Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site whuxl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!orb From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Re: Hunger and the Free Market: re to Cramer Message-ID: <681@whuxl.UUCP> Date: Tue, 9-Jul-85 09:20:54 EDT Article-I.D.: whuxl.681 Posted: Tue Jul 9 09:20:54 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 06:47:58 EDT References: <446@qantel.UUCP> <454@qantel.UUCP> <293@kontron.UUCP> <377@spar.UUCP> <322@kontron.UUCP> <677@whuxl.UUCP> <2616@topaz.ARPA> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany Lines: 61 > In article <677@whuxl.UUCP> orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) writes: > >... Go to Third World countries > >throughout the world and see how many poor people are *starving* while > >a landed aristocracy controls the vast majority of the land. > > 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... > > In espousing the very socialistic systems that are responsible for > the carnage, tim displays his political naivete and ignorance; in > pretending at the same time to feel for the victims, he exhibits > an utter callous disregard for any human decency whatsoever. > --JoSH 1)Because a country is a net food exporter doesn't prove anything about the well-being of its citizens or the *fact* that the country's own native peasant population may be starving while the landed aristocracy cultivates cash crops for exports. It has been typical of imperialism to redirect production towards exports of raw materials for the imperialist while production for the native population's own use suffers. Go down to Brazil and tell the starving peasants there clamoring for land or *some way* to maintain a living that Brazil's exports mean they are less hungry. Hunger is endemic to Third World countries. As a case in point India produced primarily for its own people and although suffering from periodic famines, never suffered the widespread hunger it did after the British took over and redirected production for the people's food to production of cotton to fuel the British textile industry. It is behooven on you to prove, not that food exports are up or down, which is not the issue, but to prove that the people in Capitalistic countries are not starving. You will have a very difficult time proving such a thesis. It is incumbent upon me to demonstrate that many people in Capitalistic Third World countries *are* starving. That will be very easy to demonstrate. 2)I am not attempting to justify collectivization of agriculture. I do not think such an approach makes sense. In my view it is imposing an "industrial" model which Marx applied to factory production on a necessarily dispersed mode of production and it makes no sense except that it more conveniently fits an ideology suited to factories. However I *do* think that some government support for agriculture in terms of agricultural extension services, aid to agricultural colleges and education and most importantly, land reform coupled with price supports are essential to alleviate the masses hunger. Libertarians, on the other hand, oppose any government intervention whatsoever (as I understand their position) which will leave millions of people starving. 3)It is not "paranoia" to point out that millions of people are starving. Nor is it class hatred to point out that landed aristocracies are a major part of the problem. Many bourgeois and thoroughly Capitalistically oriented developmental economists have reached the same conclusion. I do not hate the landed aristocracies in the Third World- I simply would like to see their control and ownership of the land people need to live removed and returned to their starving people- so they can *eat*. tim sevener whuxl!orb