18,000 children die every day of hunger, U.N. says

I disagree. Americans are more than capable of addressing child hunger within their neighborhoods. All that it takes is a couple dollars or some time devoted to volunteering.

 

And yet here you are taking the time to troll it.

 

World hunger has always been a concern of mine....but I can't feed 18,000 kids a day.

So I learn all I can about agriculture and pass it on...It ain't much I know.

 

So you think teaching someone about agriculture will help them, when they already know how to farm better than you, but are hungry because they can't produce enough food to support a rich, landowning parasite as well as themselves, their families and their government?

 

This is a dubious assumption. How do you know that the hungry are better farmers than politicalcenter?

 

I know enough about farming to understand that a lack of water is the underlying cause of malnutrition in most cases.

Growing deserts should be a worldwide concern. A rich, landowning parasite is going to keep his workers alive...in those cases do you think starving his workers to death is going to get his work done???

 

It doesn't matter how good they are. Read and learn:

How AID goes WRONG
A Cautionary Tale

A Quaker enterprise in the Ganges Delta

The much travelled author Karl Eskelund describes the effort made by a band of young American and English Quakers in trying to assist some of the Indian population, millions of whom live at starvation level.

The young idealists took up their task in 1946 at the village district of Pifa, which lies in the Ganges Delta. They were fully aware that their work would test their patience, for in India you can get no results 'at five minutes past twelve.' But after having outlined their plans to the peasants, the fishermen and the landowners - which met with general approval - they organised a co-operative enterprise for cultivating the land and marketing the produce. They set up day schools for the children, evening schools for adults, clinics et cetera.

After overcoming the initial difficulties, they saw signs of progress. Inspiration grew. Health conditions improved. Everyone took a greater interest in their work and their earnings increased. New ideas took shape - there was advance along the whole line - an advance, slow but sure.

Only the landowners grew fatter

Five years after the experiment began, Karl Eskelund visited Pifa and, with one of the Quakers as his guide, went through the village to see how it was faring. The Quaker had lost more than two stone and was as thin and spare as the natives. But what was worse, he had lost heart because the experiment had proved a failure. The day school still existed, but only one-quarter of the children attended it. The evening school had closed. The clinic was hardly used. Agriculture, fishing and trade were back to the old methods. Eskelund asked for an explanation of this fiasco. The young Quaker offered quite a number of reasons, none of which Eskelund could accept. Finally, he got to the root of the matter. This is what he says:

"In the first year after beginning the experiment, both peasants and fishermen earned more than ever before. What was the result? The large landowners at once raised their rents and the smaller landowners followed suit. The peasants had to pay more for permission to cultivate the land. The fishermen had to pay more for permission to cast their nets on the flooded fields. In that way, practically the whole of the increased earnings passed into the landowners' pockets."

"The people of Pifa were unhappy at this. Nevertheless, next year they worked hard. Crops were plentiful, there was a rich catch of fish; good prices were paid for produce. At once, the landowners raised their rents still higher."

"The people then began to lose heart. What was the use if, for all their efforts, they got no benefit? Only the landowners waxed fatter. The peasants and fishermen did not become any thinner - they could not - otherwise they would die."

"Indians are ignorant, but they are not stupid. They can put two and two together. They had found themselves momentarily enriched by the new methods but, in the end, all the extra money went to the landowners. If one of the new ideas would not work, what faith could they put in any other novelties? Perhaps, after all, the old methods were the best."

This is the story as far as it goes. It would be difficult to find an example that more simply and clearly demonstrates the truth of what Henry George had taught. It is that, as long as the private right to the rent of land obtains, so long will every advance, crystallising in land rent, be gathered by the owner of land; while he who works, he who produces, must toil the day long without gaining more for his labour than is enough to avoid death from hunger.

This story reveals the problem in all its simplicity; cleared of all that in civilised society makes it more difficult to see the importance of land.

