When Disaster Strikes - Part 5: Famine and Political Power

A Question of Entitlement

In 1943, as World War II raged, Bengal experienced a famine that killed an estimated 2-3 million people. Rice was being exported from India to feed Allied troops. Winston Churchill dismissed appeals for relief, asking why, if conditions were so dire, Gandhi hadn’t died yet.

There was no absolute food shortage. Bengal’s 1943 rice harvest was only slightly below average. Food was available—it just wasn’t available to the poor.

Amartya Sen, who witnessed the Bengal famine as a nine-year-old, would later develop the concept of “entitlement failure” to explain this paradox. Famines, he argued, occur not when food disappears but when people lose the ability to acquire it.

A landless laborer in Bengal in 1943 might have been surrounded by rice paddies. But if his wages couldn’t buy rice at inflated wartime prices, if there was no work, if relief was unavailable—he could starve amid plenty.

This insight transforms how we understand famine. It’s not primarily a natural event, caused by drought or flood or crop failure. It’s a political event, caused by decisions about who controls food and who gets access to it.

The Politics of Food Access

Every society has systems that determine who eats. In normal times, these systems are invisible—they’re just “how things work.” In famine, they become starkly visible.

Market Systems

In market economies, food access depends on purchasing power. Those with money eat; those without money don’t.

This seems natural, even fair—you get what you can pay for. But in crisis, market systems can distribute death with mechanical efficiency.

During the Irish Famine of 1845-1852, Ireland continued to export food even as its people starved. The potato blight destroyed the potato crop, but grain production remained relatively stable. That grain was owned by landlords, who sold it on international markets for better prices than starving Irish peasants could pay.

The market worked perfectly. Food flowed to the highest bidder. A million people died.

Rationing Systems

When markets fail to provide equitable access, governments sometimes impose rationing—guaranteed allocations based on some criterion other than ability to pay.

Rationing can save lives. During World War II, British food rationing ensured that even the poor had access to basic nutrition. Infant mortality actually declined during the war years because rationing guaranteed milk for children.

But rationing systems can also be tools of discrimination. Who gets ration cards? How are rations allocated? Who administers the system?

During the Leningrad siege of 1941-1944, ration cards were allocated by category: manual workers received the most, then office workers, then dependents, then children. This hierarchy reflected Soviet values about productive labor—and it determined who lived and who died.

Kinship and Community

In many societies, food sharing operates through kinship and community networks. Relatives help relatives; neighbors help neighbors.

These systems can provide resilience against localized crisis. But they can also embed existing inequalities. Those without strong networks—the isolated, the stigmatized, the newcomers—have no claim on community resources.

During famines in sub-Saharan Africa, food sharing patterns have been extensively studied. The findings are complex: sharing provides crucial support, but it’s never unlimited. When crisis deepens, sharing networks contract. The most marginal members are cut off first.

Democracies and Famines

Sen made a striking empirical observation: democracies with free press don’t experience famines.

India after independence has experienced food crises, droughts, and localized shortages. But it has never experienced a famine comparable to those under British colonial rule. The democratic system creates pressures that prevent mass starvation.

The Information Problem

Famine requires ignorance—or the appearance of ignorance—at the top. If rulers know that millions are starving and do nothing, their legitimacy collapses.

Authoritarian systems can maintain ignorance. Information can be suppressed; officials can be pressured to report good news. During the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961, local officials reported successful harvests even as people starved around them. Mao received reports of bumper crops while 30-45 million people died.

Democracies with free press cannot maintain this fiction. Journalists report starvation. Opposition politicians denounce government failure. The public demands action.

The mere knowledge that the truth will come out creates incentives to prevent disaster. Democratic rulers know they will be held accountable for mass death in a way that authoritarian rulers are not.

The Accountability Mechanism

Beyond information, democracies provide accountability. Rulers who allow famine face electoral consequences.

This doesn’t require that voters understand policy details. It requires only that they attribute suffering to government failure—and punish that failure at the polls.

The threat of electoral punishment creates incentives for action. Democratic governments move food, mobilize relief, and take visible action even when the efficient response might be different. The political imperative to be seen responding saves lives.

The Limits of Democratic Protection

Democratic protection against famine is not absolute. It requires:

• A genuinely free press that can report without censorship
• Political competition that gives voters a meaningful choice
• Sufficient state capacity to actually deliver relief
• A political community that includes the affected population

When these conditions fail, democracies can approach famine. If the affected population doesn’t vote, if media doesn’t cover their suffering, if the political system excludes them—democratic protections don’t apply.

This helps explain why democracies with marginalized populations can experience famine-like conditions among those populations while the majority remains well-fed.

Famine as Policy

Sometimes famine is not a failure of policy but an instrument of it. Rulers have deliberately used starvation to achieve political goals.

The Ukrainian Holodomor

In 1932-1933, the Soviet Union experienced a massive famine concentrated in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Estimates of the dead range from 4 to 7 million in Ukraine alone.

Was this policy or catastrophe?

The evidence points to deliberate targeting. While famine affected grain-producing regions across the USSR, specific policies intensified suffering in Ukraine:

• Grain quotas were set at impossible levels
• Borders were sealed to prevent escape
• Relief was denied even as other regions received it
• Villages that failed to meet quotas were blacklisted from receiving any goods

Stalin used famine to break Ukrainian resistance to collectivization and to crush Ukrainian nationalism. Starvation was a tool of political control.

The Holodomor is now recognized by many countries as genocide—the deliberate destruction of a national group through engineered starvation.

Colonial Famines

European colonial powers frequently used food control as an instrument of rule.

In British India, famine was endemic. The colonial government understood the causes—as early as the 1880 Famine Commission, the dynamics were clearly analyzed. But relief was consistently inadequate, shaped by ideology about free markets and concerns about creating “dependency.”

More directly, food policy was used to maintain control. The Bengal Famine of 1943 was exacerbated by the “denial policy”—the deliberate destruction of boats and rice stocks in coastal areas to prevent Japanese invasion forces from living off the land. The policy achieved military objectives while starving millions.

Siege Warfare

The most direct use of famine as weapon is siege warfare—surrounding an enemy and cutting off food supplies.

The Leningrad siege, the longest in modern history, killed an estimated 800,000 civilians, primarily from starvation. The Nazi strategy was explicit: the city would be starved into submission.

In modern conflicts, this strategy continues. The Syrian government’s sieges of rebel-held areas deliberately used starvation. Yemen’s civil war has produced famine conditions through the blockade of ports.

International humanitarian law theoretically prohibits the use of starvation as a weapon. In practice, the prohibition is regularly violated, and enforcement is minimal.

Food Control and Political Power

Beyond extreme cases of deliberate famine, food control is a routine instrument of political power.

Urban Bias

Governments worldwide prioritize urban food supplies over rural ones. Cities are politically visible, concentrated, and volatile. Rural populations are dispersed, less organized, and less threatening.

The result is policy bias: food subsidies for urban consumers, price controls that hurt rural producers, infrastructure investment in cities rather than agriculture.

This urban bias can produce rural hunger even in food-surplus countries. Farmers grow food but can’t afford to eat it because policy keeps prices too low. The food flows to cities where politically powerful consumers demand cheap sustenance.

Food Subsidies and Political Loyalty

Food subsidies can be targeted to reward political loyalty. Supporters get access; opponents don’t.

In many countries, food distribution systems are used as political patronage. Access to rations requires the right connections, the right party membership, the right ethnicity.

Egypt’s bread subsidy, which consumes a significant portion of the national budget, is untouchable politically—but access to subsidized bread has historically been mediated through local power structures that favored some Egyptians over others.

Agricultural Policy and Elite Interests

Agricultural policy worldwide tends to favor large producers over small ones, commercial agriculture over subsistence farming, export crops over food crops.

These biases serve elite interests. Large landowners have political power. Export crops generate foreign exchange that urban elites want. Commercial agriculture attracts investment.

But these biases also create food insecurity. When policy favors cotton over corn, farmers grow cotton—and local food supplies depend on imports. When commodity prices crash, farmers who converted from food crops have nothing to eat.

The Geography of Famine

Famines cluster geographically in patterns that reflect political economy rather than climate.

Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced more famines in recent decades than any other region. But African famines are not primarily caused by African droughts.

The pattern is political:

• Post-colonial state structures often lack capacity for effective famine response
• Conflict zones have the highest famine risk—war disrupts agriculture, displaces populations, and prevents relief
• Structural adjustment policies imposed by international institutions reduced state capacity for food security
• Climate change is real but interacts with political factors to produce famine

Ethiopia has experienced repeated famines despite being capable of food self-sufficiency. The 1983-1985 famine, which killed approximately one million people, resulted from war, policy failure, and inadequate response rather than absolute food shortage.

Asia

Asia has dramatically reduced famine incidence since the mid-20th century. The Green Revolution increased food production. Economic growth increased purchasing power. State capacity expanded.

But Asia’s famine reduction was also political. Post-colonial states in India, China, and elsewhere made food security a political priority. When famines did occur—as in China’s Great Leap Forward—they resulted from catastrophic policy failure rather than production limits.

The political lesson: Asian states proved that famine was not inevitable, that policy could prevent mass starvation, that the choice was political rather than natural.

Wealthy Countries

Wealthy countries do not experience famine. Not because they’re immune to crop failure or price spikes, but because they have the resources and the political systems to prevent starvation.

Food insecurity exists in wealthy countries. People go hungry in America, in Europe, in Japan. But they don’t starve to death in millions because the political and economic systems prevent it.

This demonstrates the fundamental point: famine is not about absolute food supply. It’s about political economy. Wealthy democracies have systems that prevent famine. That poor authoritarian states experience famine is not natural—it’s the predictable result of different political systems.

Early Warning and Response

We can predict famines months or years in advance. We have the technology, the data, the analytical capacity.

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) provides detailed forecasts of food security conditions worldwide. They can identify emerging crises with remarkable accuracy.

And yet famines continue.

The Information-Action Gap

The problem is not lack of information. It’s the gap between knowing and doing.

In 2011, FEWS NET warned of impending famine in Somalia months before it was officially declared. The information was available. But action was delayed by:

• Funding constraints
• Access limitations (Al-Shabaab controlled much of the affected area)
• Political calculations about engaging with militant groups
• Bureaucratic delays in the international humanitarian system

By the time famine was officially declared and response scaled up, an estimated 260,000 people had died.

Political Will

Famine prevention ultimately requires political will—the willingness to allocate resources, to overcome obstacles, to prioritize saving lives over other goals.

This will is not always present. When the affected population is politically marginal, when response is costly, when other priorities compete—the will to prevent famine may be lacking.

The Yemeni crisis illustrates this. The world’s largest humanitarian emergency, with millions on the brink of famine, continues because the political will to end it—to stop the blockade, to deliver relief, to end the war—is insufficient.

The Politics of Prevention

Preventing famine requires addressing its political roots.

Building State Capacity

Effective states can prevent famine. They can maintain food reserves, coordinate response, deliver relief, and protect vulnerable populations.

Building state capacity is slow, difficult work. It requires investment in institutions, training of personnel, development of systems. It cannot be done in the midst of crisis.

Protecting Democratic Institutions

The democratic protection against famine depends on free press, political competition, and inclusive citizenship. These institutions are under threat worldwide.

When press freedom declines, when opposition is suppressed, when populations are marginalized—the democratic protection weakens. Famine becomes more possible.

Addressing Conflict

Most modern famines occur in conflict zones. War disrupts agriculture, displaces populations, prevents relief, and destroys food systems.

Famine prevention requires conflict resolution. As long as wars continue, famines will follow.

Climate Adaptation

Climate change is increasing drought frequency, disrupting weather patterns, and stressing food systems. Without adaptation, climate-related food crises will increase.

But climate is not destiny. Wealthy, well-governed countries can adapt to climate stress without famine. Poor, poorly-governed countries cannot. The difference is political.

The Unnatural Disaster

Every famine is shaped by political decisions. The drought may be natural; the famine is not.

Understanding this transforms how we respond. If famine is natural, we can only provide charity—feeding the starving after they begin to die. If famine is political, we can address the politics—building systems that prevent starvation before it begins.

Sen’s insight about entitlements has reshaped both academic understanding and policy response. We now know that food availability is not the key variable. Poverty, access, distribution systems, political voice—these determine who eats and who starves.

The lesson is uncomfortable. Every famine is a policy failure. Every death from starvation reflects political choices—about who matters, whose suffering counts, whose lives are worth saving.

When we accept famine as natural disaster, we accept those choices without examining them. When we recognize famine as political, we must confront the systems that produce it.

People don’t starve because there isn’t enough food. They starve because they don’t have enough power.