Elimination from the table: The biopolitical fate of the middle class

In the 21st century, food has transformed into a field as strategic as energy and as political as data. The most fragile subject of this transformation is the middle class, considered the backbone of economic stability. The crisis we are experiencing today does not stem from the physical absence of food, but from the class-based narrowing of accessibility.

Agriculture is no longer a sub-heading of the soil, but of global financial balance sheets. Food gains value in the algorithms of fund managers. Labor that goes unpaid in the field turns into speculative rent in the corridors of the stock exchange. This is a structural attack that fuels food injustice.

In Turkey, this transformation can be read on the face of the pensioner checking the price tag twice at the market. The mother who cannot afford meat for her child, yet normalizes the situation by saying, "thankfully we are not hungry," silently accepts her loss of status in accessing her most fundamental right: healthy food. This acceptance is a state of "silent elimination" created by the system.

The cheap carbohydrates replacing meat on the middle-class table are the most concrete and biological evidence of poverty. While the upper-income group maintains its physical capacity, middle-class children are directed toward processed products. When nutrition ceases to be a choice and becomes a class-based fate, the issue is no longer economic; it is biopolitical.

From an engineering and data perspective, the years 2030-2033 should be read as a "tipping point" for the food security of the middle class. When the share of food expenditures in the household budget exceeds the critical threshold of 30 percent, it means giving up on education, health, and future planning. This abandonment zeroes out the middle class's potential for social mobility.

Food insecurity triggers forced internal migration; subsequently, the anger created by food prices manipulates political climates. When the middle class is eliminated from the table, society's capacity to plan and manage its tomorrow also weakens.

The real danger is not becoming poor, but getting used to it. Getting used to it is the system's cheapest form of power.

Defending our table is defending our future. Because we know that; food is the most critical security and justice issue of the future. Food is the future of the future.

ESRA DENİZ KARAGÖL

News Source: 12punto