The need to remould the whole system

The young Quaker would not lay any blame on the landowners. There could be no objection against the landowners trying to gain as much as possible, and after all, there was nothing unlawful in owning land. The young Quaker admitted the immorality of the circumstances, but argued that it could be mended only be "remaking the law and remoulding the whole system."

Eskelund himself sees clearly the part the land question plays, and proposed the subdivision of land (by creating small-holdings). Yet he is not sure that subdivision will solve the problem. For he writes:

"Meanwhile, there is evidence that you don't get rid of landownership in that manner. Landownership is like the weed that always resprouts."
...
For the truth is that we cannot reach a solution of the social problem without "remoulding the whole system", without recognising the joint property right of the people to natural resources. This truth applies in our own country and the world over. We can offer all manner of foreign aid to underdeveloped countries, but so long as we fail to solve the land problem, all this will be in vain.

 

If that were true, Israel and Australia would be starving, and Zaire and Peru would be prosperous.

If one worker can afford to pay more rent than 10 workers using the same land, of what use are the other nine to the landowner?

 

Judging by this article, your emotional accusation towards political center has no weight. There are other factors at play here. In addressing hunger, at least in this area of India, a viable solution would be to have government require that all land be owned by those who produce on it. In doing so, this will fulfill Eskelund's objective of subdivision of land. In addition, while Eskelund's experience sheds light on a possible international development problem, there needs to be more evidence to create a comprehensive solution. This instance is merely a case study.

 

You are confronting two different arguments. Number one...without water agriculture does not exist...disprove that.

Poorer countries all over the world tend to overpopulate simply because parents want children to survive to care for them in their old age.

There are other causes of hunger also. A good example would be using food (aid and otherwise) as a weapon.

But the main cause is lack of water. Improve the avalibility of water and starvation will be reduced.

 

This can be attributed to many factors, including desertification, and on a larger scale, climate change. Lack of water not only has humanitarian implications, but security implications. For instance, international relations scholars concerned with global environmental regimes, particularly those of the realist school of theory, have been studying the possibility of water wars.

 

As water becomes more scarce and deserts grow some governments will fail because they can no longer supply the basic needs of their people.

It is a closing circle and developed countries are in the center of that circle.

 

I made no emotional accusation, and you know it, so stop making things up. I simply asked if he had thought through what he was doing. And the article, and your response to it, proves my question had more weight than anything you have ever said, or ever will say.

For example, your ignorance of economics, and your desire to rationalize privilege and justify injustice.

No, it wouldn't, because as soon as anyone owns land, their motive becomes pocketing the rent in return for nothing, not producing on it. How on earth could such a scheme even be implemented?

That's indisputably not his objective, so you are just makin' $#!+ up again.

No. It neatly illustrates the problem, and why that problem is in fact universal.

 

Hell, if it's that cheap, why don't you chip in? Since you're so generous, and all. How much do you give to charity, buddy?

 

I can assure you that my understanding of economics supersedes your own. No reasonable person can be as staunch a one-trick pony as you and the right of the Geoists are. Furthermore, I have dabbled in your economic philosophy before. I was once an advocate of a land-value tax. I dropped such primitive views, understanding that it is impractical, unworkable, and inefficient.

With regards to your response to my solution, your objection is obviously not one of economics, but one of rationality. Logically speaking, as soon as any individual owns land, they will look to maximize their returns off of it for the least cost. This is merely an observation of the nature of humanity in the capitalist system. A land-value tax is not the solution. To truly change the way humans use acquired land, you need to confiscate land from people altogether. This is counterintuitive to the nature of the capitalist economic system, and of fundamental property rights.

Moving on to your rebuttal to my explanation of Eskelund's solution, I believe he puts it quite clearly that he wants there to be a subdivision of land. If that is so, then that is what he is striving for. Therefore, it is an objectively speaking, an objective. To argue otherwise is to bicker over semantics.

Lastly, Eskelund's experience does not illustrate anything universal. It illustrates the difficulties of a region in India. For you to show that the 'land problem' is universal, you need to provide greater anecdotal, statistical, and general empirical evidence. This goes for any sweeping and dubious conclusion drawn from one anecdotal account.

