orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (11/11/85)
Jan makes some valid points and some invalid points to my argument that food *distribution* is the critical thing to determine in any country and that mere per capita averages are misleading: > [ tim sevener whuxn!orb] > > The point is that Jan has offered absolutely no evidence to refute > > Richard's claims about the *distribution* of food in Communist countries. > > (1) Well ... why not try *reading* the article you are > responding to ? It is so short. And the last paragraph goes: > "Uneven DISTRIBUTION has compounded this shortage" etc. As I recall (the article is now off my machine) your point was that uneven distribution made things worse than the average only in China. You did not point out that in fact most countries in the world have a far more uneven food distribution than China. This uneven food distribution means that higher average figures merely disguise far mor hunger and outright starvation. The question is: how does the actual food distribution in China compare to other countries? > > (2) You might also try *reading* Richard's statement you quoted. He > made *no* "claim about distribution of food". Richard's claim was > that a more equal distribution of "power over food-producing > resourses" greatly reduced hunger. And this makes much more > sense than what you attribute to him. > Your point is well-taken. I was responding to your critique of Richard's article and never read the original. I do not agree with your following point: > Land reforms *can* feed people. I agree with him there. But in places > like China, Cuba, and Nicaragua, there are overriding factors. > For in these countries, the real *power over food-producing > resourses* is in the hands of the central government and so is > less distributed than ever. > I totally agree land reforms *can* feed people. But your second point is a questionable thesis. I am not about to defend large-scale collective agriculture. But those in the collective do have some power in determining how the collective's quota will be met. The quota itself is set outside the collective as well as many decisions about supplies such as seeds, fertilizers and equipment. When peasants own no land they make *zero* decisions about anything except whether they will work for the large estate-owner on his/her terms or starve to death. This is in fact the position for *most* peasants. Secondly, most of the land in Nicaragua is in fact privately owned and the Sandinistas have reversed policy by turning some large-scale collectives into cooperatives and redistributing the land of these collectives among the peasants. Nicaragua is not the only country to break away from the policy of large-scale collectivization. Hungary has dramatically changed towards smaller independently owned and controlled farms to the point they constitute about 60% of the farmed land. There was a very good article on this in a recent issue of World Policy Review. I heartily support this pragmatic combination of capitalism and socialism. I think it was stupid for Stalin to install mass collectivization as a model of "socialist agriculture". It was really a means of social control as well as a blind application of the ideology developed in terms of centralized factory production to distributed agricultural production. Since Marxism was developed in response to large-scale factory production, Stalin tried to make agriculture fit ideology( as *he* in his clever but ignorant mind understood it) by forcing it to be like factory production. This just shows the errors of blind ideology without reference to facts or reality. I find it as regrettable as some people's blind belief in the "invisible hand" to solve all problems without even understanding actual economic theory. tim sevener whuxn!orb