Pigs and the government

From January 1, 2009 onwards, there will be a total ban on pig-raising in the city of Dongguan in Guangdong. According to the document released by the government, the existing pig farms must be closed before the end of next year. On the 4th, LI Xiaomei, vice mayor of Dongguan City disclosed this information in the city pollution and animal industry work conference. It is said that pig-raising industry will be seen as the main sources of pollution in Dongguan city. (from "Nanfang Daily", Dec-05-2007)

The official reason why Dongguan ban the pig-raising is: the pollution emissions made by the existing 750,000 pigs in Dongguan now are equivalent of 4.5 million population pollution emissions, and the emissions of chemical oxygen reached 18,000 tons per year. In order to effectively reduce the pollution made by the pig-raising industry, Dongguan have to build a new sewage treatment plants which can depurate 1.32 million tons of water per day. “Therefore, from the point of view of the development of production, pig farming is not worthy”.

It seems reasonable. But the logic behind is a bit strange. Clearly, the Dongguan city government only saw the “bad” side of the pig farming, but did not see the “good” side, or we can say they only “saw the pig manure, but no pork”. On this point, the relevant questions from the local people are already contradictory enough: If this argument can be established, then you can ban the chicken industry, also you can prohibite the establishment of the catering industry. Then maybe one day, you may also make a policy prohibiting Dongguan residents, because compared to the pig and chicken, humans are senior animals to the city and the natural world, and the pollution caused by humans are the most serious!

In addition, we can see another picture by following this logic. As you know, the use of the power of a society is not always beneficial. We all know the fact that in the era of extreme alienation, the power will cause endless disaster. In the period we are living in today, when the old order gradually break and the new one has not yet been fully established, social flaws exist everywhere. And some people take advantage of their powers as an opportunity to make money. However, can we deny the possibility of political power and business just because some people are not using them properly?

It is allowed for the government to keep their powerful rights, but not allowed for the society to raise pigs. Obviously, as a way of employment and industry, if there are problems with the pig-raising, we can solve them by making continuous improvement and adjusting the potential rules of the market. Even if the pigsty vanished one day in the future, it would be a spontaneous order, not destroyed by a piece of the document released by the government. If we can not prohibit the overall operation of government’s power because people are not using it properly, then how can Dongguan City prohibit the pig industry for the excuse of pollution made by it? From the taxpayer's point of view, since both of the government and the pigs have a negative impact, why we support the government, but not the pigs?

Dongguan government banned a local industry for a specious reason. Ostensibly, it expanded its power to the pigsties, but the inherent logic can be easily extended to the whole society- that is, the government makes its own decisions without thinking in the public’s shoes and is interfering the market economy and civil rights.

Someone may say, the local government prohibited the pig-raising entirely because of the environmental considerations, their original intention is good. However, even for the environmental reasons, it should also follow the environmental ideas to solve environmental problems, such as looking for an ecological farming mode, but not interfere the rights of local residents to raise pigs. Moreover, compared to more serious industrial pollution, the pig industry seems actually more “green”- it is absolutely possible to control through a variety of environmental policy and regulation, ecological farming or other effective means.

On the other hand, the so-called saying “the rich go to school, while the poor raise the pigs” is familiarized by the Chinese community. Even a 9-year-old child knows that the people in the pig industry are almost all from the bottom of society, how could the Dongguan City government do not know about that? Yes, this is curious question- if they do not know, how could they serve the public? If they do know, then why did they make such a stupid decision?