Observations: Your country? Your interest? (1986)

The Observations Column from the November 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Your country? Your interest?

Does Paul Hogan, the Australian comedian, have more in common with his fellow countryman Rupert Murdoch than with Billy Connolly or Lenny Henry? Does an English electrician. doctor or fireman have more in common with the Duke of Buccleuch and his 268,000 acres or the Duke of Westminster and his land value of over two billion pounds than with a Spanish. Russian or Mexican electrician, doctor or fireman? One glance into your back garden or at your alarm clock will help you to answer these questions.

According to government figures, the richest 3.2 per cent of people in Britain today own 84 per cent of listed shares. 91 per cent of private companies and 88 per cent of land. This is what a "property owning democracy" means — a democracy where three-quarters of the daily newspapers are owned by just three millionaire companies, where non-elective judges, generals and civil servants wield tremendous power. None of the lords, dukes and baronesses are elected, nor are any of the multinational companies who also have a marked effect on workers' lives. Wealth is owned and controlled by a small section of the population — the capitalist class. They are a parasitic, redundant class who are dependent on the vast majority of the world's population, the working class. The workers run the present system from top to bottom, they produce everything in it and own nothing except their ability to work, which they sell at a price called a wage in order to live. If you feel your wages are not high enough, that your rent or mortgage payments are getting you down, that you can never seem to save any money and that you are always dominated by money-related worries, then that doesn't make you typically British but a typical member of the working class. The only difference between workers from different geographical regions is sometimes the extent to which they are exploited.

What workers need to do is to question, not only their loyalty to "their" country, but of what benefit, and to whom is this loyalty of any significance? They need to question a system which is based on rivalry; which sees only a minority of the world's population living in luxury at the expense of the vast majority; where tens of millions die of starvation every year although scientists estimate that the present world population could be fed seven times over. It is a system based on profits rather than the satisfaction of human needs that needs to be questioned.

Edwina on health

Commonsense would be enough to tell most people that poverty is a major cause of ill-health. Nevertheless it is always useful to have intuition backed up by hard facts such as those contained in a report from Bristol University which shows that poverty in the North East of England is a cause of premature death, chronic ill-health and low birth weight.

But commonsense and statistical evidence are not enough to convince Edwina Currie, the newly appointed Health Minister, who suggested in a talk to an audience in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, one of the cities covered by the health survey, that ill-health had more to do with ignorance about good eating habits than with poverty or unemployment. She advised people to eat more vegetables and natural fibre and drink more milk. This advice is about as useful as telling starving refugees in the Sudan that they wouldn't suffer from malnutrition if only they would eat more sensibly.

Duke’s hazards

Independent is not an adjective usually associated with the BBC. No doubt as part of the Thatcher administration's campaign against alleged "anti-government bias", a new chair of the BBC Board of Governors has been appointed to replace Stuart Young, who died recently. The only qualifications that the new chair. Marmaduke, "Duke" Hussey, would seem to have that equip him for the job are his connections with certain aristocratic elements within the ruling class. He is married to Lady Susan Hussey, lady-in-waiting to the Queen, daughter of the 12th Earl Waldegrave and big sister to William Waldegrave. Tory MP and Minister for the Environment.

His connections with the media are somewhat less impressive. He was a chief executive and managing director of Times newspapers in the 1970s and was responsible for the confrontation with the print unions over manning levels and wage structures which took The Times and the Sunday Times off the streets. More recently he was brought in as a chair of the ILR station Radio West, when it was experiencing economic difficulties.

His new job as Chair of the BBC governors is just one of the many appointments that are in the gift of the Prime Minister. Rumoured to be even closer to the Tories than his predecessor he is likely to ensure that the diet of television offered to us by the BBC gets even more bland.

The Doughnut revisited (2025)

From the November 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

In last month’s Socialist Standard we discussed Kate Raworth’s book Doughnut Economics. As it happens, on 1 October Raworth and co-author Andrew Fanning published an online paper ‘Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries monitors a world out of balance’ in the journal Nature. This updates and widens the scope of previous work in this framework.