 

Sure its a horrible situation, what do you propose? Invade, take over control and create a food stamp program? Workers in the west to be taxed harder to supply welfare for the world? Castrate them?

Theres many great charities one can donate to if you wish. If you have enough after paying your 'fair share' of course.

 

I have no need to disprove it: with water, the landowner just takes more rent.

Not so. The wealthy countries in the Middle East have a high reproduction rate even though they have no money worries ever, while poor countries like Russia are not even at replacement.

Of course there are other causes of hunger. But landowner greed is the one you can't solve with aid.

Nope. Eskelund already proved that false. More water --> more rent. In the Mekong delta before the Vietnam War, there was always plenty of water, but the peasants went hungry because the rent of the best rice paddy land was 90% of the harvest. 90%!

 

Think about the real issue, and don't reserve your outrage for black swan events like the CT massacre.

For a start, you could read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins and "Superimperialism" by Michael Hudson, and inform yourself.

See the article I posted, "How Aid Goes Wrong." Charity will do NOTHING to solve the problem.

 

No, it is incomparably inferior, as I've already demonstrated.

There is an elephant in the room, and it is considered impolite to mention it. There are other things there, too, and I've posted about some of them (like IP monopolies, private banksters' issuance of debt money, corporate welfare and bailouts, the War on Drugs, etc.); but as long as the elephant is there, none of the other things matter very much.

But perhaps did not actually understand it, as once you truly see the cat, you can't unsee it.

It has worked beautifully everywhere it has ever been tried, including in ancient societies where hardly anyone could read.

You might want to try explaining to the Japanese how impractical, unworkable and inefficient land value taxation is, as during the Meiji Period, when Japan went from being a poor and stagnant feudal backwater to a global industrial, economic and military power in the span of a single generation, it supplied 60%-80% of all government revenue.

Correct.

It's not the whole solution, true. Restoration of the equal individual right to liberty through a uniform, universal individual land tax exemption is also needed. Then once the elephant is out of the room, we can start to shoo the other livestock out. Until that reform is effected, no other reform can possibly work. We've seen the proof over and over again: no matter what other programs are brought in, the poor stay poor, and landowners get richer.

Not so. You can just require them to repay the rent to the government and community that create it.

Definitely, as capitalism requires private ownership of land. The geoist system is better than capitalism, as Hong Kong proved and now China (crippled, corrupt and imperfect as its socialist legacy makes it) is proving.

Garbage. There is no fundamental property right in land any more than in human beings. In fact less: human beings are at least a product of labor (;^). For perhaps 98% of the time our species has existed on earth, property in land was inconceivable; but all known societies have recognized property in products of labor, and many societies recognized property in human beings. "Fundamental property rights"? Don't make me laugh:

“When the emancipation of the African was spoken of, and when the nation of Britain appeared to be taking into serious consideration the rightfulness of abolishing slavery, what tremendous evils were to follow! Trade was to be ruined, commerce was almost to cease, and manufacturers were to be bankrupt. Worse than all, private property was to be invaded (property in human flesh), the rights of planters sacrificed to the speculative notions of fanatics, and the British government was to commit an act that would forever deprive it of the confidence of British subjects.”
–Patrick Edward Dove, The Theory of Human Progression, 1850

He "proposes" it as something perhaps achievable within the private landowning paradigm, but also recognizes that it won't solve the problem. It has, after all, been tried before, many times. But as long as the landowner can pocket the rent, subdivision cannot work. Indeed, 19th C observers noted that in Belgium, the most minute subdivision of land was accompanied by the most vicious rack-renting and impoverishment of tenants.

Though he proposes it, he states clearly that subdivision is unlikely to provide a genuine solution.

It most certainly does: the Law of Rent. Google it, and start reading. Your economics education is woefuly incomplete until you understand it.

Nope. Eskelund's account merely reconfirms that an economic law already conclusively established, and known for more than 200 years, continues to operate exactly as Ricardo described.