J- 6

Hunger and Ideology

Nick Eberstadt

TORLD hunger is not only a material mentation and idees fixes. To a distressing degree,VV problem, but an intellectual prob- those charged with helping the world's poor do

lem as well. To an extent we do not fully recog- their work without regard for readily available in-nize, the hunger wvhich stalks millions of -wretched formation wvhich would challenge their approachfamilies and homeless drifters is related to a lack and their conclysions. Needless to say, the hungryof understanding and a wvant of ingenuity. suffer for this.

These are not failings of the poor themselves. In the wvelter of common misperceptions aboutQuite the contrary: anyone who has spent time in the wsorld's food situation, four myths are particu-the villages of Asia can testify that the world's larly injurious. These are the myths of widespreadgreatest economists are the illiterate women, for and growing hunger; of increasing agriculturalsomehowv they manage to keep their families fed scarcity; of an ominous turn away from self-suf-on what seem like impossibly small budgets. The ficiency and toward a reliance on foreign grain;problem lies at precisely the opposite end of the and of the superiority of "socialist" economics insocial spectrum, with the well-educated, well-paid, food production.and well-meaning functionaries who are meant toattend to world poverty and the desperate hunger IDESPREAD AND GROWING HUNGER.

iL causes. These men and women do not lack the WVith few exceptions, authorities infuinds -with wvhich to make greater inroads against the fight against -world hunger depict the situationsevere want, nor do they lackl the good will of the as almost unimaginably bad. FAO figures suggest*world's free and affluent peoples. What they lack, that about half-a-billion people in the less devel-quite simply, is understanding. Their misinterpre- oped countries (excluding China) suffer from atations of the world food situation are frequently malnutrition so acute that they would probably beso fundamental as to impede significantly the hospitalized if they lived in Europe or the Unitedeffort to eliminate malnutrition. States. The WVorld Bank estimates that about

To be sure, there are some valid reasons for the three-fifths of the families in poor non-Communistconfusion which surrounds this subject. Much of nations-nearly one-and-a-half-billion people-dothe information we must work with is inade- not get enough food to fill their caloric needs.quate. There are for example discrepancies of Robert MkcNamara, the Bank's president, hasnearly fifteen million tons-about as much as stated that 30 million children die of starvationBangladesh uses to feed itself-between U.S. De- each year. Tens of millions who survive, moreover,partment of Agriculture (USDA) and UN Food are said to be permanently crippled by irreversi-and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates on ble, hunger-induced brain damage. As far as thesefood-grain exports from developed countries-and experts can tell, the situation is getting no better;those are estimates that are relatively easy to in fact, despite thirty years of relief programscompile and relatively error-free. Evaluations of backed uip by relatively rapid economic growth,the severity of lhunger are likewise dogged by am- the poor world mav be getting even hungrier.biguity: depending on the assumptions, one can Such shocking assessments may be consistent"prove" that the average Bengali needs nearly with the politics of budgetary requests within the2,400 calories a day, or only 1,600. hunger industry. They are certainly consistent

Most of our confusion, hlowever, arises not from with the apocalyptic preachings of those whoinexactitudes like these but from ideological argu- claim the world is currently unable to feed itself.

and who place the blame on anything from theNxcs; EBERSTADT is a visiting fellow at the Harvard Center incontinence of the poor to the irredeemable rot-for Population Studies. He is the author of Poverty in tenness of capitalism. But they are quite simply in-China, and the editor of Fertility Decline in the Less Dc- consistent with the most basic and readily obtain-veloped Countries. This essav is part of a larger study ofideology and the world food problem. Mr. Eberstadt would f a 's asserwon, for exation.like to thank David Dapice, Thomas Poleman, and Petcr McNamaras assertion, for example, is flatlyTimmer for their advice on an earlier draft. wvrong. Demographic figures are subject to consid-

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HUNGER AND IDEOLOGY/41

erable uncertainty, but no serious estimate of the is not a neNw one. In the depths of the Depression,

annLal number of child deaths would be higher Sir Arthur Bowlev announced that the United

than 17 million; and a more reasonable figure Kingdom wvas in the midst of a nutritional emer-

would probably be 15 million.* This would in- gencv: according to his figures, about half the

clude deaths from all causes: accidents. trauma. countirv was ingesting less than the average caloric

maternal neglect, bad sanitary conditions. and requirement. The government politely rejected

lack of medical care. Even if hunger were com- his report, pointing out that about half the coun-

pletely eliminated, many-perhaps more than half try would probablv need less tharn the average

-of these tragic deaths would continue. Mfc- caloric requirement by definition. This may have

Namara's claim, then, is something like four times been obvious in the 1930's, but it seems to escape

too high. most of our hunger experts today.

Likewise, the lament that countless numbers of FAGO figures are no better. In 1950; the FAO's

unfortunlates in the poor world are mentally defi- director, Lord Boyd-Orr, wrote that two-thirds of

cient is a rhetorical convenience. For better or manikind lived with the threat of hunger. His re-

Nvorse, hutmnian beings are not nearly so frail as doc- port apparently based its conclusion on a simple

tors, social planners, and other concerned adminis- computational error, a transposition of columns,

trators sometimes assume. As Lewis Thomas once Thouglh the mistake was pointed out, it was never

wrote, "Far from being ineptly put together, we corrected, or even officially acknowledged. In the

are amazingly touglh, durable organisms, full of more than thirty years since that gaffe the FAO

health, ready for most contingencies." Rather than has not done much to improve its reputation for

collapsing at the first sign of adversity, the human attention to dletail and respect for accuracy. Most

body protects itself from environmental insult. of the data and calculations in its first three

and protects especially the two systems most neces- World Food Surveys, the last of them released in

sary for survival, the organs of reproduction and 1963, are still niot available for outside inspection.

