Famine Is a Choice

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Starvation happens despite there being enough food for everyone. So why has famine so often been considered an inevitable natural disaster?

The coronavirus pandemic has ricocheted around the world, forcing half of all human beings into lockdown and affecting nearly every aspect of life. Of the many brewing disasters to come from this extreme disruption is a potentially devastating threat: hunger. The pandemic has severely disrupted supplyand logistics networks that move goods around the world. The unprecedented economic standstill has left millions throughout the world without the means to purchase subsistence.

The Malthusian view of famine was forcefully challenged nearly 40 years ago by the Indian economist Amartya Sen. The influential opening lines of his 1981 book If starvation happens despite there being enough food for everyone, why has famine so often been considered an inevitable natural disaster? Why do we keep letting them happen? My research suggests three categories of thought that are used as justifications for the persistence of famines.

Natural disasters always occur in a social context, even aside from being influenced by human actions like anthropogenic climate change. In fact, it may be said that the whole point of having a society is to manage our relationship with nature to our advantage. The massive locustcurrently afflicting East Africa, for example, could be considered a misfortune that must be endured, or they could be seen as a problem humans have the capacity to solve.

 

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