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