An idea for your improvement...

[CIAagent11]

This cropped up on the BBC food and drink message board, and I thought you all might like to comment, here.

The basic observation is that obesity is a problem in the developed world, while 80 million people in the 3rd world are severly malnourished, and in danger of starvation. Moreover, we can solve the problem, simply by distributing the wealth of the world more justly.

So here is the modest proposal: we comfortable, lucky, wealthy people declare a 'food solidarity day', and voluntarily limit ourselves to the kind of food eaten by the poor for the entire day. Thus, as an example, one meal of dhal and chappattis might last us the entire day. The money we save from foregoing our normal diet gets donated to some worthy organisation of our choice.

We might time the event to coincide with, say the first or last day of lent.

Constructive criticism welcome.

Best wishes, 2ndRateMind.

Sorry to be frank...
I don't see any benefit of more meaningless gestures.
Malnutrition is not a lack of food, it's always distribution that is the problem.

 

[2ndRateMind]

Sorry to be frank...
I don't see any benefit of more meaningless gestures.
Malnutrition is not a lack of food, it's always distribution that is the problem.

I agree. The world produces enough food each year to feed it's entire population, each year. Yet, because of our preferred distribution system, globalised capitalism, a child a minute dies of malnutrition, or complications of preventable disease caused by malnutrition. It is not 'meaningless' to want to address this issue, which is not caused by lack of resources, but by the lack of means to pay for these resources where they are most desperately needed.

One way to address it is to challenge globalised capitalism as a means of rationing goods and services. I am not sure this would be a very effective strategy, since globalised capitalism seems to suit the powers that be very well indeed. Very well: let us subvert globalised capitalism, by causing people, rather than to be selfish consumers seeking only to maximise their personal utility, to empathise with those at the bottom of the food chain. How better, than to spend 1 day a year eating what they eat? That is my rationale, and the rationale is not 'meaningless' either.

No, if you are looking for a meaningless response, how about this one: 'I don't understand hunger, don't intend to understand it, don't care about it anyway, so long as it doesn't effect me, and couldn't be bothered to act in any way to help eradicate it, and even if I could be bothered, there is nothing I could do to affect matters one little jot.'

Such an apathy (and I am in no way accusing you) amounts to murder by negligence, in my opinion. If this little scheme moves a couple of dozen people away from their soul-threatening complacency, it will not have failed. And, at the end of days, when judgement sorts us all out, I suspect we will find that the effort has not been at all 'meaningless'.

Best wishes, 2ndRateMind.

 

[CIAagent11]

What I wanted to convey is that gestures make us feel good and serve our good conscience. They do not help anybody.
By preoccupying ourselves with gestures in the name of some cause we mostly make ourselves feel better.
I am advertising that each person either admits to not caring or starts doing something that will actually help solving the problem.
Only 10% of the effort put into meaningless gestures could do a lot of good.

On your mention of global capitalism: Interesting, but I have to disagree. Why is capitalism the problem?
If anything, more global capitalism can be the answer to poverty and hunger in the third world.

 

[2ndRateMind]

I am advertising that each person either admits to not caring or starts doing something that will actually help solving the problem.

That's great. What do you suggest? Poor Food Day is the best I can come up with, but there is room for as many initiatives as there are people, and possibly even more.

On your mention of global capitalism: Interesting, but I have to disagree. Why is capitalism the problem?
If anything, more global capitalism can be the answer to poverty and hunger in the third world.

Well, let's take it step by step.

Observation 1: The world produces enough for everyone to eat a healthy diet.

Observation 2: Not everyone eats a healthy diet. Some eat more than is good for them, and some eat a good deal less.

Observation 3: The way the world allocates it's resources is by a system called Globalised Capitalism

Deduction: Between production and consumption something is going wrong. That must be the way food is allocated: Globalised Capitalism.

Supporting evidence. Capitalism acts through markets, where buyers and sellers register their willingness to sell and buy through a construction called 'the market price', which is essentially a negotiated level of exchange value that reconciles aggregate supply with aggregate demand.

However, if we look closely at either supply or demand, we discover that they are both price dependent. Suppliers will supply more if the price is higher; buyers will buy more if the price is lower. Market price is the level at which this tension is balanced.

Problem is, you don't get to register your demand, however dire your need, if you don't have the money to meet the market price. If you are penniless, and dehydrated to the point of death, the market ignores you. If you are wealthy, and prefer champagne for breakfast to coffee, the market supplies you. The market is entirely amoral. It simply registers what people with money are willing to pay for the commodities they want.

What we need is a moral system of distribution, that sees those dieing of thirst registering a priority above those who dally between six-packs of root beer or coke for a barbecue. Globalised Capitalism, while having many positive features, is not such a system.

Can it be modified, so that it becomes moral? Possibly. I hope so. Most civilised governments have systems of welfare in place for those who fall on hard times, and this is certainly a step in the right direction. But I think that capitalism itself will remain amoral as a system until each component agent within it, each government, company, household and individual, recognises it's/his/her moral obligations and acts accordingly. That's a tall order.

Best wishes, 2ndRateMind.

 

[CIAagent11]

That's great. What do you suggest? Poor Food Day is the best I can come up with, but there is room for as many initiatives as there are people, and possibly even more.

I googled World Food Day, and their theme this year is 'World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy'.
Once I hear climate change I can't take something serious any more.

What I suggest is not falling for emotional gestures. They distract from actually doing something.
"Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good."
- Thomas Sowell
Donate to a organisation that helps agricultural development of third world nations.
Not one that just gives food to them.
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for life."
And especially don't do some feel-good gesture.

Observation 1: The world produces enough for everyone to eat a healthy diet.

Observation 2: Not everyone eats a healthy diet. Some eat more than is good for them, and some eat a good deal less.

Observation 3: The way the world allocates it's resources is by a system called Globalised Capitalism

Deduction: Between production and consumption something is going wrong. That must be the way food is allocated: Globalised Capitalism.

I see what you mean. But getting the highest price for your product is the reason there is so a product in the first place.
Capitalism is not only the distribution system. It is the 'production system'.
Your deduction is incorrect because you leave out the positive part.
The solution is giving every nation the opportunity to participate in global capitalism, not resorting to socialism.
Socialism will only slow down capitalism and create inequality.

 

[CIAagent11]

G-20 Protesters Aiming at Wrong Target - WSJ.com

 

[2ndRateMind]

I see what you mean. But getting the highest price for your product is the reason there is so a product in the first place.
Capitalism is not only the distribution system. It is the 'production system'.
Your deduction is incorrect because you leave out the positive part.
The solution is giving every nation the opportunity to participate in global capitalism, not resorting to socialism.
Socialism will only slow down capitalism and create inequality.

I agree entirely that capitalism is a dynamic, creative producer of wealth. I simply note that it is not a moral distributor of wealth. I do not advocate socialism, in the communist sense that you Americans elide with all left leaning programmes, but I do advocate a universally acknowledged social conscience. And, in respect of inequality, capitalism is the supreme architect. Compare the fortunes of Warren Buffet, or Bill Gates, or George Soros, with those of the billion or so nameless individuals who scratch out meagre lives on less than a dollar a day. And then tell me that this is 'fair'. Better, I think, to slow down capitalism and have fewer deaths by starvation and preventable disease than to allow it free reign and rely for welfare on the charitable impulses of super-rich people who didn't get to be that way by being charitable.

Best wishes, 2ndRateMind.

 

[2ndRateMind]

I googled World Food Day, and their theme this year is 'World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy'.
Once I hear climate change I can't take something serious any more.

What I suggest is not falling for emotional gestures. They distract from actually doing something.
"Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good."
- Thomas Sowell
Donate to a organisation that helps agricultural development of third world nations.
Not one that just gives food to them.
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for life."
And especially don't do some feel-good gesture.

OK. That all fits within the format of Poor Food Day. If you want to know why it is a good idea to donate to an 'organisation that helps agricultural development of third world nations', then I can think of no better way of explaining that to yourself and your family than eating what they eat for a day, and donating the difference between that cost and your normal budget to the organisation of your choice. And if you feel good afterwards, so you jolly well should. You will have done something positive.

Best wishes, 2ndRateMind.

 

[CIAagent11]

I think I largely agree. We can modify capitalism to be more fair.
I do think the best way is offering equality of opportunity.

I was trying to come up with a fitting metaphor for 'blaming' poverty and hunger on global capitalism.
And I think it would be like blaming the health care system for disease and dying patients.

Cheers.

 

[CIAagent11]

Take a look at this: Democracies do not have famines