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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

It's doing very well indeed if you compare it to any other system tried for producing food. It is still experiencing price declines (unlike health care). For example, steak was a luxury when I was a kid. Now, it's cheap as dirt at $6.99 a pound.

I'll take its imperfections any day over the gaping holes and incredible costs in the not-so-free-market health care system.

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A lot of the cheapness of food is coming from using natural resources at an unsustainable rate, like draining the Ogallala Aquifer at far beyond its replenishment rate. I'd call that more along the lines of kicking the problems along for someone in the future to deal with all at once and not "doing very well"

The spectre of famine ended in the US around 1800 with free market agriculture, long before anyone heard of the Ogallala Aquifer. It also ended for every other country that adopted free market agriculture.

Non-free market agriculture, on the other hand, has a pretty sorry historical record with no evidence that it was more sustainable or equitable.

> The spectre of famine ended in the US around 1800 with free market agriculture

I'm not sure how you define "famine", but many people have been malnourished since; some are right now AFAIK. Think of the Great Depression, for example, for a much greater scale problem. I would bet some have starved.

But most of all, any research you have would be appreciated; I feel like everyone, including me, is a bit naked out here.

One objective way is to look at average height, which increased throughout the 19th century in the US, and increased in other countries when they adopted free market agriculture. Height is a good proxy for having sufficient nutritious food.

> One objective way is to look at average height, which increased throughout the 19th century in the US, and increased in other countries when they adopted free market agriculture. Height is a good proxy for having sufficient nutritious food.

An insightful way to look at it; thanks. However, the question at hand isn't about the average, but the low end: Was there malnutrition or starvation? Yes, there was and is.

EDIT: See this post for some numbers:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13298775

I'm not debating whether free market food works very well for 90% in wealthy countries (just a guess at a number) and far better than whatever was done in the 18th century, but that doesn't mean we should call it sufficient or the 'best of all possible worlds'. If millions (tens of millions?) of people in wealthy countries and (hundreds of millions? billions?) in other countries are not getting sufficient food, that's failure - just less failure than we experienced before.

Compare free market food production with any other system. Starvation in the world is in countries without free market agriculture.

I don't get the impression that you read my comment.

US food production is decidedly non free market with the amount of subsidies the industry gets.

Additionaly, you can say the system is working great now, but if it's only doing so by pushing off externalities in an unsustainable way into the future in a forseeable manner, that does not mean the system is doing a great job

> cheap as dirt at $6.99 a pound

Cheap for most people reading HN, but unaffordable for many.

> It's doing very well indeed if you compare it to any other system tried for producing food

Yes for producing (AFAIK) but not for distributing. I believe, but have no research to back it up, that countries with better social safety nets have less malnourishment than the U.S.

The USDA recommendation for a healthy amount of beef per day is 5-6 ounces. That's about $2.25 per day. Heck, a pound of apples cost more than that. A loaf of bread costs more than that. $6.99 is the regular price, too - it's often on sale as it nears its expiration date.

How cheap does it have to be before it is successful?

> How cheap does it have to be before it is successful?

A good question, but the fact is that many cannot afford sufficient food. A quick search turned up this article from 2014 at the top (and many others too):

Hunger in America: 1 in 7 rely on food banks

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/17/hunger-...

1 in 7 Americans is around 45 million people (I know that's taking the headline at face value, but clearly there are many people who need it).

If they're getting fed by a food bank, then they are getting fed.

Making steak cheaper than it already is isn't going to make any difference.

For a smart guy, it must take work ... I have no doubt you can see what that comment seems to overlook.

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