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=On the Range=

Summary
On the Range covers the primarily economic side relating to the fast food industry as some of the economic and cultural impact of industrialization that fast food requires. This chapter begins by covering topics such as price fixing in the beef, poultry, and agricultural industries due to the product uniformity companies due to the large chain restaurants, expounding on the arguments that this homogenization was job-killing towards the ranchers due to over competition and significant depression in the pricing of meats. The author then goes on to explain the status of the meatpacking industry, citing various examples of attempted monopolies such as IBP co. The author then continues to argue utilizing various examples of individual farmers and the impact that the "new" industrialization and metropolitan environmental impacts such as land loss, inflation of land value, and Gentleman Farmers, all of which the author regards as negative influences on the market causing a degradation in quality, increase in price due to monopoly and job killing. The author then explains how the idealized cowboy is now vanishing in favor of large industrialized meat packing plants.

"For"book

 * Multiple sources acknowledge the difficulty of small/new meatpacking companies (1,2) and recognize these as a function of both the law and the difficult
 * Mergers, such as the ones described within this chapter, may lead to collectively higher pricing and anti-competitive behaviors harmful to the consumer and suppliers (2)
 * Extremely high estate taxes can result in loss of farms prematurely, thus keeping small farmers with lower profits out of the business, despite making profit (1)

Against

 * Such heavily regulated enforcement can be used to prevent legitimate acquisitions (2)
 * Less than 3% price changes have been detected due to the increased size of the main meatpacking companies; monopolization is marked as 5% change (1)
 * The increased size and efficiency has resulted in superior consumer products for the price (1)

Research (mixed): (1)http://www.choicesmagazine.org/magazine/print.php?article=121 (2)[]