"Now is the time for action. The food crisis has taught us that to defeat hunger, we have to deal with its root causes and not to continue coping with the consequences of past mistakes," said Jacques Diouf, director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization . UN officials are demanding a new global system to ensure that people across the world have enough to eat.
My , when SOYMB read those lines we thought finally , at last , there is a call for Socialism , a world where peoples' needs count more than company profits. But , alas , it was not to be . What we found was simply another wishful attempt to reform and legislate the failures of capitalism out of existence as exemplified by "the humanitarian agency Oxfam International is calling on leaders to commit to a legally binding agreement to eradicate hunger. We later read that Mr. Diouf calls for increased funding to help developing countries boost their agricultural output through investment in rural infrastructure and ensuring access to modern inputs. Scarcely addressing the root cause of hunger and starvation .
Meanwhile , 115 million more people have been driven into poverty and hunger by rising food prices over the past three years. The most recent FAO report on food insecurity estimated that worldwide, the number of undernourished people is close to 1 billion . Over 850 million people worldwide are at risk due to the food crisis, and half of the 10 million people who die of hunger each year are children. In Tanzania, more than 20 percent of young children are underweight, and malnutrition is a major cause of early death. Rural households spend well over half of their incomes on food, and families are struggling to maintain their normal diet as prices for basic food items continue to rise.
The crisis currently gripping the world economy will likely cause an additional 200 million people to fall into "absolute poverty," said a recent report from the International Trade Union Confederation. Financial speculation, massive profit-taking by a handful of multinational companies, and failed policies by international financial institutions are key factors in the global economic crisis, the workers' rights group rightly said yet still even those experts fail to advocate the solution and cling to the futile efforts of capitalist tinkering .
As of last month, 31 countries - 20 in Africa, nine in Asia and the Near East and two in Central America and the Caribbean - in are facing a food crisis and need emergency help
"This cannot be acceptable. How can we explain to people of good sense and good faith this dramatic situation in a state of abundance of international resources and when trillions of US dollars are being spent to stimulate the world economy?" Mr. Diouf asked
The task for the FAO and Mr Diouf is to identify the useful mechanisms which co-ordinate production and distribution as distinct from the value factors of buying and selling in the markets, which under capitalism constrain useful production. The FAO ,charities and NGOs may do their bit, alleviate a little suffering here and there, but their work in is in reality only addressing the symptoms, not the disease.The disease is the global profit-drive market system whose golden maxim is "can't pay--can't have". It is a system governments believe they can run in the interests of us all. In the years to come we will see many conferences and summits looking at the problem of global hunger. A lot of rubbish will no doubt be uttered at the same and you can bet no remedy will emerge. This is because there is only one remedy and governments cannot contemplate it because, as the executive of capitalism, it runs counter to the real interests they serve.The remedy involves abolishing the money system, freeing production from the artificial constraints of profit and establishing a world of free access to the benefits of civilisation.The FAO and Oxfam believe the problem of hunger, in a world of abundance, a problem rooted in the way our society is organised for production , can be solved by reforming that system, by coaxing the capitalist class into mending their ways. Decades of world conferences on hunger, a thousand promises by the defenders of capitalism have proved otherwise, and always will until we end their system.
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and the above comment is, we assume, antisemitic conspiracy bilge.
Back to the food situation.
Most unfortunately, it is only too believable. IMF to the tiny partial rescue with a plan that will put profits in Capitalists' pockets. No shit, huh?
Look at the following report for purposes of contrast:
A SHAMEFUL WASTE
"China spent $84.9 billion (£53 billion) on is military last year, second only to the United States, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Its report said that France moved into third place in spending with Britain fourth. Military spending worldwide rose by 4 per cent to $1.46 trillion, the report said." (Times, 9 June) RD
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