of thought. John Bongaarts has shoNwn that wom- In 1974 an unexplained revision irL methodology

en's fertility is basically unaffected by nutrition raised the FAO estimate of the incidence of seri-

until the point where they are beset by starvation, ous hunger from 360 1million to 434 million-or

when they would not be able to provide for their from exactly 20 percent to exactly 25 percent of

newborn. As for mental activitv, Rose Frisch once the Third WVorld-just in time for the World

demonstrated that every important experiment Food Conference. Currentlv the FAO computes its

"proving" the connection between mild or inoder- hunger figures with a modified version of the

ate malnutrition and human brain damage is em- World Bank Reutlinger-Selowskv formula."

barrassingly flawved in construction or interpreta-tion. Subseqtuent analyses support her conclusions. TTUNGER, it seems, is not as easy to mea-

In reality, if one is so starved that one's brain will 1 sure as we might have thought. It is

be seriously and irreversibly damaged one is not difficult to find otut how mucli the poor actually

likely to live to tell about it.t eat, for one of the hallmarks of poverty is social

Authoritative estimates of the prevalence of invisibility. If we did know how much the poor

hunger may be numbingly grim, but when we were eating, though, ve still might not know how

bring ourselves to look at them squarely we learn hungry they were. Food needs vary trom person to

that they are superficial and deceptive. Take the person. often by 50 prcent, not infrequently by

World Bank's count. WVith the Bank's "Reutlin- 100 percent. Food needs also vary for any given

ger-Selowskv" malnutrition methodology, one person over time, depending on whether or not he

comes to the clhilling conclusion that something is sick: intestinal bacteria, for example, may eat

like three-fifths of the people in lowv-income couLn- as muLch as 10 percent of any Bengali child's meal.

tries live under the shadow of "caloric deficits." And food needs varv wvith the availability of food.

On inspection, hoNwever, the numbers this formula The bodv can metabolize what it consumes with

churns out prove meaningless. In TaiNwan, for ex -

ample, caloric deprivation would be ascribed to See Davidson R. Gwatkin, "How Manv Die? A Set of

48 percent of the population; in Hong Kong, to Demographic Estimates of the Annual Number of Infantand Child Deaths in the World," .4merican Journal of

46 percent. This souLnds serious indeed, until one Public Health, December 1980.

learns that life expectancy in both places is over This does not mean that we can afford to be complacent

severnt-two-about the same, in fact, as in Fin- about «he plight of the wretched and the dispossc'ied.

landl or Austria. Rather, it means that there is still hope for the tens of

n r tismtriamethod millions wvhose lives arc dominated bv desperate povcrtV.s tIn 1950 nutritional and economic levels in South Korea

is unable to assess the incidence of hltx'ger in a and wvhat is now Bangladesh wvere about the same. This

usefuLl wa,v. This formiula, and others which (lid not prevent the South Koreans from learning the skills

imitate +t. implicitly insists that anyone eating less wvhicih were to facilitate one of the quickest and most

than somi-e fixed nutritional average mtttSt be dramatic escapes from poverty in the historv of nations.* .See Thomas T. Poleman. Qtiantif\ing the Nl£ritional

lndlerfcd. Forgotten is the obvious fact that fl- Situation in Developing Countries, Cornell Univcrstav Agri-

mat, needts vary. This is a simple mistake, andl it tultural Staft P2per. 1979.

421'COMMEN\TARY JULY 1981

greater or lesser efficiency. depending on need: we back, almost teni millioni clhildren under five vereseldom use or store as muclh as 40 percent of the "seriouslv malnourislhed" by anthlropornetric cri-.-ood energy in the things wve eat. teria. Obviously, that number vastlv Lunidersates

If wive wvanted to get a meaningful impression of the full extent of serious lhuinger: some childrenthe extent of liunger, wve might start by looking at will always be misclassified: at any point the num-the results of eating patterns. WVThat nutritionists ber dangerously hungry will be lower than for'all "anthropometric" tests, suclh as wveight-for-age the year as a whlle, owing to the rhythm of theand weight-for-height readings or measurerfents of harvest and the Xvagaries of parental fortune; bovsarm and head circumference can tell uls important and girls do not develop an immunitv to hungerthings about the nutritional well-being of a popu- on their fift'h birthdav. To correct for these biases,lation. By the time they are five, for example, and to take account of Clhina, Indochina, andGuatemalan Indian children are shorter and North Koorea, whliclh are usually excluded fromlighter than the children of Central African Pyg- such studies, we slhould probablv multiply thismies (although wvhat is called "cateh-up growvth" figure bv an order of magnitude, and put theeliminates this difference later on). world's desperately hungry population at some-

Unfortunately, anthropometric data can be eas- thing like 100 million.ily misinterpreted. If Asian boys and girls are mea- Attending to about 100 ,million people spreadsured against an American or Swvedish ideal, the across perhaps ninety or a hundred countriesfindings will probably be meaningless. One recent wvould be an enormous task, but a manageableAID study painted a sorry picture of Sri Lanka: one. Concerted international action could conceiv-by American lheight and wveight references, 42 per- ably eliminate the most horrifying manifestationscent of the nation's children wvere moderately or of lhunger in a matter of years. By reciting inflatedseverely malnourished; less than 10 percent were figures which lhave already lost their shock value,"normal." If these researclhers had bothered to hulnger experts risk making the problem seemmeasure life spans, however, they would have hopelessly large.found that the average Sri Lankan can expect to Of course, simply preventing the desperatelylive nearly seventy years, or about as long as the needy from succumbing to death by starvation canaverage Belgian in 1968. At that time the Belgians in no sense be construed as a fully satisfactorywere the most abundantly fed people on eartlh, solution to the hunger problem. There is a wvorldwith only a few thousand derelicts and vagrants of difference between being kept alive and living;among them thouglht to be hungry. check-ing deadly hunger is onlv a first step. 'Many

Evidently, it is possible to be "small but tens of millions of families wvho do not showv up inhealthy," to borrow a phrase from David Seckler. the rosters of stark malnutrition wvould choose toMost nutritionists do not Seem to appreciate this. eat more if only they had the money. In this sense,A recent study by the Pan American Healtlh Or- the hunger problem wvill riot be resolved until in-ganization concluded that more than 49 percent of voluntary hunger of all degrees is eliminated-the populations of Barbados, Costa Rica, Guyana. tlhough even then nutritional troubles can be ex-Jamaica, and Panama suffered from some degree pected to persist, if of an entirely different natureof malnutrition. Yet none of these countries has a and severity.life expectancy, under seventy.

