Could be worse… It could be that people are starving because it’s politically convenient for them to starve. Back in 1959 China introduced the Four Pests campaign, which involved exterminating rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows because they kept eating crops.
…Turns out that was a bad idea, and those ‘pests’ were actually pretty important to ecological balance, leading to (in combination with other Maoist policies where central government was telling farmers how to farm, but also lacked the knowledge on how to farm correctly) the Great Chinese Famine, killing anywhere between 15-55 million people by starvation.
Not defending China, but I wouldn’t say that had anything to do with political convenience… the Irish potato famine, or the way world governments are currently letting Israel starve Gaza, are examples of mass starvation caused by political convenience… but Mao’s thing was due to criminal ignorance and stupidity, not political convenience.
…No, it was political convenience, both in the Chinese Famine and the Irish Potato Famine. The British were so convinced that laissez faire capitalism would resolve the issue that they actively got in the way when that turned out not to be true, because it was better to them that the system be seen as working than it actually working. The same applied to the Chinese when Mao was warned that exterminating the sparrows would cause famine, as would ‘deep plowing’ made up by some Soviet guy, but The Party can never be wrong, and if The Party tells you how to do something, you do it that way, even if millions of people die.
It was a situation in both cases where political ideology was put up against reality, and political ideology won, resulting in mass starvation.
When it comes to Israel… I don’t think it really compares because Israel knows Gazans are starving, and that’s actually the goal. They actively want the Palestinians to be gone as quickly as possible. The political convenience is more on the side of anyone who allies with Israel because it’s more convenient for them to have an ally in the middle east, rather than step in and deal with the problem. I guess it would be convenient for Netanyahu specifically, because so long as he keeps the war going, he’s staying in power and most importantly out of prison.
Yeah I know right, same as this period in the US called the ‘Dust Bowl’ where they fucked up the local environment so much it ruined the topsoil and lead to clouds of dust choking the lands because they had terrible agricultural, environmental, and land management practices.
Or the Soviets trying to be different for the sake of being different and choosing Lysenkoism over genetics.
Yup, they all suck.
Is this really under capitalism only?
Im pretty sure not all starving people are living under capitalism…
I don’t see this meme claiming that all starving people live under capitalism…
Funny meme, but not really. There is still a lot of work to be done. Like for instance let’s take recycling. We still dump most of our waste into holes in the ground. As far as food goes though, I agree we need to do a better job of socializing basic food access (still can’t have free caviar).
I think about my employer, which is one of the largest in my area. No shareholders. It’s a healthcare non-profit.
The services they provide still cost money, because they have to pay employees, vendors, rent, etc. However, the only profit motive is to ensure that they have sufficient income continue to provide healthcare to the community and grow too support more patients.
I guess Habitat for Humanity would count as non-profit home construction. Are there non-profit farms?
That really just sounds like the market forces of supply and demand.
I mean, profit is still a primary factor of being in the agriculture business, sure. But if a company isn’t profitable, they stop being a company.
If there’s a surplus of food, and a finite amount of time for it to be consumed, it’s going to be sold at a loss or it’s going to rot.
While Bobby’s thought makes perfect sense, it’s more of a cycle and not (just) necessarily an intrinsic flaw of capitalism.
The intrinsic flaw of capitalism is when the supply-side realizes that the value of goods is “whatever they’ll pay”, and end up mini-maxing profit…reducing costs by limiting yield, then jacking up the price because of reduced supply. Maximum profit for minimum work.
Applying that to industries that are pretty much essential for life (implying a pretty static level of demand)…agriculture, healthcare, etc…when not all people have the same amount of money, is truly evil.
Brace yourselves, because that could easily be a result of the impending agriculture consolidation that’ll come after Trump finishes destroying all the remaining smaller farms. Easier to collude when there’s a small number of giant conglomerate farms.
Edit: okay I realized I wrote all of that to essentially describe artificial scarcity. But the last paragraph (before this) is pretty important.
You’re making a good argument that we should partially socialize the systems needed to support life, like agriculture, and healthcare, but I would go further and include housing and a few other things.
At that point, we are talking about a strong welfare state.
So the modern solution to all this was invented like, 90 years ago by FDR.
We need another FDR.
They don’t typically sell at a loss, because that drives prices down. They dump it. Canada throws something like 40%+ produce in the landfill. Some stores even have a mandate that surplus food can’t be donated or taken home by staff, it has to dumpstered.
As a side note the big chain here added RFID type rink price labels. They can changes prices on a whim. Government hasn’t approved the surge pricing model the grocers are asking for, however they list some items at an over inflated price, then almost every day it is on sale at a different price (which amounts to surge pricing). I.e. Our coffee creamer can be as low as $3.50 or as high as $9.00. Its not related to best before date, because its a soy based creamer that has 3 months BB date.
But if a company isn’t profitable, they stop being a company.
Is this still true? /points to tech companies
Those are based on the promise of immense profit in the future.
Literally every company on Earth has that in their business plan.
Thats not true at all. Plenty of businesses don’t even have the possible upside of immense profits in the future no matter what happens.
