Oink, Oink

I saw the accompanying cute picture of a pig next to the innocuous title: What the Cult of Efficiency Costs Us. This was in my New York Times of June 14, 2026. The article was written by Ezra Klein. I saved the picture as a possible contender for something I would write in the future, but at the last minute I delved into the article. That Cult of Efficiency title hadn’t grabbed me but that pig was just too cute.

The article began quoting a politician’s commencement address. “You are about to step out into a world that prizes efficiency and the annihilation of drift and friction above all else,” he said. “Our entire economy is built on rewarding companies that are efficient at making a profit, not based upon how they treat their workers, the social value of their product or the impact they have on the community.”

He then went on to get into this “cult of efficiency.” He used an example from the Victorian era where bakers, attempting to get the most bread from a given amount of wheat, would “stretch” the wheat by adding chalk or gypsum. The baker got more bread to sell even if his customers were eating powdered rock. They also cut corners by whitening the bread with alum which harms adults and can kill children. They were more efficient, but at what cost.

Then the article got to the crux of the matter and why there was a cute pig sniffing a daisy as an image. It went on to describe ballot initiatives passed by voters in Californian and Massachusetts in 2016 and 2018, which banned the sale of pork from pigs confined to gestation crates where these 400-to-500-pound animals are kept in cages two-by-seven feet wide and long. The sows cannot walk or even turn around. They can spend years in these crates where they can give birth and often, within a month, they are reimpregnated. These intelligent and social animals are now more productive, but at what ethical cost.

It was estimated that the cost of pork went up a bit but some of that cost reflected the initial cost of rebuilding infrastructure. Knowing this, the citizens of two states thought the ethical treatment of these animals was worth it. These laws also meant that pork producers in other states had to comply or not sell their products in these two states. They took the matter to the Supreme Court and lost. They then turned to congress.

Now, tucked into a farm bill, is “The Save Our Bacon Act” designed to allow pork producers to sell their products across state lines, ignoring the will of the citizens who had voted as described above. The pork industry is pushing to lift their restrictions and their end around is now through congress.

A 2022 poll found that 83% of Democrats and 77% of Republicans felt that animal cruelty was a moral concern for them. These same numbers held in California for Prop 12 that supported the ethical treatment of pigs. Congress should not be able to override the will of the people. You would think that if anyone could identify with the pigs, it would be congress.