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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Hunger and the Free Market (soci
Message-ID: <7800369@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 12:38:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800369
Posted: Wed Aug  7 12:38:00 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 04:09:50 EDT
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Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Aug  7 12:38:00 1985


>/* Written  8:25 pm  Aug  4, 1985 by gargoyle!carnes in inmet:net.politics */
>/* ---------- "Re: Hunger and the Free Market (soc" ---------- */
>nrh@inmet suggests
>
>> "Endless Enemies, The Making of an Unfriendly World" by Jonathan Kwitny
>
>I second Nat's recommendation.  Kwitny, BTW, points out that Cuba has
>less poverty, illiteracy, bloodshed, and disease than almost anywhere
>else in Latin America, and a standard of living roughly on a par with
>Mexico's and Argentina's.  Now Nicaragua faces the same terrible
>fate, from which the contras are endeavoring to save it.
>
>> I AM curious about carnes' outline -- what evidence do Lappe and
>> Collins give for the following?
>>
>>>  Lessons from societies eliminating hunger.  The only countries
>>>  effectively overcoming hunger, according to Lappe and Collins, are
>>>  those incorporating aspects of "socialism," where people are trying
>>>  to create an economic system in which all have the opportunity to
>>>  participate in decisions about the use of resources and in which all
>>>  are assured of food security.
>>
>> Which countries did they use as examples for THIS little gem of 
>> wisdom?  Over what time span?
>
>The most important examples they discuss are China and Cuba.  China
>suffered almost annual famines before the revolution; its population
>has approximately doubled since then, yet hunger has been essentially
>eliminated.  

Hmmm... The Kwitney book does indeed say that peasants say there'd been
no shortages of food since the 1960's.  In an earlier article, I excerpted
Rydenfelt's discussion of Chinese agriculture: in brief, Rydenfelt points
out that the worst of the shortages occurred during the period of greatest
"socialism" in the farming, and abated when the farms were once again
allowed to lapse into smaller units that (after producing quotas and 
selling them at fixed prices) were allowed to sell privately on 
essentially free markets).

As for the Irish Potato Famine (in which, you assert that over a
million Irish starved in a roughly five-year period), I'll match that
against the collectivization of Soviet Agriculture under Stalin over a
similar period, 1929-1933 during which FIVE million Russians starved
[Rydenfelt, "A Pattern for Failure"].

There's something to be said for the notion that NO system we know of
can completely avoid famine, but certainly some systems can CAUSE famine.