The Politics of Food:Where Hunger is the Seed of Power
...ed out that the gathering of food is not the necessity of a country, but of the individual itself. It is a basic need of man, and obviously a human right. The system of humanity which was once started as a communal food hunting and gathering has created an evil in the world. I don’t want to have stated it so harshly but it is the truth. The truth, that how the gap between rich land owners or owners of food resources, and pitiable peasants or third world food producers has been created and widened, from the time of the Neolithic age where the scarcity of food started. ”In most places, ever since people started from farming for a living HG’s haven’t had a moment’s peace. They had to compete with farmers for land they once roamed freely, and the farmers have invariably won (S. George, 10). Although agriculture has its own, positive effects on man, and surprisingly, slavery, poverty and inequality came from this. Humans, who were once used to share, now grab whatever land they could. Land means wealth, then power, and both of these, means food for the table and satisfying life without hunger. The beginning of modernity means the growing of peasantry… The next material can be explained by Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” Capitalism causes inequality and oppression in society (but as Brian noted, is an inevitable stage in societies’ progression to equality through socialism in Marx’s view) Capitalism produces two groups – Bourgeoisie (who own the means of production) and proletariat (who don’t and must sell their labor for wages) Because of the need of accumulation of capital, Bourgeoisie must remain competitive by exploiting the workers (a process in which the owner extracts the “surplus value”, or profit, from workers). “It is very strange that the very people who live in the countryside, and produce food, are the first to go hungry – the peasantry” (S. George). In this monetized society. Those who have less money will be hungry. People who have the political and economic power dictate the proportion of food to the workers and peasantry, and taxes for the government. “Holders of political and economic power, depending on how much powerful they are, use a variety of more or less extortionate measures for extracting wealth from people in the countryside.” (S. George, 19) Economic exploitation leads directly to political oppression, as owners lead directly to gain control of the state and turn it into a servant of bourgeois-economic interests. The Third World monopolizes hunger. War, famine and natural disasters worsen it, and up until now not much has changed the sociological, economic and political status of the world. In this Global village, the condition slowly worsens as more capitalists, influx technology and science gave more sense to man’s materialism. In order to bring more enlightenment to the subject matter, it is also appropriate to use the theory of “The Juggernaut of Modernity” by Anthony Giddens. A.Giddens described The Juggernaut of Modernity as: A runaway engine of enormous power which, collectively as human beings, we can drive to some extent but which also threatens to rush out of our control and which could rend itself asunder. The juggernaut crushes those who resist it, and while it sometimes seems to have a steady path, there are times when it veers away erratically in directions we cannot foresee. The ride is by no means wholly unpleasant or unrewarding; it is often be exhilarating and charged with hopeful anticipation. But, so long as the institutions of modernity endure, we shall never be able to control completely either the path or the pace of the journey. In turn, we shall never be able to feel entirely secure, because the terrain across which it runs is fraught with risks of high consequence. (Giddens, 1990:139) Modernization cannot be controlled, cannot be contained. We live in a fast paced world, full of surprises. It is something that is dynamic, that is not made up of one piece, but mostly has contradictory places. Modernity does not work on a single path, but rather, on a different basis. “Modernity in the form of a juggernaut is extremely dynamic, it is a runaway world with great increases in the pace, scope and profoundness of change over prior systems” (Giddens, 1991:16). A. Giddens define Modernity into four basic institutions, capitalism, industrialism, surveillance capacities and the last is military power or the control of the means of violence. I would like to give light only to the first two basic institutions of Giddens, capitalism and industrialism because these two are very crucial in giving enlightenment about the subject matter “Most of the Third world energies are going into Cash Crops; their own food crops are neglected. What’s more, value is taken out from the countryside (in the form of agricultural produce,) and returns to the cities (as imports to the wealthy) or even for development projects like hospitals that benefits only city dwellers. (S .George, 59) It is clearly stated that capitalists who exploit cash crops from the countryside make the people hungry, what’s more if famine came? That’s really a big problem. Capitalists take advantage of the underdeveloped countryside, thus buying cash crops in cheap prices and also making the underdeveloped, still undeveloped. Thus making no progress. Even if the Third World Countries get higher prices for their commodities, they have no guarantee they can sell the same quantities as before. (S. George, 61). The reason in this is that cash crops are failing because capitalists today are not accepting raw materials they are now using substitutes for tropical products. Because of modernization, they have the ability to create the natural taste of some products like coffee and sugar from barley, peanuts and corn. Thus third world countries just as I have said earlier, cannot profit greatly, because the demand is lower. In industrialism, the there is always inflation. Why? The prices of rich countries charge for Indus...