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Comment by hulitu | Hacker News Reader

> The fact that countries like Venezuela struggle to feed their own people in the modern era, during the time of greatest abundance and production, while the bulk of the world figured out food production/trade a century ago really blows my mind

Ever noticed that somehow only US enemies have "food shortages" ?

You shouldn't believe everything you read.

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Cuba trade with most countries in the world. North Korea is popped up by China. Iran should have no problems importing food with their huge oil revenue.

Russia is under the harshest sanction at the moment yet do you see any food shortage there? How about Belarus?

Perhaps their regime’s failure is the reason why some of those countries have food availability issue?

China too has an abysmal food self-sufficiency ratio, and it has been trending worse. Between 2000 and 2020, their food SSR dropped from 93% to 65%. This is a damning indictment of their government and economic system.

> SSR dropped from 93% to 65%. This is a damning indictment of their government and economic system.

The opposite. PRC SSR dropped because economy exploded and people can afford significantly more calories, including imported food products. Meanwhile absolute food security increased since 2000s baseline, grain production per capita went from ~350kg to ~400kg while adding ~200m people. Meanwhile SSR in SKR is 44%, JP is 38%, TW is 31%. Obviously, this is a damning indictment of their government and economic system.

When food demand skyrockets but production doesn't, that's a damning indictment of the system. Production should be scaling with that economic prosperity, but in the case of China it isn't. Other countries with economic prosperity and huge amounts of land have food SSR above 1. China's economic prosperity is masking the problem.

No it's just recognition that the problem is PRC has less ariable land and water resources per capita. Relative to other developed economies with comparable restraints, PRC's doing the the same thing of importing calories (and by extention, water) from ag exporters with excess agri resources, except PRC also smart enough to pursue absolute per capita food self sufficiency, hence demand skyrocketed AND domestic production of calories ALSO increased even relative to population increase. Not to mention within PRC capita GDP bracket (i.e. just below high income), PRC system actually delivers more calories and protein comparable to much wealthier countries - average PRC citizen gets to enjoy better diet due to the system.

I wonder how that works. Naive intuition tells me it should be the opposite - the market generally isn't capable of processing longtermist ideas like food self-sufficiency, so if that SSR drops, you'd imagine it's because as the food market became increasingly free and profit-based, it aligned itself with local preferences and global economy - meaning imports for price arbitrage, and imports for variety.

What about the other common thread that US enemies are all authoritarian? Ever notice that almost every authoritarian country is poorer than almost every liberal democracy?

Ever notice that China has a per-capita GDP lower than Costa Rica while Japan is 3.5x richer? Or that South Korea is 50-100x richer than North Korea?

> Ever noticed that somehow only US enemies have "food shortages" ?

Are we going to pretend that a large chunk of Africa, Haiti, Myanmar, Sri Lanka all don't exist?

These "US enemies" you mention are actually all pretty far down the list in terms of severity of food insecurity.

I think you are the one who needs to find more unbiased news sources.

> Ever noticed that somehow only US enemies have "food shortages" ?

No, there are countries which the US doesn’t care about which also experience food shortages.

Also I can’t seem to tier your last two paragraphs together. Maybe you missed on sentences in between?

Look at this list: https://www.wfpusa.org/articles/global-food-crisis-10-countr....

Can you name a US ally with food shortages?

That's his point.

I didn’t really get his point. Is he implying that there is some global conspiracy to keep food shortages in countries allied to the US a secret?

US allies do not need to be afraid to be victims of criminal sanctions enacted by the country that controls the international currency.

Which sanctions are criminal? What law is being violated?

All sanctions are acts of war and all sanctions without UN approval are criminal. This would include basically all sanctions that the US has imposed over the last decade or more.

Sanctions seem to be the opposite of acts of war by basically any definition.

Sanctions kill. There are plenty of examples including this one. By any definition, sanctions are acts of war. See [1] for a good argument.

1. https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2022/06/29/economic-sanctions-as-...

I feel like the quotidian definition of war would be something like 'state induced violence to coerce results' and so, no, a policy that is specifically not violent and indeed is being done instead of violence would be definitely not-war. I suppose you can stretch the definition to include it. But if 'anything that kills people' is war, then like, not having universal Healthcare is war, as is understaffing emergency rooms... So that is clearly not a useful definition of war.

Sanctions are akin to siege warfare. You don't have to fire a shot, the threat is enough, and you starve the population until they can't handle their kids dying and they overthrow the leadership and surrender. That's literally what the desired outcome is with sanctions. It is absolutely violence and warfare by any definition.

