carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (09/22/85)
Jan Wasilewsky writes: > The problem of poverty hinges on wealth creation, NOT on its > distribution. To verify this, list nations, first in the order of > per capita GNP; then according to *per capita consumption of pro- > tein*. This is a nice indicator because it tells you how the > great mass of citizens live. The rich can only eat so much pro- > tein, so they cannot distort the picture. I haven't done it be- > cause I have no doubt of the result. Distribution takes care of > itself, one way or another. I don't understand this paragraph, so I hope Jan will elaborate. Let me suggest that empirical research often holds surprises for those who are confident in their theories, so I'd recommend it. I'm not sure I understand Jan's point about the per capita consumption of protein, but I will mention the case of Zaire, which has one of the lowest such rates in Africa, if not the world. Most of its people are extremely poor (its dictator Mobutu is one of the world's wealthiest men). A big factor in the poverty is that agriculture in Zaire is heavily slanted toward export production, but this pattern continues because it benefits a relatively few powerful people, namely the big producers, government officials who manage foreign trade and the officials of multinational corporations, and an elite of well-off urban dwellers. These last benefit from Zaire's foreign exchange, about a third of which goes to buy imported foodstuffs, including in particular meat from South Africa. See if you can guess whether much of this expensive imported meat goes to the desperately poor and malnourished majority of Zaireans. I suppose it is true that "the rich can only eat so much protein," but they can eat much more than they can use nutritionally, as is generally the case in the US. Furthermore there is no upper bound on how much they can consume by feeding it to livestock, burning it, throwing it away, and other inefficient uses the rich make of productive resources because they have less incentive to use resources productively than the less well off. This is an important reason why a more equal distribution is in general more efficient. Jan says "distribution takes care of itself, one way or another." Here is an example of "distribution taking care of itself": After the 1974 floods in Bangladesh, many landless laborers were out of work and out of money. Many of them starved to death while large amounts of rice were hoarded by speculators, driving the price beyond what the vast majority were able to pay. (See the July 1975 *National Geographic*.) Even without a natural disaster, the general pattern in Bangladesh went like this (perhaps it still does): At harvest time, when prices are low, many peasants are forced to sell a large part of their production in order to pay back the loan-shark moneylender-merchants, from whom they had to borrow food at high prices before the harvest. So after selling so much of their produce, they must borrow in order to survive until the next harvest, and they are trapped in this cycle. A similar game is played between tenant farmers and their landlords. The result, at least in the latter 1970's, was that *over half* the population was seriously malnourished, while the per capita production of grain alone could provide everyone with 2600 calories a day, a very adequate amount (sources available on request). In Bangladesh, as elsewhere, hunger is primarily the result of the extreme inequality in control over food-productive resources. A 1975 FAO report on Bangladesh concludes, "A policy of really drastic land redistribution might promote both production and equity." -- Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
gadfly@ihuxn.UUCP (Gadfly) (09/23/85)
-- > ... I will mention the case of Zaire, which > has one of the lowest such rates in Africa, if not the world. Most > of its people are extremely poor (its dictator Mobutu is one of the > world's wealthiest men). A big factor in the poverty is that > agriculture in Zaire is heavily slanted toward export production, but > this pattern continues because it benefits a relatively few powerful > people, namely the big producers, government officials who manage > foreign trade and the officials of multinational corporations, and an > elite of well-off urban dwellers... > > Richard Carnes In contrast to Zaire, we have Botswana, a country whose crops have failed as bad as Ethiopia's (about 80% down the tubes this year), and has a much more primitive system of roads and transportation than Ethiopia (Botswana has 1/5 the population density of Eth.), but quite unlike Ethiopia, has no mass starvation. It's a democracy. And a weird one--with one dominant political party since independence, and an extremely apathetic electorate. Up until last year, you could always win bar bets over "Which country has the lowest voter turnout?" Alas, the U.S. took over that distinction in '84. Voter apathy is probably a good indicator of basic gov't. reliability and stability. -- *** *** JE MAINTIENDRAI ***** ***** ****** ****** 22 Sep 85 [1 Vendemiaire An CXCIV] ken perlow ***** ***** (312)979-7753 ** ** ** ** ..ihnp4!iwsl8!ken *** ***