Why isn't there enough food for the world's poor?

Capitalism is starving people at this very moment, it is creating poverty and misery. The victims for capitalism don't generally live in the west, the nations which we are told to think of as the capitalist nations. They live in capitalist India, capitalist Africa, the capitalist nations of South America and indeed around the world. Haiti for example has the same economic system as the US, a pro-capitalism, pro-corporatist, 'free trade' system of privately owned capital.

Some might say capitalim is not working in Haiti. I would like people to consider the reason that capitalism has not been able to help Haiti and suggest that it is because capitalism creates a handful of winners; the rich nations, and a vast majority of losers, the ones the west forces into free trade agreements to produce our stuff for cheap, while they toil in and remain in poverty. I would argue that capitalism IS working perfectly well in the nations where poverty is so severe, for the reason that this is exactly what capitalism does in the real world.

In 2008, Capitalist United States, using fossil fuel, chemical dependent and environmentally destructive/unsustainable agricultural methods, produced 40% of the world’s corn. Plenty of food produced, albeit in a manner that is destroying the planet. Still, that's a heck of a lot of food.

In 2008 31% of US corn production went into producing ethanol.

31% of total corn production was used to make fuel, so that rich, fat, US citizens can have their 2 SUV gas guzzling cars, go to the mall and fill their house full of junk they don't need. You know what else happened in 2008?

In 2008 the people in Haiti were starving, a lot were eating biscuits literally made from dirt with 50% maize (corn), 50% dirt, just so they could end the hunger pains. Same story in many other nations, on the pointy end of a system of trade relationships which make the rich disgustingly rich, and the poor violently poor.

This monstrosity of a scenario only makes sense in a capitalist market system, where the wants of the rich can and do legally out price the needs of the poor.

Those nations with capital that compete on a free market with the world's poor for food, will always win. It is always more profitable to sell corn in a rich nation than a poor one, so if a rich nation decides to dramatically increase corn consumption to make fuel, the poor starve. There is no common humanity, no common goal for development, no conscience, simply cold hard profits of corporate agribusiness within a system based on private profit.

I hated the soviet economy, I don't like many other economies that claim to be socialist or communist, but I especially hate capitalism. To those critics that say, sure capitalism isn't perfect, but it's by far the best system we have on offer, I would reply:

1. No it isn't.

2. Accepting a failing system just because we don't have all the answers yet about the alternative, is not a good strategy for making the world a better place.

3. Accepting a failing system instead of seriously looking at redesigning our economic structures to become vastly more productive, humane, sustainable and reliable will hold humanity back from our full potential. The Pioneers that have moved humanity forward did not let the small minded, weak conservatives of their day hold back the march of progress.

Imagine if Galileo had let the conservatives in the catholic church stop his work on celestial bodies and optics, those small minded conservatives that condemned heliocentrism as "false and contrary to Scripture". This is the essence of conservatism, the pathology; to burn at the stake anything or anyone that is too radical, too different from the status quo.

Capitalism drowns the planet in pollution, creates poverty and allocates all of the resources to a very select minority of super rich elites.

We will never solve poverty until we start thinking about how we can build a better economic system, then implement it on a global scale!

A photo from Haiti: 'every morning I wake up on the wrong side of capitalism'.

US Corn production - Industrial agriculture on a massive scale, completely unsustainable, degradating soils beyond repair, causing climate change and producing 40% of the world's corn production.

Haiti is very poor.

These kids are forced to eat biscuits mixed with dirt to stave off hunger pain.

This is the reality in Haiti. Now remember, 31% of US corn goes into producing fuel, which only makes up 5% of total gasoline equivalent, so that fat western people may drive their 2nd car at a slightly lower cost.

Capitalism is an immoral system by nature. The free market/ food v fuel example is merely one in a large book which called western civilisation. This book is unfortunately not available at your local corporate book retailer.