World Hunger: Twelve Myths

New York: Grove Press, 1998, 270 pp, paperback, second edition

Review by John H. Rodgers     

In the wake of one crisis after another in the world financial system, there is growing space for the reconsideration of many economic nostrums cherished by the neoliberal establishment. The efficiency of the “free market” in the allocation of goods—especially of financial resources—is no longer a solid pillar to which economic planners can moor their policies. After years of having their voices drowned out in the din of capitalist triumphalism, the critics can be heard in the debates over austerity plans, growing inequality, and economic decline in the formerly developing countries.

Stepping into the fray comes a revision of a classic book on the needlessness of hunger in a world characterized by sufficient food production. By dissecting the myths that hold the public in a miasma of helplessness about alleviating hunger, the authors hope to invigorate people’s “moral courage” to develop just and equitable systems for distributing essential resources such as food. Their carefully researched analysis contains surprising revelations about the causes of persistent and catastrophe-linked malnutrition, since reality contradicts our putative knowledge. Even in the midst of famine attributed to weather conditions, the authors find in country after country that large amounts of agricultural products were being exported during the crisis. The unveiling of these jarring facts compel us to investigate the complexities of the economic system and the claims by neoliberals that unfettering the markets and world trade is the answer to all our problems.     

Studies of modern famines by Amartya Sen, who last year won the Nobel Prize in Economics, demonstrate that they “occurred not because of a shortage of food, but because people’s claim to food is disrupted.” These disruptions include falling incomes, which prohibit farmers from purchasing seeds and retaining a surplus for personal sustenance, and rising costs of goods, which prohibit non-farmers from purchasing food. While the authors critique the economic system, they do not call for the abolition of markets altogether but for reshaping markets and people’s participation in them. Government policies of developing countries, in the developed world, and international bodies—from the promotion of export-led development and free trade to the dispensation of foreign aid—“reflect and fuel the forces generating needless hunger.” The debate, however, should be over who benefits from government actions, not over the elimination of the public sector altogether.     

The authors challenge simplistic explanations of hunger based on overpopulation, which ignore the steeply falling population growth rates and the lack of correlation between population density and hunger. Poverty and inequality are responsible for both hunger and high fertility rates thus our efforts need to be refocused on these economic issues. Addressing overpopulation without calling for changes in the economic system will not likely reduce people’s inadequate access to food or reverse environmental degradation. They question the efficacy of technological fixes alone and advocate small-scale sustainable agriculture, which they claim is just as productively efficient as industrial agriculture techniques.