Things have not improved since the original work was done: ‘Billions of people are falling short of meeting their most essential needs, whereas humanity’s ecological imprint on the living planet is now overshooting at least six of the nine planetary boundaries’. Previously four of the boundaries had been crossed, ecological limits which it was essential to keep within.

The boundaries are measured in terms of indicators, with more than one indicator for some boundaries. Ozone-layer depletion has been stable since the early 2000s, but the other indicators for which information over time is available show a worsening of conditions. For instance, four indicators have more than doubled the extent to which they exceed acceptable limits: CO2 concentration and radiative forcing (both of which relate to the climate change boundary), and hazardous chemicals and phosphorus (relating to chemical and nutrient pollution).

The inner ring of the Doughnut deals with meeting people’s needs. Here two indicators have deteriorated significantly, food insecurity and the existence of autocratic regimes. Others have improved, but only slightly, with 10 percent of the world’s population being undernourished in 2021–2, compared to 13 percent in 2000-1. A rapid improvement would be needed to eliminate this problem by 2030. The proportion lacking access to safely managed drinking water only went down from 39 percent to 37 percent over the same period.

Has there been progress overall? Global GDP doubled between 2000 and 2022, but ‘only modest improvements were achieved in reducing social shortfalls worldwide, whereas ecological overshoot increased rapidly, disrupting the critical planetary processes on which all life depends’.

So the Doughnut’s method of examining whether society is coping with meeting everyone’s needs while keeping the planet in a sustainable condition shows very clearly that the present system, capitalism, is unable to meet either goal. A system based on profit cannot solve these problems, and only a change to a world based on production for use will be able to do so.

Paul Bennett

Taylor Swift, food banks and insecurity (2025)

From the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

When Taylor Swift gave substantial donations to food banks in each UK venue she played at during her 2024 UK tour, she was widely praised for her generosity. One of the effects, according to charities, was that it allowed them ‘breathing space’ as they struggled to keep up with demand. Another effect was to highlight the fact, often hidden from the wider gaze, that food banks are as widespread as they are. And it led some people at least to question the reasons why they are so necessary for so many.

Increasing hunger

To put some figures on their use, according to recently published figures by the Trussell Trust, the UK’s largest food bank charity, Trussell is currently making around 3 million deliveries to food banks annually, while accepting that this figure represents a significant underestimate of actual demand. Nor does it include networks such as Independent Food Aid (IFAN), which supports around 550 food banks, or Food Bank Aid which supplies around 20,000 people a week at 32 food banks. And, of course, there are myriad other food banks organised locally and independently by charities, churches and volunteer community groups. IFAN has reported a 25-50 percent rise in supplies needed over the last year, while the Trussell Trust shows well over half a million new people using their food banks for the first time in 2023/24, with over a third of the recipients being children, of whom the number receiving food packages has doubled over the last five years. And given the well-known fact that many struggling families, especially those with children, do not turn to food banks but suffer in silence cutting back on food or skipping meals, campaigners have raised the issue of potential life-long risks to physical and cognitive growth for children who may suffer from malnutrition.

Increasing homelessness

The growth in the number of people struggling to feed themselves, therefore, seems exponential, driven, according to a recent IFAN survey, by such factors as cost-of-living increases, Universal Credit waiting times, low wages, insecure work, and disability costs. And of course none of this takes fully into account homeless people who may not be using food banks to survive. In London, for example, the most recent figures showed a 29 percent increase in rough sleepers compared to the previous year with over 4,000 people seen sleeping rough between April and June 2024, close to 2,000 of these ‘new’ to the experience. A spokesperson for the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who has pledged to ‘eliminate’ the problem, said: ‘No one should have to sleep rough on our country’s streets, so it’s shameful that numbers are rising in London and across the country.’ Recent reports have shown that the increasing homelessness feeding this has a number of triggers, one of which is people’s inability to pay rising rents, even when in regular employment or in receipt of all available benefits. A recent case that garnered much publicity was that of a 75-year old woman, Susan Curtis, made homeless in Romford, East London, when the landlady of the home she had lived in for 13 years sold up and evicted her, and she found all other accommodation well beyond her means. A report on this on the BBC news website told us that she was now living in poor health in a small hotel room without proper cooking or other facilities. She said she felt ‘on the edge’ and ‘hopeless’, scared that things would get even worse and she would end up on the streets. She added that ‘it’s a brutal system and I feel ill-equipped to deal with it’, thus summing up the plight of the 100,000+ households (including around 130,000 children) in the UK living in hotels, B&Bs and other temporary accommodation.

The charity Shelter was founded in 1966 with the promise to get rid of homelessness in Britain within 10 years. Today, close to 60 years later, its aim of ‘a safe, secure, affordable home for everyone’ seems further away than ever. In a special debate in the House of Lords on 29 April last year, anti-poverty campaigner and founder of the Big Issue magazine, John Bird (now Lord John Bird) said that millions of children are ‘inheriting poverty’ and called for an ‘enormous mind shift in tackling destitution’. He called upon the government not to try and ameliorate or accommodate poverty by on-off emergency measures but to eradicate it by tackling the causes. Worthy and well-meaning words of course, and when, several months after, in November 2024, he perceived government lack of interest in this, he walked out in exasperation on a session of the parliamentary select committee on homelessness and rough sleeping, proclaiming it a farce.

Lord Bird’s Ministry of Poverty

The farce is to imagine that an end to homelessness, food banks and poverty is even feasible within the framework of the system we live in. It is of course not, since at the end of the day, profit based on ‘growth’ must always trump need and this is what those in government who oversee that system will always give priority to. The best they can ever do is provide band-aids to put over the sore of poverty rather than end its domination over so many lives. A prime example of this is the very latest solution suggested by Lord Bird. As co-chair of a new All-Parliamentary Group Business Responses to Social Crises, he is calling for a ‘Ministry of Poverty’, yet at the same time, he is quoted as saying that its purpose would be ‘to tackle issues such as poverty and the housing crisis through entrepreneurship’. The idea that ‘entrepreneurship’, a mainstay of the system of which poverty and insecurity are inevitable features, could actually solve such problems is nothing short of baffling, especially as at the same time he also seems to accept that the worst poverty is largely down to the fortunate or unfortunate circumstances of your birth and early existence, something that the statistician, David Spiegelhalter, has labelled ‘constitutive luck’.

The machinery of abundance

As is widely accepted, we live in an era where there exist adequate resources and the technology to make beneficial use of them which could provide a decent life for all. As far back as 2009, Tristram Stuart’s book, Waste, worked out that ‘farmers worldwide currently provide the daily equivalent of 2,800 calories of food per person – more than enough to go round’, and estimated that, if food were produced and distributed rationally (meaning for need rather than for profit), there could be enough to feed those going hungry 23 times over. Yet, while there are patently enough resources to feed and house everyone on the planet, large numbers continue to go hungry and homeless. And, even in countries such as the UK, where food is manifestly plentiful, many people, as we have seen, are still forced to have recourse to food banks. So why should it be that the machinery that could give abundance leaves so many people in want and forces them to live hopeless, fragmented lives which both waste their natural potential and make them unhappy?

Comfort and dignity

Pensioner Susan Curtis’s final word was that she would like to be living ‘a comfortable and dignified life’. Who wouldn’t? That is what everyone would want for themselves and for others. Yet we live under a system where very few can be sure of having that – at least for all of their lives. Even those who are not among the 16 million living in poverty in the UK and who have employment that allows them and their families to live with reasonable comfort, can never be fully secure. They can never know quite how long that will last, living as we do in a system which is inherently unstable and prone to crisis and where very quickly insecurity may loom. And this will always be the case until we get together democratically to establish a different social order, a moneyless, marketless society of free access to all goods and services, one in which the rule of the market and the coercion of paid employment are replaced by planned cooperation and democratic association, one in which every single person is able to develop their interests and abilities with full social support and without the gun of material insecurity to their heads.

Howard Moss

Food, insecure food (2024)

From the November 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

It goes without saying that food is the most basic need of human beings. Survival, health, growth: all depend on sufficient quality and amounts of food. Indeed, human history can in part be seen as an effort to acquire adequate food, whether from gathering, hunting or growing.

But despite the advances in technology, plenty of people today still struggle to provide enough food for themselves and their family. They suffer from food poverty or food insecurity, which can be defined as ‘when a person is without reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious, healthy food’ (redcross.org.uk), or as ‘insufficient or insecure access to food due to resource constraints’ (sustainweb.org). This does not only apply in the global South, but in so-called developed countries too. It has been estimated that over seven million people in the UK were living in ‘food insecure households’ in the UK in 2022–3 (an increase of 2.5 million over the previous year). This included one child in six and one working-age adult in nine. One solution that has been proposed is to provide free school meals to all children. Things may get worse if some farmers reduce production, as may happen, largely due to labour supply problems.

In the US the situation is also deteriorating. In 2023, almost 18 per cent of households with children were food-insecure, a small rise from the previous year. In 2009, the proportion was just over one in five; the figure fell after the financial crisis but then began to rise again during Covid when school lunches came to an end.

Yet it is in underdeveloped parts of the world that food insecurity is at its most serious. A recent UNICEF report stated that 181 million children worldwide under the age of five lived in severe food poverty (one child in four). Global food security deteriorated between 2019 and 2022, worst of all in Syria, Haiti and Venezuela. Large parts of Africa are in really dire straits, as is much of South Asia. In Somalia almost two-thirds of children live in ‘extreme food poverty’, while in Gaza the figure is nine children out of ten.

Famine, as defined by the UN World Food Programme, involves such criteria as 30 percent of children suffering from acute malnutrition, which is far more severe than food poverty. No countries currently meet the definition, but that does not stop the overall food situation from being dreadful.

The UN Environment Programme recently issued a Food Waste Index Report 2024, which contains some quite astonishing facts and figures. Globally, over a trillion US dollars’ worth of food is thrown away each year; this leads to perhaps a tenth of greenhouse gas emissions and occupies nearly thirty per event of agricultural land. The waste occurs in various places, including households, retail and supply chains, though it has to be remembered that the data in middle- and low-income countries is probably pretty unreliable. And some inedible matter is included, as the distinction between edible and inedible is not always clear. Reducing food waste is obviously a good thing, but in a world based on profit and with billions of impoverished people it is not straightforward.

According to Action Against Hunger, 733 million people (one person in eleven) go hungry. Rising temperatures and extreme weather have worsened the crisis, as have Covid and conflicts. But, as they say, ‘There’s more than enough food produced in the world to feed everyone on the planet.’ It does not reach all those who need it, partly because of food waste, but also because of poverty. The UN Environment Programme states that it is perfectly possible to feed ten billion people, if the world population reaches that figure. Reducing CO2 ‘could positively impact the nutritional value of the food produced’, while restoring biodiversity would make it easier to cope with pests and disease. An increase in plant-based diets would produce less greenhouse gas and need less water. Replacing monoculture with regenerative farming, using rotational methods, would restore wildlife and soil.

One of the immediate priorities in a socialist world will be ensuring that there is enough food for everyone, that nobody suffers from food insecurity. We cannot say now just how this will be carried out, as we do not know what the food situation will be at the time that socialism is established. But we can say that scientists and farmers know how to go about growing enough good-quality food for all, and know how to co-operate with others to make food insecurity a thing of the past.

