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Comment by poiuz | Hacker News Reader

There shouldn't be any hunger. We produce enough food to feed 10 billion people. There are only 8 billion people. Yet 20'000 die everyday of (capitalism) hunger.

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Please don't post drive-by ideological provocations here. They're unsubstantive and lead to flamewars.

Capitalism? Did you read the article?

> In 1987, .... We reached a simple conclusion: When farmers could bring foodstuffs to points of sale — when the roads were clear of army checkpoints, when markets were held at night to reduce the risk of being bombed — the local economy worked efficiently enough. With markets in operation, the production of local crops increased, and food prices fell to levels people could afford.

> Ending famine required ending fighting.

Seems capitalism improved things once the government got around to providing basic security.

markets != capitalism

Could you explain what you mean here?

A communist society where the government owns all the means of production and everyone gets a $60,000 UBI can still use markets to allocate resources for production.

...but if the government owns all 'capital goods', then you can't use markets to allocate those capital goods between different owners.

Can, in theory. But in practice, it's much more likely to use politics and bureaucracy. (Source: The last two hundred years of government behavior.)

To describe Ethiopia's economic system as capitalistic is at best naive... but even if you were correct then given the signs of a burgeoning crisis one could just as easily say that said capitalism is largely failing there.

Regardless, the paragraph you quoted merely states that once people were once again free to trade their goods for food without being threatened with death more people got fed. Capitalism has literally nothing to do with that, people have been trading goods for foodstuffs for millennia. When they say "markets" they're not talking about the fever dreams of a U Chicago professor, they mean physical locations where goods are bought and sold which are just as much a condition of feudalism as they are capitalism.

Distribution is hard. We throw away so much food because it is cheaper throw it away than transport it to where it is needed. "Cheaper" in this context does not refer to a capitalistic construction, but the real resources necessary to transport (mostly perishable) goods across the world and get them to everyone who needs them.

Basic foodstuffs are remarkably cheap. Unmilled commodity wheat is usually only $100 to $150 per metric tonne. But that's what it can cost to transport that tonne for only a few dozen miles overland in a place with few or no paved roads. Add in the distribution costs of getting it to every specific consumption location, and you can see why it's so hard.

Or if you have warlords that hjiack the trucks

Yes, that also does not help. Even in stable times, though, transportation costs are surprisingly higher than most people think - especially if they've grown up surrounded by ubiquitous high-quality roads and rail everywhere.

You mention capitalism, but I know plenty of people in Venezuela hungry and it is because of the government. From the article "Politics creates famine, and politics can stop it".

You're right that we produce enough raw food, but what alternative solution would you provide for more efficiently distributing it? Once there's sufficient supply all that Capitalism determines is methods of distribution.

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