Capitalism and Famine: Unconvincing Correlations

This video is a reply to the claim made by HTWW that Capitalism prevents famine.

Famine Study: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=636107

Images, Creative Commons licenced, by permission of:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nigerian_farmers.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harvester06.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cracked_earth_in_the_Rann_of_Kutch.jpg

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• howtheworldworks
• famine
• capitalism

[utinomen]

@Slipknotyk06 You were denying believing they had malign intentions and incompetence a post back! Now they "chose not to" and are out to "utterly discredit capitalism"! Clearly you *do* believe the researchers are incompetent or blinded by ideology or somesuch malign influence!

The study aside, why is it so (apparently) important to you that market conditions that must reign supreme as the ultimate solution to preventing famines?

[Slipknotyk06]

@utinomen - I believe they chose not to, because they spend more of the paper trying to utterly discredit capitalism for the famine in Bangladesh and glossing over major contributing factors. They go on and on about Bangladesh while not hitting on the Holodomor, or Mao's Famine. I read 35 pages into the paper and found ONE mention of Mao's China, and NONE of the holodomor, along with ONE of Nazi-Controlled Holland.

[utinomen]

@Slipknotyk06 The study says famines occur in both capitalistic and socialistic countries, under a variety of conditions, and seems to make it clear that the facile assessment offered by HTWW that no famines occur under market conditions is a false one. You appear to have a similarily unnuanced opinion, and do prefer to believe the researchers are unaware or incapable of considering the points you have mentioned, and expect me to discount their research in favour of your few google searches

[Slipknotyk06]

@utinomen - I didn't state they were malign. I didn't state they were incompetent.

I believe you're cherry-picking a study that says what you want it to say. You conceded Holland so easily, but don't concede this one.

Do you have a different case study?

[utinomen]

@Slipknotyk06 Yes, yes, please feel free to entertain your own fantasies about the incompetence and possible malign intentions of those researchers, but I prefer to give more weight to the conclusions of the researchers.

Obviously, for them to read 50 or so research papers and books only takes a minute or two. *rolls eyes*

[Slipknotyk06]

@utinomen - If they really spent 'hours' researching that topic, they'd say something of the weakened state of Bangladesh's government. Also, they'd document that there was starvation in 1972-1973 Bangladesh roughly equal to the proportion of starvation cases in India.

No, I don't expect you to be impressed, you're never impressed even when proven wrong.

[utinomen]

@Slipknotyk06 Aside from that well known Communist propaganda machine, the World Bank, handing out papers purportedly to be aimed at understanding and reducing famines, but really just attacking the sacrosanct institution of Capitalism, and not worried if people starve more as a result of taking the research seriously ... let me ask you a question:

Why is it so important to you that market conditions that must reign supreme as the ultimate solution to preventing famines?

[utinomen]

@Slipknotyk06 So you claim it was all to do with other factors. *rolls eyes* Nevermind that the economy was working fine with no starvation, and then the publicity of the possibility of famine caused a run on the supply chain.

Those researchers spent hours researching a subject by reading other research papers about famines and their causes (see the references), come to another conclusion altogether, and you expect me to be impressed by your bombast?

[Slipknotyk06]

@utinomen - They say nothing of the fact that at the time Bangladesh was recovering from years of wars. They had sustained wars with West Pakistan (Bangladesh is formerly East Pakistan) for their independence. In addition to sluggish recovery from war, they had dozens of floods, an unstable government, and many issues with corruption. Over 3 million had fled Bangladesh to India in the years leading up to this, so you've taken the weakest possible nation as your case study. Simply disingenuous.

[utinomen]

@Slipknotyk06 Click the link, then click the words that say "One Click Download" near the top. That link will provide the WHOLE paper. I make no claims to any personal insight, I merely report that there are serious minded people in the world other than HTWW who would disagree with his glib commentary. I did not fail to do that which I did not begin to attempt, I merely praise your insight that enables you to feel superior to authors of a carefully researched paper.