Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site inmet.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ucbvax!decvax!cca!inmet!janw From: janw@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Extent of hunger in America Message-ID: <28200137@inmet.UUCP> Date: Sun, 6-Oct-85 00:45:00 EDT Article-I.D.: inmet.28200137 Posted: Sun Oct 6 00:45:00 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 8-Oct-85 04:13:21 EDT References: <200@gargoyle.UUCP> Lines: 85 Nf-ID: #R:gargoyle:-20000:inmet:28200137:000:3774 Nf-From: inmet!janw Oct 6 00:45:00 1985 [carnes@gargoyle] > According to the Chicago Tribune, around 20% of Americans suffer > "periodically" from some degree of hunger or malnutrition or are > under the constant threat thereof. > ... Obviously the problem is not as bad as it is in > Africa, but the significant fact is that there is a hunger problem at > all in a nation that produces huge food surpluses. Why do you think there is ? If we believe the Tribune, there is merely a "hunger OR malnutrition" problem. The disjunction is true even if there is only a malnutrition problem. And malnutrition is compatible with overeating. > I'm not sure what Rick means about people going hungry "because they > simply don't eat well, even though they have the means to do so." I > don't think there are many people, besides ascetics, who knowingly > choose to be chronically hungry. Well, there is anorexia nervosa, and other mental and nervous disorders. > If people don't eat well because > they are ignorant or don't know how to budget, that is clearly a part > of the problem. No, this is a different problem. One would be an economic one (if it existed), the other is educational or medical. Economic hunger proceeds from either shortage of food (hardly the case in US), or from its dearth compared to existing sources of income such that the food cannot be acquired. Is this the case? Let us see. An *egg* only costs a dime; at *minimum wage*, it embodies 100 seconds of work; it provides enough protein for some hours (and you don't even have to cook it). Carbohydrates and fats are even more accessible. From the point of view of basic nutrition, people can be divided into 4 economic classes: (1) "Very poor": cannot afford enough carbohydrates (or calories). (2) "Poor": enough calories, not enough protein. (3) "Middle-class": enough protein. (4) "Rich": can afford to *choose* the form in which basic nutrients come (e.g. can replace eggs with fish or meat at will). In this classification, all Americans fall into the "rich" category. > [2 case histories described] Your quoted examples, meant as cases of extreme poverty, only confirm this: in both cases the people eat meat or fowl *every day*; within limits they choose it. And this is by their own plaintive accounts ! If the billion people in China, who, as you said in another post- ing, are now "decently fed" (and, in a way, this is quite true) could only join the ranks of these "hungry" people , to eat goodies like turkey wings and hot cereal every day, something better on weekends, - population here would at once grow by a billion. *Poverty* is a relative, culture-dependent term. But *hunger* is absolute; it is physiological. What is not hunger in China, or Russia (where the diet you described would be an upper-middle-class one), is not hunger here. Whatever nutritional problems exist in this country, they cannot, in fairness, be called "hunger". If you can earn, receive, steal or borrow a dime an hour, you can't (except voluntarily) go hungry. Personally, I don't care if foodstamp allocations are doubled; compared to other welfare programs, they seem to do less harm and more good. And, even if poor people eat well, why shouldn't they eat even better? I only mind this pseudoproblem of hunger (in developed countries, that is) for two reasons. First, because it is a red herring, diverting attention from what is really important. Just as the "problems" of abortion or capi- tal punishment do. Second, it distorts judgement in estimating the comparative efficiency of economic systems. If capitalism in a developed country created hunger, this would, indeed, be an ar- gument against capitalism. But it doesn't. Jan Wasilewsky