Editorial
International Food Crisis - an Indictment
of Capitalism
According to the architects of
neo-liberalism, the capitalist market is the most efficient method ever devised
for the organization of production and distribution of commodities. Since at least
1989 monopoly capitalism has had a free hand to establish its markets over
virtually the entire globe. Today, the real character of the capitalist market
can been seen in fact that, while there is currently more than enough food to
feed every man, woman and child on earth, hundreds of millions of people are
starving because they cannot afford to buy that food. Food riots have broken
out in numerous countries over the past several weeks and the situation is not
expected to improve in the near future.
The U.S. Bush administration has
suggested that the government of Myanmar is guilty of crimes against humanity
because it has refused to allow the U.S. marines into the country to feed
victims of the recent cyclone. Yet, in Afghanistan, a country occupied by the
U.S. armed forces and several of its allies, people cannot get enough to eat in
the U.S.-controlled regions of the country. Similarly, hundreds of thousands of
people in Haiti are suffering from malnutrition and severe hunger despite the
fact that the U.S. and its allies have been occupying the country for several
years under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council. Ironically,
many of the countries of Asian, Africa and Latin America which are currently
suffering the worst were, not too long ago, not only self-sufficient in food,
but were exporting vast quantities of agricultural commodities.
For most of human history food
production was organized on the basis of satisfying the needs of the vast majority of the population. Trade in food was generally
limited to those products which were surplus. In most countries famines struck
only once or twice in a century after prolonged droughts. However, the
internationalization of capitalism in the form of colonialism changed that
situation as more and more agricultural production was geared toward serving
the needs of the colonial masters for raw materials for production and food for
their populations. The frequency of famines in countries like India increased
to once every decade or two following the British conquest of that country.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the major
capitalist countries such as the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Canada
declared that capitalist agriculture would stamp out famines once and for all.
The “Green Revolution”, which emphasized modern, mechanized methods of
agriculture and the use of large amounts of fertilizers and pesticides, was the
capitalist alternative to the land reform and collective farming being offered
by socialism. While the Green Revolution succeeded in increasing agricultural
production many times, it did nothing to alleviate hunger in the colonial and
neo-colonial countries. That is not because there is anything inherently wrong
with scientific agriculture, but because the aim of the Green Revolution was not
to eliminate hunger of the people but to fill the coffers of the capitalists.
During the first phase of the Green
Revolution, vast areas of land in the developing countries which had been
producing food crops for the local populations were converted to the production
of cash crops for export – cotton, tobacco, sugar cane, etc. – which were
needed by industries in the capitalist countries. During this period the need
to import food into the capitalist countries of Europe decreased dramatically
as scientific agricultural methods increased the amounts of food grown
domestically in those countries. In the U.S. and Canada, which had historically
been exporters of food, especially wheat and meat, during the 1980s and 1990s
new crops were introduced which had previously been imported from developing
countries, such as rice, soybeans, peas and various other legumes. In
particular, the U.S. became one of the major exporters of rice and soybeans.
During the same period, agriculture in
the U.S., and to a somewhat lesser extent in Canada, shifted from small-scale
farming to large-scale capitalist farming, increasingly dominated by huge
agri-businesses such as Cargill and ADM. Today, these two American
multinationals, plus the European monopolies Louis Dreyfus and Bunge collectively
control over 80 percent of world grain sales and other food commodities are
similarly controlled by a handful of monopoly capitalist corporations. This
control over the markets also enables these monopolies to dictate the prices
for food and to set them at the most profitable levels for the monopolies,
levels which are unaffordable for hundreds of millions of people.
The real efficiencies of the capitalist
market are not in the production and distribution of commodities, but rather in
the extraction of maximum capitalist profits from the production and
distribution of commodities, as well as the provision of various financial
services. The policies of neo-liberalism adopted by the monopoly capitalists in
the mid-1980s were designed to consolidate the stranglehold of the biggest
monopolies over the entire world and to drive out any remaining vestiges of
national or local economic autonomy. Various mechanisms, ranging from the
economic and financial blackmail of the World Bank and International Monetary
Fund to military intervention and occupation, were used to seize total control
over all aspects of production, including agricultural production. Small
countries were forced to open their borders to U.S. and European agricultural
exports, while subsidies and tariffs were used to keep their products out of
the U.S. and European markets. Even natural disasters have been used to
consolidate the hegemony of the big monopolies. Rather than use aid money to
buy local food commodities for distribution to victims of these disasters, the
local markets are flooded with free commodities from the donor countries,
thereby driving the already suffering local producers out of business. This
latter practice is by no means accidental, but a deliberate strategy of the monopolies
to exploit the misfortune of millions for the enrichment of a few.
The domination of the monopoly
capitalist system has given rise to unprecedented wealth for the few in the
midst of unprecedented misery for the many, to widespread hunger and starvation
in the midst of food surpluses. Any system which is incapable or unwilling to
feed its people is a system which has outlived its usefulness. Monopoly
capitalism has proved that it is technically possible to feed every person on
earth, but it refuses to do so because that would reduce profitability. Such a
system has no logical or moral reason to continue and must be overthrown.