A proper examination of serious lhunger miglht HREE final points should be maderelate such tlhings as height and weight to death I about serious hunger. First, wvhile werates-whliiclh has hardly ever been done. In this think of it as an Asian problem, the incidence ofconnection the findings of Lincoln Chen and his severe malnutrition is highest in blkack Africa.collea-gues at the Chlolera Research Laboratory in This is reflected, if imperfectly, by a consistentBangladeslh are instructive.* In the district of 'Ma- and alarmingly Ihiglh incidence of acute nutritionaltlab Bazaar, death rates for chiildren typed as "nor- deprivation as revealed by anthropometric testing,mal," "mildly malnourished," and "moderatelv and by a life expectancy wvlhiclh for black Africa as amalnourished" vere all about the same-in fact, wvhole falls about six years belowN India's. WVhat-"normal" clhildren died sliglhtly more frequently ever India's problems may be, its peoples can relythan did their smaller and lighter playmates. But oni a highlv sophisticated government apparatuschildren wvho were "severely malnourislhed"- which lhas both the ability and the inclinat ion tothose 40 percent or more belowv their "reference deal wsith stu(den h-unger. Few Africans are so for-weight"-died in droves: their mortality rates tunate.were four to six times highler than for all other Second, severe hunger is a greater problem forboys and girls the same age. This would certainly the countryside than for the city, both in absolute

.uggest that attention be conicentrated first on the and relative terms. To be sure, urban hunger isfraction of lhe world's population that is severelyinder fed. ' Lincoln C. Clien et al., 'Anthroponictric Assecsment, of

tinclrfed.Energy-Protein MfalnutriLion and Subsequent Risk ofHowv large would that fractioni be? According to Mortality Among Preschool-Aged Children," mnerican

a 'World Health Organization survey a decade Journal of Clinical Nutrition, August 1980.

- 1t. . s! 11ElTFT_ I5 zpz I7

HUNGER AND IDEOLOGY/43

more visible, more dangerous politicallv, and more self couLld satisfy not onlv the caloric needs of the

immediately influenced by the limited tools availa- entire wvorld population; but, of a billion people

ble to poor governments. Throughout the poor beyond. This is a conservative estimate,

world, however, it is villagers who are the more NMoreover, as the wvorldwvide decline in mortalitv

needy. The hunger whiclh Western visitors en- might suggest. foodl is not becoming scarcer. Since

counter in the big cities of the poor wvorld is 1950 world-wide per-capita food production has

shocking enough, but the fact of the matter is that risen by about 40 percent, according to the USDA.

children grow more slowly, and end up smaller Even the FAO admits the situation. has improved

and lighter, in the countryside. Tlhey also die ear- dramatically, although bv its count the rise is less

lier: in India, for example, a person born into the than 30 percent. Since consumers prefer meat, veg-

comparatively easy routine of city life can expect etables, and swveet foods to cereals and root crops,

to live about ten years longer than one wvho must this means that man's diet has also improved in

work and eat in the country. qualitv and digestibility.

Finally, prognostications noLwxithlsta,iding, the The benefits of progress, howvever, are never

world hunger situation does seem to be improv- evenlv spread. Bv conventional measure3, poor na-

ing. If 100 million is about the zight figure for tions have profited less than rich ones from Llhe

those threatened with dangerous hunger, this postwvar prosperitv. Even so, the poor wvorld seems

would be slightly more than 2 percent of the to be on a course toward greater abundance. Over

world's population: a lower fraction, in all likeli- the past twenty-five years, grain production per

hood, than for any previous generation in man's person in the less developed wvorld (again exclud-

recorded history. In the past thirty years, life ex- ing China) rose by about 13 percent.

pectancy in the less developed countries, excluding This figure significanitly understates the increase

China, lhas risen bv more than a third (and in overall availabiiitv, for in that same period the

China's may be up by 50 percent). In the past trade position of the less developed nations shifted

twventy years in these same nations, death rates for from one of rough self-sufficiency to a heavv reli-

one-to-four-year-olds, the age group most vulnera- ance on food imports. NVhatever else this may have

ble to nutritional setback, have dropped by nearly done, it necessarily intreased the amount of food

half. available for consumption. If FAO an,d USDA fig-

This does not mean that hunger and ill health ures can be rel.ed on, caloric intake, to sav no-

have disappeared frorn the poor vorld: the nearly thing oE diet qualitv, has improved in each major

twventy-year gap in life expectancies between the region of the poor world over each decade-except

rich and the poor nations is grim testimony that perhaps for China. When caloric need is measured

they have not. The fact that much remains to be in terms of functional requiiements rather than

done, howvever, should not blind us to the progress aesthetic ideals, the only nation whose food sup-

that has been made or to the very real possibility plies unquestionablv fall short is Cambodia,

that wve are now within striking distance of elimi- wvhose leaders deliberatelv- induced agricultural

nating the most extreme forms of hunger. disaster. Hunger in the poor nations, then, wvouldseem to be neither necessarv nor inevitable.

