The commenters are very good here.

The same larger event that created the iconic Cowboy also created Tyson Foods and Armour Hotdogs.

Detailed in this article is the older way by which people got their meat, some of the (very legitimate) concerns involved in the changing of systems that we are seeing again today with items like Amazon, Beyond Beef, B-Certified, and even “trusted” grocery chains (who are most certainly part of their system).

If the dollar is going to go back to being tied to commodities and have legitimate prices involved again, it might behoove us to research into what those prices were in order to be better prepared.

Here’s a huge list of historical prices from the St. Louis Fed, for example. https://web.archive.org/web/20240328113627/https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/bls/bls_0440_1927.pdf

Bear in mind that prices prior to about 1912 would be in silver, and can be reasonably converted to current prices by multiplying by 25 (price of one ounce today).

This also shows that they were already tracking everything we did back then to figure out how to best attack us. Nothing new under the sun, though the mechanisms changed and scope certainly expanded.

It’s worth noting that the older method would have been much more respectful of the animals, who should probably not be treated as an “industrial input by gross weight, processed under method X”. The method of slaughter of the animal is important.

It’s also worth noting that the workers were most definitely exploited by irregular market warfare. We should be thinking about how we can act in our own markets in ways that are fair to all involved.

Leviticus 19:13 “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning.

James 5:4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

Jeremiah 22:13 “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice, who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages,

Deuteronomy 24:14-15 “You shall not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and counts on it), lest he cry against you to the Lord, and you be guilty of sin.

Things such as these have clearly been done in the past, and it would be wise of us to not do them again.