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| CAPITALISM |
Whereas progress was made in reducing chronic hunger in the
1980s and the first half of the 1990s, hunger has been slowly but steadily on
the rise for the past decade, FAO said. The number of hungry people increased
between 1995-97 and 2004-06 in all regions except Latin America and the
Caribbean. But even in this region, gains in hunger reduction have been
reversed as a result of high food prices and the global economic downturn that
started in 2008.
Today, one in nine people do not get enough food to be
healthy and lead an active life, making hunger and malnutrition the number one
risk to health worldwide -- greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis
combined. The greatest scandal of our age is the fact that just under 1 billion
people on the planet go to bed hungry every night. This is despite the fact
that we produce more than enough to feed every single person in the world.
Why is there hunger? The obvious answer to this question is
that there must be a lack of food. It’s nothing to do with a lack of food. Can
the world feed itself? The answer is: “Yes”. The Great Bengal Famine of 1943
claimed 1.5 million lives. Yet food production was only marginally below the
previous year, and in fact higher than other years which had not seen famine.
The Ethiopian famines of 1972-74 also saw only single-digit declines in food
production, too small to account for the 50-200,000 deaths. In the 1974
Bangladesh famine, food availability actually hit a four-year per capita high.
In the Sahelian famine which peaked in 1973, drought did lead to significant
declines in food availability. During the food crisis in 2008 there was enough
food for everyone in the world to have 2,700 kilocalories. Yet a silent tsunami
threw more than 115 million into abject hunger. Food being exported from
famine-stricken areas may be a ‘natural’ characteristic of the market which
respects the rights of private poverty and commerce rather than needs.
The
opening lines of Amartya Sen’s hugely
influential 1981 essay on poverty and famines:
“Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having
enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there not being enough food
to eat.”
The fact there’s enough food to feed everyone has been
acknowledged by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) which statedclearly that:
“There is sufficient capacity in the world to produce enough
food to feed everyone adequately; nevertheless, in spite of progress made over
the last two decades, 805 million people still suffer from chronic hunger.”
There is enough food in the world today for everyone to have
the nourishment necessary for a healthy and productive life. By 2030, with
population growth continuing to decline and agricultural output predicted to
rise, the UN forecasts enough food will be grown worldwide, despite a global
estimated population of 8.3 billion, to give everyone 3050 kilocalories per
day. In the United States, enough food is produced for everyone to eat eight
full plates of food per day—yet almost 40 million Americans struggle to put
food on the table and are classified as “food insecure.”
Solving World Hunger is not rocket science. We have the
tools, and the technology to put an end to hunger. There is enough food to go
around. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today
than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is
enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal)
per person per day according to the FAO in
2002.
The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have
sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food. So what needs to
change? Discussions of world hunger almost invariably assume that food
production is and will continue to be commodity production, whilst
simultaneously assuming that food is produced for use. But whatever climate
change has to throw at us, there is always a gap between what is possible and
what is possible in capitalism. All other things held equal, declining crop
yields and loss of arable land can be expected to increase world hunger. But
all other things need not be held equal. The social relations through which our
natural resources are organised are not themselves laws of nature: they are
subject to change. Essentially control over resources and income is based on
military, political and economic power that typically ends up in the hands of a
minority, who live well, while those at the bottom barely survive, if they do.
Again a very basic question people ask is “Does population
growth explain food shortages?” and again many will instinctively answer “Yes”.
It seems commonsense that more people in the worls must mean more resource use,
therefore fewer resources to go around for everyone. It is a false logic that
has led to some highly unsavory arguments and policy decisions. By arguing that
population growth is the main cause of mass starvation and environmental ruin
we play into the hands of ruling elites who want to blame the victims. One such
consequence is that helping the poor not only hurts them, but also threatens to
drag the well-fed down to their subsistence level. Under this credo, no sharing
is permitted, as it will only generalise starvation to the entire population
because there is only so much to go around. The more sophisticated of the
Malthusians talk of the carrying capacity of the planet. The number of humans a
local or global environment can support depends not on numbers but on the level
of economic development and the social relations of that society. Humans can
both grow more food and, given the opportunity, consciously self-limit our
reproduction based on rational economic and social considerations. The overpopulation
argument obscures the more immediate causes of suffering under capitalism. How
many people the Earth can support depends primarily on the level of
productivity of the existing population and the social relations within which
they are embedded. “Carrying-capacity” is as much socially as it is materially
determined from the given level of productive development, not some arbitrary
measure of what constitutes “too many” people. Poverty and hunger are the products of social relations, not
overpopulation. At no point in the last thirty years, as hunger has increased,
has world population growth exceeded growth in food production.
The pioneer of the environmental movement, Rachel Carson,
author of the ground-breaking Silent Spring in the 60s, was clear that the
primary blame for destruction of the natural world lay with the “gods of profit
and production” as the world lived “in an era dominated by industry, in which
the right to make a dollar at any cost is seldom challenged.” Capitalism is a
system predicated on continual expansion with an ever-increasing throughput of
energy and resources. For those corporations promoting their green credentials that
do act to reduce their energy or resource use, the purpose is not to decrease
their impact on the environment, however much money they spend touting their ecological
awareness. Rather, the objective is to lower production costs so as to maximise
profit in order to reinvest in expansion of production to corner market share,
thereby negating the original reduction. Contrary to all claims of capitalist
efficiency, the amount of senseless waste and pollution under capitalism is
enormous. This includes not only the toxic byproducts of the production process
that are routinely dumped into the surrounding environment, but also the
production and distribution of useless products, the creation of mounting piles
of garbage as a result of planned obsolescence and single-use products.the
preponderance of inefficient transportation systems based on cars rather than
effective public transportation, and, of course, all the wasted labour and
materials spent on the military.
It should be clear from all of the above that it isn’t
population growth that is causing food scarcity or is primarily responsible for
the many accelerating global environmental crises. Even if population growth
were to end today, worsening rates of starvation, the growth of slums, and
ecosystem collapse would continue more or less unabated. Food production
continues to outstrip population growth, and therefore cannot be considered the
cause of hunger. There are very serious planetary problems of soil erosion,
overfishing, deforestation, and waste disposal, to name only a few, which are
putting pressure on the sustainability of food production over the long haul.
However, these are all inextricably bound to questions of power and a system
run in the interest of a small minority where profit continually outweighs
issues of hunger, waste, energy use, or environmental destruction.
Concentrating on population confuses symptoms with causes while simultaneously
validating apologists for the system. Population growth arguments fit in with
the ideological needs of the system rather than challenging them and is the
primary reason that they receive so much publicity. It is completely acceptable
to capitalism to place the blame for hunger and ecological crises on the number
of people rather than on capitalism.
A central concept of capitalism is the idea that there isn’t
enough to go around. There isn’t enough food, there aren’t enough jobs, there
isn’t enough houses, or schools or hospitals. “There isn’t enough…” really means “It isn’t
profitable…” The problem is capitalism.
The motivation for big business to produce food is profit, not to provide for
people. Despite the enormous advances in technology and knowledge, this system
cannot provide the most basic necessities for the world’s population. It is not
a question of there being too many people or not enough food available. Food
production and distribution is not planned but is at the behest of the anarchy
of the market, controlled by a handful of multi-national companies. Capitalism
is unable to feed the world. The future under capitalism – one of increasing
damage to the environment and austerity – will mean this terrible situation
gets worse. Socialism is the only solution to stopping and reversing climate
change. The world's population is larger than ever before - but so is world
food production. Billions of people regularly struggle to get enough to eat but
the problem isn't a lack of produce or a rising population. It is a system driven
by profit. Despite all the pessimism of mainstream environmentalists, the
problem we really face is that we have allowed a system to develop where there
is hunger amidst plenty. What we need is to take control of the food system.
This will enable us to deal with the wasteful system. Socialists look forward
to a world of plenty built on the greatest gift of nature, that of human
labour. Real change will only come when the power of those running the system
for the purpose of profit is challenged.
Advances in nutrition and agricultural science could allow
us to produce abundant, healthy, safe, and tasty food for everyone. Humanity
could produce an enormous variety of foods, both to guarantee food security
against pests, disease, and climate change through agricultural diversity, but
also to keep meals interesting. The infrastructure exists to develop a vast
network of public restaurants serving affordable, delicious and interesting
food. Home cooking and eating could be transformed into relaxing social activities,
not the compulsory drudgery it is for billions today. In short, the knowledge,
technology, and collective potential to completely transform the way the world
eats exists now. What doesn’t exist is a social structure that allows for a
rational and balanced approach to food production, distribution, preparation,
and consumption. But virtually all the proposals out there are limited to
tinkering with the existing system or appealing to the good will and reason of
the rich and powerful. This is utopian. In a system driven by and defined by
commodity production and money, what matters to the capitalists is not food
quality or human health, but maximising profits. The solution to this is not to
be found in blaming individuals for their “individual choices,” or in changing
this or that aspect of the status quo. The solution can only come from
abolishing the dysfunctional system of capitalism itself.
At the Rome International Conference on Nutrition –
organized by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health
Organization (WHO) 90 ministers and hundreds of government officials agreed on
recommendations for policies and programmes to address nutrition across
multiple sectors which “enshrines the right of everyone to have access to safe,
sufficient and nutritious food” while committing governments to preventing
malnutrition and hunger. A utopian aspiration under capitalism. But FAO
Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva confirmed one truth, “We have the
knowledge, expertise and resources needed to overcome all forms of
malnutrition.”
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