G RONVING AND INEVITABLE SCARCITY. To Contrarv to 'Malthusian doctrine, there is no

solve a problem we must understand measuLrable evidence that global agricultural pro-

its causes. Several of the important "schools of duction is pushing against environmentally deter-

thought" concerning the hunger problem deter uis mined limits. WhIiile it is true that poorly managed

from doing this. farms and pastures are degrading the soil in

Take the Nlalthusian position, recentlv em- Nepal, the Sahel, and elsewhere, there is nothing

braced bv no less prestigious a document than the inevitable about this deterioration: improved

Global 2000 report prepared for Presidenc Carter. cuLltivation and coitservation practices could re-

In its strictest construction, this argument holds store them, as agronomists at the Rockefeller Foun-

that since there are too few goodls and resources to dation and elsewvhere have shown. If anvthing, ag-

go around, poverty and hunger are inevitable. ricultural resources are becoming less scarce. Be-

MNan's insatiable appetites, in this view, have otut- tween 1950 and 1980, thanks to the persistent and

stripped the capacities of our fraile ecosystem to careful wvork of farmers, the world's arable area.-

sustain them; if disaster is to be avoided wve must thlat fraction fit for cultivation-grew bv more

ruthlesslV cut back the wealth of thie ricli world than I0 percent, and at an even more rapid rate in

and the fertilitv of the poor. the poor countries as a wvhole. In the decade end-

The case against this position is so thoroughi ing in 1977, the wvorld's irrigated acreage shot up

that it is hard to know where to begin. Perhaps a more than 25 percent.

good place wvould be the currenL global availabil- As for fertilizer, pesticide. seeds, and simple

ity of food. Let us disregard for a moment suclh rnachinerv, perhaps the best measure of scarcity is

things as tubers, vegetables, fruit, nuts, legturnes. price (after all, prices in some sense are meant to

stIvars. food oils, fish, and range-,i,cd livestock. indicate relacive icarcity). AdjuLsting for inilation,

Even without these, food-grain produtlCion by it- wve find thac such prices have dropped meaning-

44/COMMENTARY JULY 1981

fully in tLhe past thirty Nears, ofLen bN mlore than as a sign of lhunger and as a hindrance to develop-

D0 percent. Only energy is mbre expensive today ment. But their analysis is fundaamentally flawved.

than it was thirty years ago, and this is a com- It confuses biological need -with economic de-

modity for which a scarcitv has been deliberately mand, two thinlgs which have nothing to do with

contrived. each other. Purchases reflect the choices of those

A finial measure of scarcity in world agriculture who have money to spend; they do not necessarily

might seem to be the export prices of American signify the satisfaction of an irreducible minimum

wvheat and corn, wvhich underpin the intel-national of needs. Taiwan's 18 million people purchase

food market. Adjusting for inflation. wve find that more American food than Africa's 400 million;

these cost less nowv than in the early 1960's-or in this is not because they are more hungry. Con-

any earlier period, for that matter. And this is not versely, the current net export positions of Bu-

because American farmers have been margin- rundi, Bturma. and India should not be taken to

alized; last year per-capita income for U.S. agri- mean that these nations have finally eliminated

cultural workers surpassed that for non-agricul- malnutrition.tural workers. By the same token, a nation's dependence on

What 'Malthusians always forget is that social foreign food tells us nothing by itself about its de-

and economic systems are not static and inflexible. velopment prospects. Rising food deficits did not

Ours is an age of innovation, and innovations prevent Israel and Japan from achieving spectacu-

tend to find uses for materials which were pre- lar rates of economic growvth. On the other hand, a

viousl\ valueless: sand, bauxite, petroleum. Inno- rising volume of food exports has not stopped Ar-

vations also tend to occur precisely in response to gentina from sliding back into the Third World.

shortages. We should not conclude that .innova- It would be a mistake to assume that food im-

tion offers us the panacea that proponents of ports cripple less developed countries financially.

technological utopias sometimes claim: new ideas The so-called "developing market economies"-

and inventions ;do not appear on request; tech- the poor world minus OPEC, China, and the

nological change has a social cost, which can be smaller Communist states-sold more than $250

very high; and innovation is a long-term process, billion of goods and services last year. Their net

while many of man's most troublesome problems food-grain bill amounted to about 510 billion, or

press him in the short term. Nevertheless, given something like 4 percent of their exports. For the

the flexibility and creativity of the modern eco- poorest nations within this configuration, the

nomy, ours may actuallv prove to be an age of food-grain burden wvas higher, but even they

increasing availability of resources. As Julian could pay for their purchases wvith less than 10

Simon has pointed out, the "ultimate resource" .percent of their exports. (At the height of the

is human talent, and thi4 is a resource which grows 1972-74 food crisis, grain purchases absorbed less

through being used. Praetorian sterilization pro- th n 15 percent of the poorest nations' merchan-

gramrs or forced reductions in living standards are dise earnings.)not the means to encourage its utilization. Despite their growving reliance on overseas food,

poor nations have been able to cover their pur-

MINOUS FOOD DEFICITS. To manv devel- chases wvith an ever shrinking fraction of their

k opment experts, the increasing reli- own overseas earnings. In 1960, food-a categorv

ance on foreign grain in the poor wvorld is cause in which grain is a relatively small component-

for alarm. Last year the net imports of the less de- wvas 15 percent of the import bill of the "middle-

veloped countries (including Cnina) totaled income countries," and 22 percent of the bill of

nearly 70 million tons, up from about 20 million "low-income countries." By 1977 the proportions

tons in 1960; this group had been essentially self- were 12 percent and 16 percent respectively. To be

sufficient in the early 1950's, and had exported a sure, less developed countries face some serious fi-

net of about 10 million tons in the 1930's. Sterling nancial problems, but it does seem that the poor

