Price gouging using a humanitarian issue as cover. Nice.
classic capitalism
Alternative take: classic capitalism, farmers planted in anticipation of an increased price and that will mean demand gets met.
I didn’t understand this twitter thread because I was reading it half asleep, but it looks like the point she is making is that the shortfall of grain is much lower than what the media was misleading the people to believe. Farmers growing more in response to higher price due to lower supply is irrelevant to that.
Not sure where the alternative part in this take is. Farmers planted in anticipation of increased price and will gouge higher price from the customers.
…and everyone will get fed, but the producers will reap the rewards of war profiteering.
Everyone who can afford it will get fed.
That was true before there was Russ aggression against Ukraine.
If you want to fix the world, fix the world. Don’t blame all the world’s problems on a single unjust action against a backdrop of a sea of such actions.
Around half the food produced under capitalism is thrown out, meanwhile 9 million people die from hunger every year.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jan/10/half-world-food-waste
http://horizons-newspaper.com/index.php/2020/02/27/tallying-capitalisms-death-toll/
I think it’s a more fundamental economic behavior. Humans are pretty good at teasing out the truth about shortages, anecdotal/gossip communication exchange ferrets it out. Then people do what people do during a shortage… they hoard. It’d be dumb not to hoard. But collectively, that means the shortage is exacerbated not reduced.
The correct solution isn’t “abolish capitalism”, it’s “abolish shortages”. Capitalism is pretty good at doing the latter, given a chance. The tricky part is when the product is food, as economies can’t really wait on the sort of turnaround time it requires.
The problem can’t be solved under capitalism precisely because it leaves it up to private industry to do the right thing, and that obviously never happens. There is a conflict of interest between making profits and providing necessities. People who are in most dire need are often the ones who can least afford what they need. It blows my mind that people have hard time understanding this.
It doesn’t leave it up the capitalists to “do the right thing”. My god, we’d be extinct as a species were that the case.
It leaves it up to them to be greedy. Which I’m sure you’ll agree is something they’re at least passingly competent at. Why is greed important here? Because if there is a shortage, greedy people can earn obscene profits providing the goods in shortage. The more goods they have, the more than obscenely earn. If they don’t have enough, they are compelled to get more… as efficiently as possible.
This mechanism isn’t without its bizarre failure modes. Take fishing, for instance. As some fish or another becomes rarer, its scarcity causes prices to rise… so instead of doing the right thing and letting populations recover, the temptation becomes ever more irresistible. Don’t let capitalism get anywhere near wildlife preservation, or if you do, study the implications (and perverse incentives) carefully first.
There is a conflict of interest between making profits and providing necessities.
There is very little conflict there. You make x profits if you sell y goods. If you sell 100y goods, you make 100x profits. And so on. Sometimes it’s not even linear, so the larger you scale the more you profit per unit.
This is why even the poor in such countries are often obese. Capitalism could be said to over-provide more often than it under-provides.
Why is greed important here? Because if there is a shortage, greedy people can earn obscene profits providing the goods in shortage. The more goods they have, the more than obscenely earn. If they don’t have enough, they are compelled to get more… as efficiently as possible.
This mode of production results in incredible waste with huge quantities of goods being destroyed to keep up the prices, planned obsolescence, modes of failure you describe, as well as many other kinds of idiocy.
However, even more importantly, this doesn’t actually help with solving the problem of delivering goods to people who actually need them because those are who can least afford them.
There is very little conflict there. You make x profits if you sell y goods. If you sell 100y goods, you make 100x profits. And so on. Sometimes it’s not even linear, so the larger you scale the more you profit per unit.
Around half the food produced under capitalism is thrown away while people are literally starving on the streets. Thanks to the wonder of capitalism roughly 3.5 million people die from lack of clean water, 1.5 million people die from vaccinable diseases, and 9 million people die from hunger each and every year. That’s over a 140 million deaths every decade.
http://horizons-newspaper.com/index.php/2020/02/27/tallying-capitalisms-death-toll/
Not to mention the millions of people who die from pollution. EDIT: By this I meant air particulate pollution. If you are looking at pollution in general, this is caused by all life forms. The comments below were referring to the claim above as it was originally stated.
Thankfully, the Soviet Union was a pollution-less utopia, eh?
This mode of production results in incredible waste with huge quantities of goods being destroyed to keep up the prices,
Sure.
And the alternative you guys offer is huge levels of deprivation, underground/gray/black markets, and so on.
I know which I prefer.
However, even more importantly, this doesn’t actually help with solving the problem of delivering goods to people who actually need them because those are who can least afford them.
It does. The goods that people tend to need are commodities that are cheap enough that they’re given away.
No one but anorexics starve in my country.
away while people are literally starving on the streets.
Please find some documentation that supports the extraordinary hypothesis that people are starving on the streets. Of all the problems that we have, that’s just not one of them. No one starves, few go hungry and never unless their personalities compel them to avoid welfare.
Find another criticism. There are real ones, real ones that are pretty extreme even by my standards, ones compatible with your ideology. This one’s just fiction.
And the alternative you guys offer is huge levels of deprivation, underground/gray/black markets, and so on.
Having actually grown up in USSR, I can tell you that the levels of deprivation I’ve seen living in the west are far greater.
It does. The goods that people tend to need are commodities that are cheap enough that they’re given away.
Except that they’re not given away. Poverty and need are rampant under capitalism.
Please find some documentation that supports the extraordinary hypothesis that people are starving on the streets.
Literally linked you a source. Here’s what things in US look like https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/31/us/food-insecurity-30-million-census-survey/index.html
This one’s just fiction.
Ironic that you’re telling somebody who has actual lived experience under both systems. You’re a victim of propaganda, and it’s very sad to see how close minded you are.
Just another reason to bend us over at the cash register for a loaf of bread and a box of pasta.
Very interesting article!