> by basically any definition.

Clausewitz said that war is a continuation of state policy by other means; in this view neither is the 'opposite' of the other because in both cases it's a government pursuing some political object. I suppose the real 'opposite of war' would be the absence of state policy. Apathetic indifference to whatever the other party is doing.

> 24. WAR IS A MERE CONTINUATION OF POLICY BY OTHER MEANS.

> We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses. That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of War in general and the Commander in each particular case may demand, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.

Obviously Clausewitz's assertions are controversial but I think it's a viewpoint worth mentioning since you invited a broad consideration of the matter.

The UN security council would never approve any sanctions in response to some countries launching unprovoked imperialist wars of aggressions.

Sow why even bring that up? UN could only “punish” small insignificant countries with no allies.

Explain why China is not helping these countries.

China's own reliance on food imports has soared because China is poorly run and lead. Continued destruction of their own arable land due to criminal mismanagement mean there is no end in sight to this trend; international trade is China's lifeline.

"In 2022, China's overall grain output reached 685 million tons, an increase of 3.7 million tons over 2021, which showed strong resilience despite the pandemic. "

You are implying that being an enemy of the US causes food shortages, rather than their own failed governmental policies.

That implication is pretty dubious. I'm sure sanctions (and whatever else the US does to its enemies) don't help. But the root of the problem is poor governance, which causes major problems, and often results in poor relations with the US due to humanitarian concerns.

The flaw in socialism/communism is that it requires huge amounts of government power, and that is always abused. There may be economic problems with socialism/communism too, but we never get to see it because the concentrated power causes a political meltdown too fast.

Humanitarian concerns is the reason for poor relations with the U.S? I find it hard to believe that people actually believe this, there is such a thing as history and the following is a very common pattern: new government decides that deals with U.S companies is unfair and wants to change things, then a coup is attempted if successful the new government bows to work closely with its allies. If it fails then suddenly all the newspapers/news networks decide to tell us about the suffering of these people under the brutal dictatorship. Then sanctions from everyone, then the people really start to suffer and it ends with a new coup and new bows to allies.

This has happened sooo many times already using the same played out playbook. I just assume every single coup now is the same. Why do you think Turkey suddenly switched sides after a failed coup?.

We know its happening, we benefit from it happening. Who knows maybe it is better this way for everyone in the long run. You can't split the world into good and bad and always try to align yourself with the good because it can only be done if you are willing to fool yourself.

> Why do you think Turkey suddenly switched sides after a failed coup?.

Switched sides to whom? What are you talking about?

Haiti

Don't worry, they're sending Haiti 53M in aid [to hire more cops].

https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/jun-08...

Ever noticed how former US enemies (China, Vietnam, East Germany, Czech Republic) that moved from socialism to capitalism don't have food shortages anymore?

"Capitulate or we'll starve you" is an effective rod.

The USSR managed to catastrophically mismanaged its agricultural policy to such a degree that people would had actually been at the risk of starvation there without food imports from the west which lasted for decades.

So what you’re implying is absurd.

To be fair former Warsaw pact countries didn’t necessarily really have that many shortages during the cold war. Yes certain products were hard to get but famine or even malnutrition weren’t a real concern

Turns out socialism isn't a great way to organize a food economy

India was not a US enemy but had food shortages during it socialist period.

It definitely was. USA sided with Pakistan against India as Pak committed genocide against Bangladeshis.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/revealed-pak-us-blackma...

Shortages happened before that too and even now

India was and still is a “non aligned” country, staying neutral during the Cold War but leaning Soviet Union when the Congress party was dominant. India was never under US sanction, although my memory is hazy if any was imposed during the nuclear crisis between India and Pakistan.

The US placed sanctions against India in the late 90s after India performed the nuclear bomb tests.

But explain shortages before that though

The US sanctions were very limited and temporary, and didn't restrict trade in food.

> Ever noticed that somehow only US enemies have "food shortages" ?

Why did China have famines when it was essentially a US ally after WW2 (note US supported and helped China during WW2)

> Ever noticed that somehow only US enemies have "food shortages" ?

Ever notice that communist countries can prosper only if they trade with non-communist countries?

You shouldn't believe everything you read.

>Why did China have famines when it was essentially a US ally after WW2

What are you talking about? "China" aka Taiwan was a US ally following the war, but the US refused to acknowledge the existence of China for about 25 years after WW2. Even while essentially at war with China.

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