Wortman and Ralph Cummings, authors of the wvorld could afford to finance even more "omi-

otherwise sober To Feed This TVorld, term this a nous" food deficits than it presently does, if it

trend of "ominous food deficits," and a report of were so inclined.

the International Food Policy Research Instituteconcludes, witlh a mixture of hiorror and disbelief, UT wvlhy has food prodluction in the

that if trends continue the poor regions, exclusive DB poor wNorld lagged behind articulated

of Clhina, might import as mucli as 120 million demand? The answver hias little to do wvith an

tons of grain by 1990. Implicit is the notion that absolute inability to produce. Nor do "alarm-

imports by themselves are proof that a nation can in-l," Iiiglh rates of population growvth bear mucl

no longer feed itself, or that it has lost its race resDonsibilitv for this. It can be explained, rather,

against population. in terms of a specific set of choices made bv almost

The economists and agroniomists wvho urge the every regime in the poor world in the period of

less developed countries to restore their inmport in- decolonization and national self-assertion.

dependence viewv the reliance on outside food both The nationalist leaders wvho came to power after

HUNGER AND IDEOLOGY/45

V-rld WVar II through the break--up of the old erate would no doubt narrow income differences

empires differed remarkably in their ideologies- and speed economic growth, although hunger

one need only compare Nehru, say, with Sukarno might not be reduced as substantially as we might

or Ho Chi Minh-but on one point they were first assume. By virtue of such reforms a nation's

united: they didc not wvish to remain wveak appen- grain trade deficit might well decline. If hunger

dages of the powverful states which had controlled on earth were effectivelv eliminated, some regions

theimi. Their common ambition was to build pow- of today's poor wvorld would undoubtedly revert to

erful, "modern" state apparatuses which would self-sufficiency, and others wouid even generate a

allow their nations, or at least their national net food surplus. But many countries could and

elites, to deal on equal terms with their former would undoubtedly accumulate an even larger

masters. They wvould of course provide themselves grain-trade deficit than they have todav. And there

with all the trappings of national power: airports, would be nothing new about such an arrange-

sports arenas, presidential palaces. But they ment. In many of today's rich nations, elimination

would also build up an industrial base, even if of hunger was facilitated by reliance on food sur-

rapid indlustrialization were not economically pluses from other lands, for this permitted an ac-

wise. celeration of economic growth through an escape

Huge discrepancies in rates of return did not from the bind of agricultural self-sufficiency.

prevent the national elites from sanctioning a mas-sive build-up o" the modern sector at the ex- HE SUPERIORITY OF THE SOCIALIST

panse of the vast majority of the population wvho I SYSTEM. Still another current belief is

lived in the countri-side and Nvorked on the land. that "capitalism" is an inferior tool in the fight

Agricultural research wvas neglected, and prices against hunger, while "socialism" i- an effective

and taxes skewed against the farmer to hasten the one.t According to this argument, capitalism is

growth of cities and factories. crippled by an inherently exploitative system of

As a result, a peculiar system of comparative ad- relations which tends to cause growing inequalities,vantage has arisen. In poor nations where wages and to produce either nutritional stagnation or

are low and the large majority of the labor force huinger crises in the lAs developed countries. By

works in the fields, farmers cannot produce food contrast, "socialism" is said to be more rational,

as cheaplv as their counterparts in North America. more efficient, oriented toward human develop-

The Indian agricultural sector, for example, uses ment rather than profit, and grounded in the secu-as muchi energy as the American, but it produces rity of central planning. For these reasons, the ar-

only a third as much food; it nowv costs a farmer gument continues, the "socialist strategy" has

about 40 percent more to grow a ton of wvheat made strides against desperate wvant which "capi-

in the Punjab than in Kansas. On the other hand, talist" nations have been unable to match.

wvith new, state-of-the-art factories, cheap work Althoughl this argument is Marxist in concep-

forces. hidden subsidies, and frequently insuffi- tion, it has won respectability among a wide range

cient domestic markets, it is in the interests of the of thinkers and policy-makers who do not consider

poor nations to export processed goods: India. for themselves radicals or e,-en men of the Left. By

example, can forge a ton of steel for half as much 1975, for example, no less a figure than McGeorge

as the Ruhr. Thus it makes sense for poor nations Bundy was arguing that the success of the Chinese

to tr-ade their finished products for cheap Western and Cuban experiments should make us rethink

food." our old notions about economic development.Today's policies, wvIhicli favor the city over the Rather than arguing about the theoretical mer-

village and the factory over the field, are likely to its of "socialism" versus "capitalism," let us com-

impede the elimination of malnutrition. In suc- pare the nutritional records of Co-nmmunist and

ctimbing to wvhat Michael Lipton has termed non-Communist nations. Evaluating Communist

"urban bias," politicians and professors in the efforts to eliminate hluLnger is not a straightforwvardpoor world have skewed income distribution bv exercise. Communist states oppose the free flow of

financing the comfort of teamsters and physicists information under the best of circtumstances; they

at the expense of blacksmiths and plowmen. Bvmisallocating investments, they slow down eco- Industrialization seems to have plaved less of a role in

nomic growthl. Other thinigs being equal. this this transformation in Africa than in either Latin America

means the poor will be hungrier. The fewv poor or Asia. In Africa, the unhappy results described belowv

countries w-hich have rerused to favor their Lirban seem to have more to do w.ith the growth of a class of

minorities at the expense of the rural nmajority- parasitic bureaucrats and the inappropriate extension ofcash-cropping. Michael Lofchie addresses the latter prob-

Taiivan, Soutlh Korea, Malawi. the Ivory Coast- lem in his "Origins of African Hunger," joturnal of Modern

are all in better economic and nutrieional shape .frican Studies, November 1975.than neiglhbors whlio have so favored their cities- , Honest meaning wvas long ago beaten out of bothl of

the Philippines, North Korea Tanzaiiia, Chana. these terms. In standard usage the iecond nowv seems to beIa slsorthand for "the current practices of Marxist-Leninist

i te -cd,ec:nes," while the first can seeniiingl, be applied to non-r riculture in the less developed countries must op- Communisc svstems as different aS Morocco and Swseden.

46/COMMENTARY JULY 1981

should not be expected to promiiote discussions of rF ALL the "socialist experiments,"

their system's shortcomings. Mleasuring Commu- 0 only two provide evidence of nutri-

nist and non-Communist iiations against each tional results noticeablv better than their non-

other, moreover, is complicated by the fact that Communist neighbors: Soviet Central Asia and

some of the nations we wvould wvish to compare Cuba.* Whether total colonization by a Eiiropean

were never really comparable. (Against whom do power wvould have provided Afghanistan or Iran

ve judge the Miongolian People's Republic, for with material resuilts comparable to those pro-

exaample? Turkey? Nepal? South Korea?'f Never- duced bv total Russian colonization in Turk-

theless, state-sanctioned statistics, refugee iccounts. menia, Uzbekistan, or the ill-fated Tazakh Repub-

and reports from those few inA`el visitors wvith lic, we cannot say: nothing like that was ever at-

sharp eyes and open minds do permnit a telling if tempted. As for Cuba, the underpinnings of its

imperfect reconstruction of the Communist na- success are artificial. Aside from Cambodia and

tions'performance on the hunger front. the Yemen People's Democratic Republic, Cuba

A brief summary wvil suffice. Before the first Five is the only nation in the world wvith a smaller per-

Year Plan in the late 1920's Soviet Russia could rapita GNP today than thirty years ago. It could

be ranked as a peer of Finland or Japan bv some ixot possibly survive, let alone function, without

agricultiiral and nutritional measures; by a few it enormous annual subsidies from the Soviet Union.

wvas even ahead. Today it lags embarrassingly be- The USSR's current grant to its Cuban showpiece

hind: its agricultural sector is strick-en by chronic is tlhought to be half as large as Cuba's internally

and continuous failure; its consumers suffer per- generated GNP.

ennial shortages not just of meat, fruit, and vege- Socialist regimes have good reason to -want their

tables, but of such "luxury" goods as lard; its in- people healthy and wvell fed: a debilitated labor

fant-mortality rate, unlike anv in the Western force, after all, can only impede the attainment of

W-orld. is rising, thanks in no small part to diseases economic targets or political and military objec-

of nutritional deficiency like rickets. tives. Total command over economv and society,

Before 'World WVar II, Spain, Greece, and Italy's moreover, can indeed be used to produce impres-

inezzogior7o were all hungrier than Czechosla- sive and immediate material results. Under the

vakia or Hungary; thirty-five years into the East- aegis of the totalitarian state, land can be redistri-

ern European experiment in "people's democ- btuted quickly and without legal obstacle; staples

racv," they are healthier. When Korea w as parti- can be rationed, and their prices set artificially

tioned, the North wvas richer and better fed: it pos- low; wvorkers can be mobilized, and employment

sessed about 95 percent of the peninsula's indus- created, by fiat, In the People's Republic of China

try, and had just been unburdened by the flight of in the early 1950's such policies contributed to a

5 million citizens to thA already impoverished substantial rise in living standards for the poorest

South. After a generation of "socialist develop- half of the population. But if we can believe

ment," it is clearly now the South Koreans wvho China's current leaders, over the next quarter-cen-

are richer and better fed. As one might expect ofa nation of a billion people, China's performance Soviet Central Asia's progress is charted, if uincritically,

differs from one region to the next. Today, how- in Charles K. Wilker's The Soviet Model and the Under-

ever, even mainlanders refer to Taiwan as "China's developed Countries (University of North Carolina Press,

leading province": it has set the pace in all areas 1969) and in A.R. Khan and Dharam Chai, "Collective Agri-of mteril pogres, ncluingtiieredctio of culture in Soviet Central Asia," WVorld Developmnent,

of material progress, including the reduction of April/Nay 1979. For some reflections -on Cuba's perform-

hunger. ance, see David Morawetz's "Some Lessons from Small

Over the past generation Thailand has come Socialist Countries," TVorld Development, May/June 1980,

close to solving its huinger problem; bv all accounts The nearest equivalent in the WVestern experience to the

neighboring Laos, which was much poorer at the Soviet episode in Central Asia would probably be Southn b L has bec even hri,,,e Africa. Despite the obvious and enormous differences be-

time of its "liberation, nas become even hungrier twveen these twvo colonial histories, there ma' be lessons to

since then. "Unified" V'etnam seems to have dealt be learned from a comparison. On the one hand, the USSR's

with its hunger probiem by casting its extra Central Asians are healthier and better educated than South

moulths into the sea. The nutritional plight of Africa's blacks; presumably this means that they are better

Cambodia is too familiar to require any descrip- fed as well. On the other hand, the differentials between theC bod iliving standard for blacks in South Africa and those of ad-

tion, joining countries may be greater than the differentials in

The performance of Marxist-Leninist regimes Central Asia: South Africa, after all, has a problem con-

in Africa is difficult to judge for a number trolling the flowv of illegal black immigrants, wvhile Kirgizia

of reasons, including the fact that total control is not thought to have an equivalent difficulty. South Africa'sneglect and exploitation of its blacks, moreover, mav be con-

over their economies and societies has yet to be trasted wvith the even more brutal subjection of the nomadic

esLablished. but at first blush Africa's hungry and peoples of Central Asia, at least part of which was accom-

neglected peoples do not seem to have fared better plished through Stalin's policv of deliberatelv inducing

under the wvould-be totalitarians than uinder anv of famine. Finally, certain statistical differences between South

the less ambitious forms of -ov ernment on that Africa and the Soviet Union remain difficult to explain:o South African blacks, for example. have twice as high a

continent, rate of car owvnership as the citizens of the USSR.

--o --, z - y .r

HUN'GER AND IDEOLOGY/47

tury living standards rose onlv slightl and errati- It is a fact of moclern life that governments

cally. across the spectrum of political inclination have

Total control over economy and society cuts inflicted starvation on their peoples by design.

both ways. In and of itself, it does not serve to But the regimes which have made the m;sc consis-

augment resources. Instead, it concen=rates power, tenit practice of this call themselves "tocialist."

and most frequently this 'mpedes rathier than ex- 'Moreover, these are the onlv regimes to do so on

pedites the augmentation of resources. If it can principle. Armed with a philosophv wvhich can

make land reform or rationing easier, it always turn even their most enthusiastic supporters

makes it more difficult to promote technological into "enernies of the people," and which can then

innovation, accelerate worker productivity, or en- justify their elimination by whatever means neces-

courage flexible, creative, and efficient responses to sary, anid lackiing the interinal checks which rnight

unforeseen problems. The poor and the hungry at least moderate officiallv sanctioned acts of

may benefit from this tradeoff, but only on occa- cuLelty, the "socialist" states lhave pioneered in

sion, and seldom in the long run. iniflictiing needless liunger on helpless populations.

More complicated than a comparison of Com-

BUT the dangers of total power are not munist and non-Communist regimes would be a

B merely measured in forgone oppor- comparison of the results of "socialist"-i.e., Fabi-

tunities for progress. There is another aspect to an-economic policy in the poor wvorld with "capi-

"socialist policy" which nutritionists and develop- talism." Sri Lanka, for example, pursued Fabian

ment experts seldom confront directly. policies until quite recently; economically these

Over the course of the 20th century there has may have failed, yet just as clearly they should be

been a noticeable and distinctly unpleasant credited with social success. With a per-capita in-

change in the character of severe hunger. In the come wvhich appears no greater than India's, Sri

past, famines were usually the result of bad har- Lankans have a life expectancy about fifteen years

vests or economic crisis; increasingly, they can be longer. Bv contrast, Michael Mtanley's variant of

traced to deliberate acts of government. "socialism" in Jamaica appears to have retarded

WVith the rise in power and sophistication of the both economic and social, progress.

modern state apparatus, governments can noNw As for laissez-faire capitalism, this has worked

save their peoples from desperate hunger in a way well-publicized wonders in 'Hong Kong over the

which -was impossible in the 19th century. When past generation, yet its results have been far less

India's larvests failed in the mid-1960's, for exam- impressive in neighboring Macao. Bv the same

pIe, a concerted Indian-American relief effort pre- token, the three black African nations wvhich have

vented a famine wvhich all observers agree would strayed least from orthodox capitalism-Bot-

have catused tens of millions of deaths. Thanks to swvana, Mfalawvi, and the Ivory Coast-have all out-

these joint relief actions, in fact, there was no sta- performed their neighbors, but by seemingly

tisticallv observable rise in death rates in the rather different mar-ins.

drought-afflicted provinces. The comparative strengths'of "socialist" democ-

A powerful and sophisticated state apparatus, racv and a more rigorously defined "capitalism" in

however, can also use hunger as a weapon of as- the fight against hunger is perhaps a subject which

sault against its enemies. There have been at least has received too little attention. Too much atten-

six suclh massive famines in the last fifty years. tion, however, has been given to Communist anti-

The hunger generated by the Soviet collectiviza- poverty strategies. The notion that encouraging

tion drive killed at least 6 million people; the star- or even acquiescing in, the growth of totalitarian

vation attendant on the Nazi atrocities, perlhaps governance in the poor nations will help eradicate

the same number; the man-made famine in Bengal hiLunger is a chimera. Everything we have learned

in 1943, perhaps 3 million; the Biafran famine, at in the past ten years suggests that CommuLnist

least I million; the ongoing Cambodian famine. as states are consistently, and perhaps necessarilv,

many as 2 million from a total poptulation of 7 or worse at feeding their peoples than their "capial-

8 million; and China's "Three Lean Years," the ist" competitors.

aftermath of the Great Leap Forward, mav have

taken a toll running into the tens of millions. T F WvE were to shake off our blinders on

Eaclh of these famines was governmentc spon- the subject of wvorld hunger, wve

sored; some wvere even officiallv planned. The scale wVoulId see three importan-t thiings about it.

of the cruelty involved is perhaps suggested by

comparison wvitlh the Sahelian farmine in West Af- Se in particular John C. Caidnell. The Sahelia

rica in the early 1970's, whiclh vas a "natural" dis- Drought andi Its Demographic IIPliCauL'lOF TOerSCaS Edil-

as.er. *While authoritative analyses of this tragedy cational Institute, 1975). In Calkiwell's words, "Better

tell us that the death toll from the drought will roads, greater coMmercializadoi01 of the wvhole regio0. morc

nevcr be known precisely, thev also sUtgest thiat awareness of wshat was happening . . . and massive itLer-

its cost in terms oJf human life shold be measured national relicf erforts all helped thie people's os%n effortsits c. ie ohand reduced a potentiallv mturderouis period inito a xerv

in thouszinds, not hundreds of thousands.* painful one."

