different path. A fair, healthy, and prosperous food industry is possible—if we take back power from the baronswho have robbed us of it.