AI companies continue to run at a loss and may even get bailed out because realizing all that loss would tank the economy. Not because they promise immense profit.
Sorry I was trying to redirect your thought process to an alternative explanation, not start a debate about diversity of business plans.
I think the intrinsic flaw of capitalism is that it is a social power hierarchy. All power hierarchies invite abuse, such as producers extracting maximum profit on essential goods. Capitalism is particularly virulent and unstable compared to better-known historical power hierarchies for several reasons particular to it’s own scheme, but it’s core flaw is the same.
I see how this meme is clearly targeting capitalism and not farmers, and I understand and agree with the point that money is the primary incentive for growing food under capitalism.
But in my opinion the part about letting people starve in order to manufacture scarcity misses the mark. As far as I can tell, the primary reason that so much food goes to waste is liability. No one wants to sell food that could reasonably be constrained as having caused an illness for fear of a lawsuit - if not for that fact, much more food “waste” would actually go to use. Even in the hypothetical absence of liability no overall food scarcity needs to be manufactured because there remains a scarcity of “premium” food.
The thing with scarcity is that it follows the Jevons paradox, so technically, scarcity is basically a horizon - it is there but you can’t reach it / overcome it per se.
The thing is, as demand rises for the commodity in question, so does standard of living. Yes, with tap-water we use more water, but we’re cleaner, warmer, and drink adequate amounts of water.
If we found more efficient ways to make corn, for example, we could (and sometimes do) use it as a fuel for heating and energy production.
There will always be scarcity of something but eventually it’ll be things most people could happily do without because they have all the non-scarce stuff.
That’s how it works in theory. Alas, the reality is too much in the hubris.
That was true before capitalism, though.
Food was produced to feed people before capitalism, surely. Or to trade, but mostly to feed people, rather than make a profit.
Food was produced to feed people before capitalism, surely. Or to trade, but mostly to feed people, rather than make a profit.
What do you think a profit is? For that matter, why do you think food turns a profit in the modern day, if not its function of feeding people?
What do you think a profit is?
To take more than you give. To make something not for the good of all, but for the good of you.
why do you think food turns a profit in the modern day
Because we are making food to be sold first, then eaten, rather than be eaten without first being sold.
I mean, it’s quite simple, really?
To take more than you give. To make something not for the good of all, but for the good of you.
… and you think people making things for their own good rather than the collective is an invention of capitalism?
Because we are making food to be sold first, then eaten, rather than be eaten without first being sold.
What do you think trading is if not selling and buying?
I don’t know where you’re taking this. Can you just say what you want said instead of asking questions? This will go a lot faster with that method than whatever is going on here. Thank you.
I don’t know where you’re taking this. Can you just say what you want said instead of asking questions?
[Food being produced for personal gain and letting the ‘unworthy’ starve] was true before capitalism, though.
Agreed, but by the mighty rulers. Not the common people. Right?
Has the author ever spoken to an actual farmer? Almost universally they’ll tell you that if they were solely in it for profit they wouldn’t be farmers. We support farmers with large subsidies and market barriers because they’re so unprofitable otherwise.
This meme is so wrong it’s downright laughable!
This isn’t about the farmers bucko.
It’s about the layer above them that the farmers give the produce to for a pittance.
Farmers’ produce goes for a pittance because of supply and demand clashing with growing seasons. For example, when peaches are in season the market gets flooded with peaches because all the peach farmers are harvesting and shipping peaches at the same time. Thus peaches are dirt cheap during peach season. Farmers would get a lot more for their peaches if they could spread them evenly throughout the year but nature doesn’t work that way.
As for the “layer above” farmers (distribution and retail), that all depends on what country you’re in and how agriculture is managed. So you’ll need to give a specific example if you want to discuss further. Under capitalism (at least in my country), farmers are free to sell their produce directly to consumers at farmer’s markets or even beside the road outside their farm.
i.e. Nestlé
Is that specific enough?
When I go down to the farmer’s market, none of the produce there is being sold by Nestlé, yet I live in a capitalist country. How is that possible?
I’m certain that the area you live in is absolutely wonderful and just, but that is not the case for every area. There are companies that do profit from the starvation of others, which is exactly what this post is about.
So you gushing over your area and its markets does not mean that everyone is so lucky, nor that starvation for profit does not exist.
Or perhaps those areas have other problems not mentioned here?
They do have a lot of problems which are not mentioned here, but they definitely have the mentioned one as well.
There are always going to be pockets of the market that aren’t completely consolidated under exploitation, but those pockets are usually in places where the COL is much lower than the average income.
But even in that scenario, local farmers selling produce at a market will still compete against commercialized distributions that push the price lower and limit the market to the privileged bourgeois who have the money to shop for their produce at a market with higher prices and have the labor to spare on themselves and their own needs.
And yet the tins and jars are on the shelves year round, because somewhere that produce is getting made used or shipped to generate a profit for the food corporations.
Farmers get as raw a deal as any other worker, they are not the target of this meme in any way shape or form.
I guess you’d prefer to continue speaking in vague generalities. Carry on!
