Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Hunger and the Free Market: re to Cramer Message-ID: <1631@dciem.UUCP> Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 19:41:40 EDT Article-I.D.: dciem.1631 Posted: Mon Jul 15 19:41:40 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 15-Jul-85 20:17:36 EDT References: <446@qantel.UUCP> <454@qantel.UUCP> <293@kontron.UUCP> <377@spar.UUCP> <322@kontron.UUCP> <677@whuxl.UUCP>Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 25 Summary: >This latest piece of distilled paranoia and class hatred, however, >represents a new low. Starvation in today's world occurs not quite >but almost exclusively because of "democratic" collectivist intervention. >Ethiopia was a net food exporter before its Communist takeover; so >was Russia. If you're interested in a study of the phenomenon on a >global scale, try "A Pattern for Failure" by Sven Rydenfelt. It is >somewhat depressing... >--JoSH A little bit of paranoia there, too, I think. Some years ago, in Scientific American (I think), there was a discussion of world food supply and the related demography. Around 1950 there were some 45 countries (both 45 and 1950 are vague memories) that were net food exporters. By the time of the article (1975?) there were only 7, and those were countries of relatively high energy availability, large grasslands and (except the US) low population densities (even the US has pretty low population density if averaged over the whole area). To put the whole cause of relatively reduced food production and starvation onto "democrativ collectivist intervention" is simply malicious nonsense. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt