orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (11/21/85)
I find it hard to believe the following statement: > > >You did not point out that in fact most countries in the world have > >a far more uneven food distribution than China. > > Of course I didn't; there is no reason to believe it. If you read > my "Food for China" note you will find some factors of unequal > distribution that exist(ed) in China but not in most countries. > Jan, are you *blind* or what? The unfortunate fact is that *most* Third World countries have *grave* problems with food distribution. Why do you suppose there was mass starvation in Bangladesh? Why do you suppose the newly elected Brazilian government, despite being conservative, has announced a program of land reform so that the thousands of starving peasants living in hovels in Brazil can at least have some plot of land to grow food on? There is a very clear *cause* of poor food distribution generally recognized by students of economic development: namely the concentration of land ownership in the hands of a small elite. For example, as I have previously pointed out, the Somoza family owned 70% of the land in Nicaragua before the Sandinista revolution. Do you suppose that they used that land to grow crops for hungry peasants or to grow crops to export for cash $$$$$ to the U.S and other industrialized countries? As I have previously stated, I am not about to defend collective agriculture as practiced by the Soviets and China. On the other hand I am also not about to blind myself to the same sort of collective agriculture and control by landed elites in Third World countries. When landed elites own and control almost all of the land, starving peasants get neither the fruits of that land and their labor to grow on it, nor do they have any control over that land. People throughout the world are starving - that is no joke, Jan. It is a catastrophe. tim sevener whuxn!orb