Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gargoyle.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!lll-crg!dual!qantel!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Hunger and the Free Market Message-ID: <115@gargoyle.UUCP> Date: Fri, 9-Aug-85 14:55:30 EDT Article-I.D.: gargoyle.115 Posted: Fri Aug 9 14:55:30 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 13-Aug-85 02:19:24 EDT Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Organization: U. Chicago, Astronomy & Astrophysics Lines: 31 Keywords: democracy, corporations, Venezuela Oded Feingold writes: >This message does not explain why > >the majority of Venezuelans are ... > >malnourished. True enough, nor did my article contain an explanation, but it is explained in considerable detail in *Hunger in a Land of Plenty* by George W. Schuyler, who is (or was) director of Ibero/American Studies at SUNY/Stony Brook. The principal reason for the widespread hunger in Venezuela seems to be that our wonderful American system of food production and distribution has taken hold there. Schuyler suggests that political democracy may be a luxury that developing nations cannot afford. He writes: The interplay between Venezuela's democracy and its economic system thus illustrates one of Prof. [Charles] Lindblom's conclusions -- that market systems have dual structures of authority. One is the Venezuelan goverment, subjected to passive control by a media-manipulated electorate every five years. The other is the business system whose influence and authority rivals that of the government and whose values permeate Venezuela's political leadership. In all existing democracies, large private corporations more or less severely limit the exercise of democracy. As Lindblom puts it, "The large private corporation fits oddly into democratic theory. Indeed, it does not fit." Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes