Famine

When Disaster Strikes 1 Part 1: Disasters Don't Create Inequality-They Reveal It 2 Part 2: Why Some Cities Burn (And Others Don't) 3 Part 3: The Sacrifice Calculus 4 Part 4: Elite Disaster Strategies 5 Part 5: Famine and Political Power 6 Part 6: Earthquakes and Governance 7 Part 7: Pandemic Politics 8 Part 8: Why We Forget ← Series Home Key Takeaways Famines rarely result from absolute food shortage: Most famines occur with adequate food supply somewhere in the system—the problem is distribution, access, and entitlement. Political systems shape famine vulnerability: Democracies with free press rarely experience famines; authoritarian systems suffer them repeatedly. Famine can be a tool of governance: Rulers have deliberately created or prolonged famines to achieve political goals. Food distribution reflects power relations: Who eats and who starves reveals society's real priorities, stripped of rhetoric. 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. ...

Hunger is Man-Made: The Political Economy of Food Scarcity 1 Hunger is Man-Made - Part 1: How Inequality Fabricates Scarcity 2 Hunger is Man-Made - Part 2: Engineered Vulnerability: When Famine Becomes an Act of History 3 Hunger is Man-Made - Part 3: The Green Trap: How Modernization Concentrated Land and Poverty 4 Hunger is Man-Made - Part 4: The Global Supermarket: Corporate Control, Debt, and the Toxic Gift of Aid ← Series Home Key Takeaways Famines result from human systems, not weather: Historical records show famines often occur during periods of food abundance when production is diverted for profit. Colonial systems deliberately engineered vulnerability: Forced cash crop production destroyed traditional mixed-farming systems designed for food security. When systems prioritize food, famine can be prevented: China avoided famine during severe drought through agricultural priorities and equitable distribution. Inequality determines who starves during food shortages: In India during drought, the entire impact falls on the poorest; in more equal systems, shortfalls are shared. Land seizure created permanent dependency: Colonial displacement of farmers onto marginal lands created cycles of soil exhaustion and forced reliance on imports. Post 2: Hunger is Man-Made - Part 2: Engineered Vulnerability: When Famine Becomes an Act of History The pervasive myth suggests that famines are inevitable natural phenomena—catastrophic acts of weather beyond human control. However, history reveals that famines do not occur simply because a “divine force willed it”. Rather, they result from the actions of human beings. ...