Capitalism is the cause of world hunger.

[UnschoolShqiponjë]

Quote:It’s because more resources are required to raise animals than crops that human consume. It’s not very major, and even if the world did go vegan, Capitalism prevents the distribution of said food.

I loled.

[SaintVicious]

HAHAHAH, if vegan is what everyone wanted capitalism would provide.

[HeartofShadows]

Hahaha I thought this was a shotgunheart thread.

[kelby393]

You cant blame capitalism, because we never had capitalism in the first place, as Ron Paul said.

[The Shadowman]

[quote='UnschoolShqiponjë' pid='466195' dateline='1337831419']

Quote:It’s because more resources are required to raise animals than crops that human consume. It’s not very major, and even if the world did go vegan, Capitalism prevents the distribution of said food.

Capitalism is about the free distribution of goods, not the absolute control of it. So if you want to go vegan, capitalism will provide.

[Aya]

Inb4 shotgun

[SH☮TGUNHEⒶRT]

Green Revolution, answers the whole vegan capitalism thing. This quote does not make sense at all.

Capitalism is causing world hunger, but even before capitalism there was always the starving peasant population. So i'd say civilized societies have the hunger problem due to the distribution and dependence on agriculture, and the consistent extraction of resources.

[Miller0700]

(05-25-2012 07:16 AM)Aya Wrote:  Inb4 shotgun

Dammit...

[Aya]

(05-25-2012 09:07 AM)Derchin Wrote:  

(05-25-2012 07:16 AM)Aya Wrote:  Inb4 shotgun

Dammit...

Bitches be hatn' on my mad timing skills

Btw anyone who seriously thinks capitalism is the cause for world starvation should go onto google and look up what Stalin did to the Ukraine. I believe the exact term is holodomor

To use a literary analogy, what he did was so horrible it was about two steps away from going Hunger Games.

[thewake]

Okay, I am going to explain why capitalism is not the cause of more hunger. For the sake of argument, I am going to equate capitalism with free market. A freer market will equal more capitalism.

In 1776, Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations. Smith saw how what he called the "commercial society" (a.k.a. capitalism) provided the relatively more abundant wealth to Great Britain while other nations were poor. He believed that:

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages. "

In other words, capitalism provides the incentive for people to produce for others when the incentive of being selfless is not enough. But does this hold out in the numbers? Let me direct you to this graph:



As we can see, there is a correlation between economic freedom (the x-axis) and per capita GDP (the y-axis). Surely, the correlation is not perfect, but it is there and it is significant. Then, we ask ourselves: "Well, what if prosperity leads to capitalism and not the other way around?" That could very well be true, based on this graph alone, but is it?

No. Freedom makes people more prosperous, prosperity doesn't make people more free. Let's compare two places and see what I mean: India and Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has a freedom rating of 9.01 out of ten according to the Economic Freedom of the World 2011 report (http://www.freetheworld.com). In contrast, India has a rating of 6.4/10. Hong Kong has a per capita GDP(PPP) of $49,137 according to Wikipedia. India, however, has a per capita GDP(PPP) of $3,693. Why? India has natural resources, Hong Kong has basically none. Just a really good harbor. Both of them have a very high population density. It happens that India has a lower economic freedom than Hong Kong.

Let's take a look at North and South Korea. Nobody can say that a difference in the culture is the drive, because both nations speak the same language and share a common Korean culture. No, the difference is that North Korea is governed by a repressive dictatorship while the South is capitalist and prosperous. Take a look at this:



North Korea is an island of dark surrounded by more economically free nations, including South Korea. It's, quite literally, crazy to think about it. Of course, capitalism isn't the only thing South Korea has that the North doesn't (such as a half-way sane government), but it is one of the most significant things.

So, prosperity is increased by the presence of capitalism, and poverty is exacerbated by the absence of it. Now, poverty and hunger exist in capitalist nations, but the people in these nations are, on the whole, much better off than their poor counterparts in the least economically free countries.

World hunger exists in spite of capitalism, not because of it.

[Aya]

Tl;dr

[thewake]

(05-25-2012 01:24 PM)Aya Wrote:  Tl;dr

...

[Aya]

(05-25-2012 01:26 PM)Wes Wrote:  

(05-25-2012 01:24 PM)Aya Wrote:  Tl;dr

...

It means "Too long; didn't read"

[UnschoolShqiponjë]

(05-25-2012 01:26 PM)Wes Wrote:  

(05-25-2012 01:24 PM)Aya Wrote:  Tl;dr

...

I read it don't worry. I love your awesomeness.

[LOON_ATTIC]

Interesting read.
My history teacher's perspective is that deregulation of companies can make them monopolize and abuse shit. Would you agree with this at all? During the industrial revolution and such, life quality was actually pretty shitty, from what I've read, and "corporations had all the power" and freedom... yet everyone was migrating to the United States, and a lot of people were starving to death in other, more monarchy-ish places... do you have any rebuttals against this? Were all the huge companies like Carnegie Steel, etcetera, using a "free market"? Would deregulation allow bussinessmen to manipulate the masses to benefit themselves and later rape them in the ass, or is that a huge load of brainwashing commie bullshit, just like this site?
Also, what's with companies using workers in sweatshops in third world countries under conditions that we'd consider pretty fucking bad, practically working all day long? Would this happen in a free market... is it even caused by a free market?

I'm seriously interested about your view towards this. I don't have an opinion yet, and I guess having one would be nice.

