It is a false alternative. One can direct the economic changes to some extent and it is possible to preserve family farming to a significant degree. Huge agrobusiness is not the best model, for many reason (some of them being the lowering quality of food and damaging the environment). Also the industralisation can be conducted in many ways.
Preserving villages and small towns is also a matter of cultural survival.
With free trade there are winners and losers because of the unequal distribution of its benefits but, in the long run, the whole country is better off.
Really? In the long turn we all will be dead, and countries can die too! If the free market is so perfect, why do we have anti-trust laws? Isn't it because the free market will turn against free market if not restrained by the government regulations?
Why the freemarketeers call themselves conservatives if do not want to conserve anything?
You must be joking. American Agribusiness taught the world to feed itself (green revolution) and now has to compete with the very people they saved (Brazil and India for example) who have much lower costs of production.
This has forced consolidation in the food industry and has made our food growers and processors much more efficient. The family farm was the casualty but the net benefit to society is pretty obvious.
for many reason (some of them being the lowering quality of food and damaging the environment).
Again, you must be joking.
Food wholesomeness has never been better and the amount of food borne illness is at an all time low.
The amount of food available to consumers today boggles the mind and the best distribution system in the world ensures freshness and incredible variety.
Consumers can shop at Piggly Wiggly and get products with lower quality but at a price that fits their budget or, they can shop at Whole Foods and buy products made with the finest ingredients sourced from suppliers all over the world.
To walk through any modern day supermarket and not marvel at the bounty that our free market system has created is most unfortunate.
Conservatives believe that the market should determine how resources are allocated and at what price.
What ideology do you think believes that the state should intervene in the economy to correct perceived inequities?
One can direct the economic changes
I just knew the command economy argument would surface in this debate at some point. You cannot command an economy. If there is one thing we should have learned in the last century it is this.
Your arguments are running left at a very fast pace and smack of Naderism more than any conservative I am aware of.