48./CONINMENTARY JULY 1981

First, Sdespite the blunders, caprices. and ruinous There ai-e many reasons for tlhis; one of tlhem is a

plan' of so many of their leaders, the people of the lack of "eXtension agents" capable of passing it

poor i,ations are eating betLer today than ever be- on, and then serving as intellectual midcldlemen lbe-

fore. Controlling the wvorst manifestations of hun- twveen scientists and small growers.

ger. at least in the non-Communist world, is no 3. Grain insturance. Man cannot average his ap-

longer an impossible undertaking. . petite across years or even seasons. In the parlance

Second, wvhere desperate poverty and want have of economists, the "demand schedule" is highly

beeii eradicated, it has not been through 'popula- "inelastic." People have to have food to stav alive,

tion control. artificially enforced food 'self-suffi- and will pay for it what they can; thus. even a

cienc%, or "socialist strategies,"* but through the relatively modest shortfall -in supply can trigger

lhard workl of millions of men and women scat- explosive increases in prices. (During the "Nvorld

tered on tiny farms, in dull villages, in dirty me- food crisis" of the earlv 1970's, for example, pro-

tropolises and sulburban shlantytowvns, who are de- duction never fell more than 3 percent below

termined to improve their oiwn lives and wvhose trend, and yet the cost of grain more than doubled

governments have given them the wherewv-ithal to in the international marketplace.) WNVhen prices go

do so. mad, food is bid otit of the mouths of the hungry

Finally, the United States is in a unique posi- in much of the poor world. With America's pre-

tion to facilitate the global escape from poverty dominance over the world grain economy, the

and to hasten the day when desperate hunger is United States could easily champion an interna-

eliminated. There are, in fact, a number of things tional grain-insurance program which wvould be

we could be doing today whiclh would measurably well within the range of self-finance for the poor

improve the world's nutritional status. We have nations and whose benefits, both economic and

not %ndertaken any of them, perhaps for want of humanitarian, wvould be substantial and demon-

the idea. strable.4. Trade reforrn. Reducing tariffs and otherwise

iAT would these be? I wvill list seven liberalizing access to the enormous American mar-

-vV of them iere: ket -would increase exports, hence jobs, in.-ome,

1. Promoting rural industry. The Japanese, Tai- and presumably nutritional status in the less de-

wvanese, and Soutlh Koreans can attest to the cru- veloped countries. At the same time, it would

cial role that rural industrialization plays in the lower the cost of goods for the American consumer

acceleration of economic growvtlh and the elimina- and provide our industries with much needed and

tion of hunger. In most of Asia and much of Latin potentially vitalizing competition.

America and Africa, population density places a 5. Regulating infant foods. Many children in

limit on what can be cxpected from agriculture poor nations suffer from a syndrome which Der-

alone. A sound and balanced program of rural in- rick Jelliffe has labeled "commerciogenic malnu-

dustry would provide not only the products farm- trition." MTothers' milk may be -the best food for

ers need to increase their productivity, but jobs infants, blut for a variety of reasons growing num-

andl inconme for the landless laborers and displaced bers of women in poor nations are choosing to

artisans who so frequently rank among the un- feed their babies store-bought, processed formula.

derfed. (A souind program of rural industry wvould 'Many women who buy this cannot really afford to

also help stem the rush to the cities, since it would prepare it in adequate quantities and are unable

make possible the decent living wvhiclh migrants to keep it hygienic; their children suffer for this.

leave home to find.) Our government could initiate an informal, inter-

Much of Lhe technology wvhich w ould be needed national arrangement wvith infant food merchandi-

wvould be simple, inexpensive, and amenable to sers to protect the poor and the ignorant against

local repair: "rotoveeders," wvhiclh roll througlh a the misuse of such products. In the wsake of our

;ice paddy like a lawnmower; "biogas converters," vote against the AVorld Health Organization in-

.:hich catalyze compost into usable energy; low- fant-formula proposals, wve should have a special

horsepower pumps Nwliiclh could tap into a locallv interest in doing so.

available energy source; and so forth. Paradoxi- 6. Lobbving for development. Obviously, the ac-

cally, many of these devices are too inexpensive tions of governments in poor countries will be the

for intmrnational industry to develop, for their primar)- constraint on the pace at which poverty

very simplicity wvould imperil licensingt and roy- and hunger are reduced. The United States has no

alty arrangements. ultimate say over price-support systems, educa-

2. Extension training. WVe have already helped tional stratevies, investment policies, land-tenure

establislh a remarkable netwvork of international arrangements, or patterns of administration in in-

am_,riculltLral-research centers which have brought (lependent and sovereign nations. But we should

the wvorld new, highl-yielding strains of iwheat and not underestimate the positive influence we mav

rice and improved cultivation techniques for exert through the instruments at our disposal.

many other crops. In many parts of the poor AID, the WVorld Bank, and the Interinational

world, this knowledge is not reachling the farmer. M onetary FLtnd can all create incentives for sound

HUNGER AND IDEOLOGY/49

and honest governance, liberalized trade. rural nihilation of Camibodia. Nor does this organiza-

developme-nt, and technological difftulion. ancd tion, whichi is charged wvith improving nutrition

these are things wvhich wvill help the poor and the for thle wvhole of mankind, seem to have anv corn-

hungry. tingencv plan for trying to feed the wvorld's

7. MNloral pressure. Through various forumns and hungriest strata. Should it not be shamed for this

international channels we should be castigating, delinquency?embarrassing, isolating, and punishing govern-ments which choose to starve their people. We Hr. list couLld be continued, but tlie

should ask our allies to help us in doing this. Ancl point should be clear 'by nowv. WVhile

we should ask wvhy "hiumanitarian" international only a fraction of the manv problems of the poor

organizations, upon which we lavish hundreds of wvorld may be solved by well-meaning Westerners,

millions of dollars, have been so silenc about such and while most of the things the West can offer re-

abuses. The Food and Agriculture Organization, quire time to manifest themselves, important, even

for example, sounded no alarms aboout Echiiopia'. crucial, opportunities to accelerate the elimination

deliberate neglect of its famine-stricken provinces, of hiunger do exist. They wvill not be seized so long

or Indonesia's campaign of lhunger aginst the Ti- as wve remain in thrall to hallutcinatory ideas about

morese, or the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese an- the causes of hunger.

/.