[UnschoolShqiponjë]

I am pretty sure it was government regulation making it difficult for new companies to come into the market during that time. Wes knows much more than I do about it lol he has explained it or given a link to an article that explained it before.

Let's not forget that having a monopoly does not necessarily have to be bad. If the company provides goods and services at fair prices and treats their employees well and pays them well... then there is no problem.

Any slip up would allow another business to provide competition.

[thewake]

I don't think monopolies are a good thing. I'm against them, but with more freedom in the marketplace comes a lower chance that a monopoly will form.

Now, in the Gilded Age, there was more than enough government involvement in business. Here's what Grover Cleveland said during that time: "[T]he Government, under pretext of an exercise of its taxing power, enters gratuitously into partnership with these favorites, to their advantage and to the injury of a vast majority of our people."

There's more of what he said here.

It's common knowledge that tariffs were high during the 19th Century in America. Take a look at this graph:


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11...f-history/

During most of the late 1800s, U.S. tariffs were exceptionally high, while today they aren't nearly as high.

Now, why are tariffs so bad? Well, if someone can do the work more cheaply and better than I can, shouldn't I want them to do it so I can pay a cheaper price? In fact, I think I'll let this video do the arguing for me, since there aren't any tariffs on videos:


Watch on YouTube

[Griff_Da_Man]

Greed is the cause, it plagues every economic system.

Crazy how much food and water is wasted on a daily basis...

[Kirby]

Capitalism is an auto-antonym. Some people use capitalism to mean the market system that exists in most places today, i.e. a mixed market economy. Other people use the word to mean an ideal free market based on strict property rights.

My question is, what does the word capitalism mean in the phrase "Capitalism is the cause of world hunger"?

[HeartofShadows]

(05-27-2012 04:38 PM)Kirby Wrote:  Capitalism is an auto-antonym. Some people use capitalism to mean the market system that exists in most places today, i.e. a mixed market economy. Other people use the word to mean an ideal free market based on strict property rights.

My question is, what does the word capitalism mean in the phrase "Capitalism is the cause of world hunger"?

Kirby man you've took time away from chopping down trees to visit.

[Sociopath]

(05-24-2012 11:52 PM)kelby393 Wrote:  You cant blame capitalism, because we never had capitalism in the first place, as Ron Paul said.

Explain how the U.S. isn't capitalist, please.

[SH☮TGUNHEⒶRT]

The social, and ecological cost of human and nohuman lives is the real reason capitalism fails. It's based off of hierarchy and imperialism.

Expropriation, colonization, rape of the land, imperialism and this distorted view of the world as if a mountain is a resource, and not a mountain. That a person is a resource and not a person.

It's pointless to try to see the perspective of capitalism by economist, because all they are counting is GDP and stocks. They don't really the count the massive holocausts, mass deaths, mass slavery it's based off of.

[UnschoolShqiponjë]

(05-30-2012 05:05 AM)Sociopath Wrote:  

(05-24-2012 11:52 PM)kelby393 Wrote:  You cant blame capitalism, because we never had capitalism in the first place, as Ron Paul said.

Explain how the U.S. isn't capitalist, please.

The government fiddles with the market, making it not a capitalist country. Corporations lobby for laws to benefit them and are sometimes successful, making it not a capitalist country. At best it is crony capitalism.

[UnschoolShqiponjë]

Quote:They don't really the count the massive holocausts, mass deaths, mass slavery it's based off of.

I would not be upset in the slightest if you killed yourself....... again. AKA rage quit.

[Kirby]

No one has answered my question yet. The word capitalism is probably the most useless word in the English language at the moment. Chances are everybody in this thread is using it to mean something different. Depending on who I talk to it is equally accurate to say that I am pro-capitalist or anti-capitalist.

If you define capitalism as the market system that exists today, then capitalism is a cause of world hunger, but not the only one. Government intervention has been causing horrible problems in agriculture. A good example is the land reforms of Zimbabwe. When Robert Mugabe took over land was taken from the white owners and redistributed to those who justly owned it, or so it was said. In reality there was no real process of justice going on; the land was taken from white landowners without trial and given to blacks who were either corrupt politicians or didn't have any claim to the land. Zimbabwe had huge agricultural exports before the reforms but now almost half the population is malnourished due to the replacement farmers.

[thewake]

(05-30-2012 06:44 AM)SH☮TGUNHEⒶRT Wrote:  The social, and ecological cost of human and nohuman lives is the real reason capitalism fails. It's based off of hierarchy and imperialism.

Expropriation, colonization, rape of the land, imperialism and this distorted view of the world as if a mountain is a resource, and not a mountain. That a person is a resource and not a person.

It's pointless to try to see the perspective of capitalism by economist, because all they are counting is GDP and stocks. They don't really the count the massive holocausts, mass deaths, mass slavery it's based off of.

What is the defining feature of capitalism to you? Really, what do you think makes capitalism... well... capitalism? Maybe Kirby's right, maybe we have a hard time communicating because of ambiguous word usage.

[LOON_ATTIC]

^ That and the pulling of "facts" out of one's ass.
There's no proof whatsoever for the claim that "capitalism prevents the distribution of food".

[thewake]

(05-30-2012 02:24 PM)Lunatic Wrote:  ^ That and the pulling of "facts" out of one's ass.
There's no proof whatsoever for the claim that "capitalism prevents the distribution of food".

If the general consensus of economists is to be believed, capitalism actually facilitates the distribution of food.