Can Capitalism Solve World Hunger?

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We're often told just how productive a capitalist economy is. We produce far more than we need...so why are there still so many hungry and malnourished people? In this episode we'll investigate the real cause of world hunger, and assess whether capitalism has the tools to solve this massive problem.
Can Capitalism Solve World Hunger? - Second Thought
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Citations and Further Reading:
The Elon Musk world hunger tweet saga
www.abc10.com/article/news/ve...
fortune.com/2022/02/15/elon-m...
829 million people/~10% of people
www.actionagainsthunger.org/w...
25,000 daily deaths www.theworldcounts.com/challe...
3.1 million children die of malnutrition every year
www.theguardian.com/global-de...
World hunger is on the rise
www.actionagainsthunger.org/w...
Famines
www.wfp.org/stories/hunger-ho...
Food insecurity affects 38 million Americans
www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-...
Food insecurity affects 8% of American children
www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/...
We produce enough to feed 10 billion people
doi.org/10.1080/10440046.2012...
Our Changing Climate’s food waste video
• Food Waste causes Clim...
⅓ of the food produced, 1.3 billion tons, gets wasted each year
www.wfp.org/stories/5-facts-a... approximately%20 US%241%20 trillion
Food waste along the supply chain
www.foodengineeringmag.com/ar...
34% of the food grown gets wasted at the farm
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
Farmers respond to price fluctuations
jacobin.com/2017/03/food-prod...
Farm waste during the pandemic
www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/bu...
“Ugly produce” companies aren’t helping
www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...
newrepublic.com/article/15259...
Best before dates aren’t regulated/standardized
www.vox.com/22559293/food-was...
40 million Americans live in food deserts
www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-a...
Supermarkets stock 10x larger food products and plates have increased 36% in size
www.meta-systems.eu/nickbrown/...
Refrigerators have gotten 30% bigger and cost half as much
appliance-standards.org/produ...
The commodification of food
jacobin.com/2017/03/food-prod...
Structural adjustment programs
www.globalissues.org/article/...
Gambian fish story
www.monde-diplomatique.fr/202...
Food for beginners
archive.org/details/FoodForBe...
World hunger book (outdated statistics, but the analysis is still relevant)
www.tni.org/files/download/ho...
pubs.socialistreviewindex.org....
Twelve myths about world hunger
cf.linnbenton.edu/artcom/socia...
Food justice is class war
jacobin.com/2016/09/agricultu...
Unequal exchange
• How Rich Countries Rob...
www.tni.org/es/node/4597
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[@PegasusBrill]

It really is amazing how so many problems that aren't getting fixed all boil down to "There's no profit in it"

[@jeffreymitchell5321]

Anyone who has ever worked at a buffet can tell you about food waste. I've literally dumped full pans of edible food into the trash, simply because the buffet does not want liability if the food were donated and someone were to get sick and try and sue the buffet. Got to love America and Capitalism.

[@rockfire1669]

In the literally sense, capitalism won’t solve world hunger simply because it won’t turn a profit.

[@frigginjerk]

When you see something in society that is immoral or illogical and you wonder why it's like that, the first possible explanation that should come to mind is always "Because someone who has a lot of money wants it that way, so that he can get even more money."

[@tsumetai3]

I worked as a delivery driver for a bread company for almost a year. I quit that job when my boss changed his stance suddenly on me donating my staled out bread to a local food bank. We had a lot of bread that was past the sell by date but still had weeks of life left in it. At the end of my work day I would just stop in to a food bank and give them all of that bread that was destined for a dumpster. The company suddenly changed its stance and told me staled out bread had to be thrown away. Only a week after this decision I was seeing the people in my community literally digging through our dumpsters to get the bread we were throwing into them. My boss gave me a callus response when I brought up this fact and I resigned on the spot. This system is collectively ripping the heart out of society and we're supposed to just sit here and pretend it's normal. Shit sucks.

[@jeffs4483]

Capitalism creates Hunger.

[@immaheadout4777]

Actually we have enough food to feed everyone but the distribution of that food is so uneven that many people are starving because of inequality not lack of supply.

[@ampersand2001]

Affordable housing, food, and health care should all be human rights.

[@jeffs4483]

YT is censoring your comment section big time. I can't say anything critical of the current system.

[@repugnant__6379]

I work at Trader Joe's, we donate all of our food spoils to homeless shelters and local farmers here in Nebraska, as a manager I have myself driven too the locations where we donate, (including South Dakota to the Sioux/Lakota people and rural Iowa) to make sure it gets eaten and more often than not it does. All produce/meat/dairy goes into some kind of food to feed children, dogs, blind men and women etc. I wouldn't feel good about working here if that wasn't in place however I know it's such a huge issue that we can't fix everything but I feel like we at least make a small difference.

[@TheMrJTRyder]

In 2010 (I think), I wrote an article about the high cost of being poor. One of the sections centered on the food desert I lived in. There was one large chain grocery store and I noticed that the prices there were higher than the same supermarket in wealthier neighborhoods. I interviewed the chain's operations manager and at first he said it was due to the store being in a high crime area and their insurance being higher. I had already looked into this prior to the interview and knew this was BS because they had a blanket policy covering theft in transit, by staff and from shoplifting baked into the policy. After a few more questions, I was astounded when he told the truth. He said it was because there were no competitor's stores in the area, so there was no incentive to have lower prices.

[@JamesTDG]

It's funny how much capitalism encourages the notion "if I can't profit from it, you can't get it."

[@filipwolffs]

"In theory, everyone wants to solve world hunger."

[@TheSpazzDragon]

I was literally just last night having an argument with my Roommate about food and budgeting because it gotten ridiculously expensive recently. This video just helped me win that argument. Also now he is gonna watch more of these videos. So that is good.

[@michaelsoltesz3779]

I am disappointed to hear the “ugly produce” companies are a sham.

[@BreakEm22]

I think it's important to highlight a distinction between caloric and nutritional needs, so many people are going to distill "solving hunger" through just giving people more calories which is nice and all but it does nothing but make people developmentally stunted if all those calories are empty in needed macros/micros.

[@commentor3485]

Never underestimate how low business people can go.

[@NutellaCrepe]

Recently had a debate with a supporter of capitalism, and when I brought up the simple fact that the world has more than enough food and resources for everyone, he dismisses it as pointing out the obvious and that social darwinism is necessary. This is what we’re fighting against, people who wish to artificially perpetuate suffering of the poor so they can have more than most. In their words, they want to create losers just so they can be the winners in the system.

[@adamrosendahl8090]

Everytime I'm reminded of this horrific truth it doesn't just make me sad but angry. What makes me sad is how helpless we are to do anything.

[@gavinmiller2258]

These videos always make me cry. We're doing it so wrong.