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Re: Food as a Right
In article <Pine.A32.3.91.961209085203.117142B-100000@gnu.uvm.edu> fmagdoff@zoo.uvm.edu (Frederick R. Magdoff) writes:
> In situations where there is insufficient food in the country or
>community - local self sufficiency, as Jim pointed out, is certainly the
>key to the long term solution. However, I would still suggest that we
>have a moral responsibility to keep these people going (alive) until
>local food self sufficiency has be achieved.
But how would this self-sufficiency come about? Suppose I am a rice
farmer in a poor country with widespread hunger. The United States,
in its generosity, dumps a hundred thousand tons of free rice into my
country. How do I sell my crop at a profit when rice is being
distributed for free? I can't. If I have debts or taxes to pay, I
go bankrupt, and join the ranks of those dependent on foreign grain.
This scenario has been played out many times before. Farmers, already
reeling from one bad harvest, face no possibility of selling their
crop the second year because of foreign grain "donations." If I
were a somewhat cynical person, I would assume that foreign aid is just a
ploy for making countries dependent on American agriculture. If I
were a VERY cynical person, I would assume that foreign aid is just
a confidence game, where very few people involved in the process
actually give a rat's ass about the needy. (Central Africa used
to have a textile industry until used clothing from the U.S. and
Europe were dumped there. The C.A.R. once had a rice industry, until
the Japanese donated a lot of rice. Grain from relief agencies,
which is supposed to be distributed free, is routinely sold instead.
People who actually work in the relief business on the distribution
end are far from convinced that you can build a strong local
economy by distributing foreign stuff for free. If I were an
extremely cynical person, I'd say that foreign aid is about making
the people at home feel good about giving, and to hell with the
consequences.)
> As long as one believes as I do that the reason most people are
>poor and/or hungry is not because of some moral problem in themselves,
>there can be only one response to these problems. But even if one
>believes as some, that the problem results from some moral "deficiency" I
>would still hope that malnutrition and starvation would not be used as
>the weapons to try to change such behavior.
People aren't hungry because they're stupid, although it's possible
to end up stupid because you spent too much time hungry. While
misfortune leads to some hunger, it takes vicious governments to
cause as much hunger as is in the world today. Look how many famines
are centered around wars. Many more are caused by repression. Look
at the difference in nutrition between blacks and whites in the U.S.
before the Civil Rights movement started gaining acceptance.
The difference was caused by repression, pure and simple.
Conventional wisdom would say that the solution to black malnutrition
would have been to feed them, not free them. Fortunately, Martin
Luther King (and others) were not of the bread-and-circuses school,
and instead aimed straight at liberty and equality. That's where the
only long-term hope lies. No movement aimed at convincing a ruling
class to treat their unfree subjects/serfs/slaves humanely has ever
amounted to a hill of beans.
Of course, no true liberal needs to be told that liberty comes first.
-- Robert
--
Robert Plamondon, President/Managing Editor, High-Tech Technical Writing, Inc.
36475 Norton Creek Road * Blodgett * Oregon * 97326
robert@plamondon.com * (541) 453-5841 * Fax: (541) 453-4139
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