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In a total economy, all materials, creatures, and ideas become commodities, interchangeable and disposable. People become commodities along with everything else. Only such an economy could seek to impose upon the world’s abounding geographic and creaturely diversity the tyranny of technological and genetic monoculture. Only in such an economy could “life forms” be patented, or the renewability of nature and culture be destroyed. Monsanto’s aptly named “terminator gene”—which, implanted in seed sold by Monsanto, would cause the next generation to be sterile—is as grave an indicator of totalitarian purpose as a concentration camp. — Wendell Berry