Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Re: (micromotives & macrobehavior) Message-ID: <765@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Fri, 20-Sep-85 14:46:20 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.765 Posted: Fri Sep 20 14:46:20 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 22-Sep-85 16:36:17 EDT References: <3476@topaz.UUCP> <28200078@inmet.UUCP> <755@cybvax0.UUCP> <10414@ucbvax.ARPA> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 43 In article <10414@ucbvax.ARPA> mcgeer@ucbvax.UUCP (Rick McGeer) writes: > In article <755@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes: > > > >Distribution may take care of itself if there is enough wealth, but only if > >the powerful and wealthy are willing to allow it or subsidize it. There > >are too many examples of export of food from famine areas by force of arms > >or force of market. The poor in a subsistance economy cannot outbid the > >rich for foodstuffs, even if the rich wish to feed it to pigs. > > You know, Mike, I'm going to write a mail demon that watches for news articles > from you and posts a reply to each one, containing the article and a one-word > reply: "EVIDENCE?". Well, at least it wouldn't be a fallacious argument. :-) You're right, I should provide more evidence. > So I'll ask again: do you have any evidence of the poor > being outbid by the rich for food, so that the rich can feed it to the hogs? > The *only* case of starvation in the face of food surplus that I know of was > the starvation of the Kulaks by Stalin in the 30's. In fact, the only cases > of famine in this century have been in Marxist or Socialist nations, as far as > I know. Do you know of any cases of famine in capitalist nations? The US has been feeding corn to cattle and hogs for centuries now. Why is it then that there has been hunger in America in the face of that surplus? If the market had no friction or hysteresis (ie. no costs of making a sale, perfect information about availibility, no transportation costs, all units of commodities and labor infinitely divisible, no capital costs, etc.) then perhaps nobody would be hungry or starving. Not even libertarianism could give all that. These factors all allow the rich to outbid the poor for foodstuffs, even in America. For example, try to buy and eat a pound of feed corn. It is extremely cheap by the bushel, if you buy in large quantities, but if you try to buy even in a food cooperative, you'll be paying several times as much. Then you have to be able to cook it, a capital cost. If I want to feed that same grain to hogs, and buy tons at a time, I can afford to bid more than the food coop because I will have smaller transportation and distribution costs per pound. The only limit to what I can bid is based on how profitable pork is. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh