Thursday, April 09, 2009

We never said it , they did - 2

Poverty, not food shortages, leads to hunger

"Hunger is a product of lack of income occurring in the absence of family or state safety nets, not of food availability." - Adrian P. Hewitt, Head of the ODI Fellowship Scheme, Overseas Development Institute in a letter to the Financial Times

However , when Hewitt alludes to the safety net of the State he errs in believing that the profit system can be reformed to work in the interest of the majority of the population. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that it can only work as a profit system i.e by giving priority to making profits over all other considerations. And governments have no alternative but to dance to this tune.
There is enough food as Hewit explains , the world today is not short of wealth but , in order, though, to maintain labour discipline, to keep the labour market in existence, capitalism and its a massive welfare system must deny access to the things people need , such as food . By and large people do not go hungry because there is no food, but because they are, from the unalterable perspective of capitalism, unworthy: they cannot afford to eat. They cannot afford to eat because from capitalism’s perspective there is no reason to employ them and pay them. We have developed the material productive forces to such an extent that fewer and fewer workers can produce more and more of the things we need to live. But still, people cannot get the necessities of life.The Welfare Stae safety net that may seem to benefit the majority only happens if they advance capitalist interests, and is dismantled when those interests change.

Socialists, unlike the Leftists and the Reformists , do not support the welfare state and do not see it as a way to socialism, but as an inevitable part of capitalism, of administering poverty.


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