Paul Bennett

Voice From The Back: Patents and Profits (2007)

The Voice From The Back Column from the January 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Patents and Profits

“Poor people are needlessly dying because drug companies and the governments of rich countries are blocking the developing world from obtaining affordable medicines, a report says today. Five years to the day after the Doha declaration – a groundbreaking deal to give poor countries access to cheap drugs – was signed at the World Trade Organisation, Oxfam says things are worse. … The US has pursued its own free trade agreements with developing countries, tying them into much tighter observance of patent rights than anticipated at Doha ‘The USA has also pressured countries for greater patent protection through threats of trade sanctions’, the report says.” (Guardian, 14 November) The message is clear – patents and profits mean more than people inside capitalism.

Housing Madness

The journalist Nick Cohen recently quoted a couple of property experts about house prices in London. “Lulu Egerton of the Lane Fox agency tells about putting a house in Chelsea on the market last week for £4.5m. She assures me it wasn’t a mansion, just a roomy town house …. Within hours, she had an offer of £5.25 m. … I ask Mira Bar-Hillel, the property editor of London’s Evening Standard, if she has a favourite example of irrational exuberance; an anecdote or statistic people will recall if a crash comes … She sighs and says : ‘Take your pick. I’m coming up with them every week. Russian oligarchs who don’t even ask the price of the homes they view, the average price of a flat in central London reaching £1m, garages selling for £150,000 and parking spaces selling for £100,000.’” (Observer, 19 November) The prospects of a bus driver, clerk or railway worker getting their feet on the so-called housing ladder at these prices is extremely remote, but perhaps if they saved up they might be able to unroll their sleeping bag in a highly desirable parking space.

Hollywood and Reality

We are all aware of the Hollywood fantasy where happy families sit round the dining table at Thanksgiving or Christmas time. It is all part of the Hollywood “feel good” factor, but unfortunately it is a complete fiction for many US families. “As America gets ready for Thanksgiving dinner, a new report says hunger is on the rise in New York City. One in six New Yorkers – roughly 1.256 million people – could not afford to buy enough food, the New York City Coalition Against Hunger reported yesterday, citing US Department of Agriculture data from 2003 to 2005. The hungry population jumped 112,000 people in that period compared to 2000 – 2003.” (New York Metro, 22 November) If any Hollywood mogul is thinking of a new treatment for the “feel good” element, how about Honey, I Starved the Kids!

Land of the Free?

Home of the brave and land of the free sing the proud American patriots, but the reality is somewhat different. “A record 7 million people – one in every 32 American adults – were in jail, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, according to figures released by US Justice Department yesterday. US prisons held 2.2 million inmates, an increase of 2.6 per cent over the previous year. More than 4.9 million adult men and women were on parole or probation, an increase of 27,000 over the previous year.” (Times, 1 December) Home of the brave we can understand but land of the free? Difficult concept.

Growing Old Disgracefully

In pre-property societies the old were valued as experienced hunters and food gatherers. In such societies to be old was considered honourable and they were respected and indeed venerated. The opposite applies in modern capitalism. “The Help the Aged survey conducted by GfK NOP, showed that 5 per cent, or 500,000 of those over 65 said that they had to cut back on basic food to pay council tax bills. Eight per cent, or 800,000, turned down their heating. More than a third of people over 65 living on the lowest household incomes spent 10 per cent on meeting the payments, the study showed.” (Times, 2 December) Our grannies and granddads are suffering, what are you going to do about it?

Another Aspect of Globalisation

A great deal of prominence has been given by the media to the amazing development of capitalism in India and much publicity to the growth of industry and commerce within that country. There is one aspect of this development that has received little attention and that is the strains and problems that this development has meant to members of the working class. “An estimated 4,000 students commit suicide in India each year because of exam failure or fear of failure in a society where there is intense pressure to succeed academically.” (Times, 2 December) Kids are killing themselves for capitalism, it makes us feel sick, how about you?

And Another

A global study by the World Institute for Development Economic Research of the United Nations has recently revealed how unequal a society capitalism is today. “The richest 1% of adults in the world own 40% of the planet’s wealth. … The report found the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total of global assets. Half the world’s adult population, however, owned barely 10% of global wealth.” (Guardian, 6 December)

Life and Times: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (2022)

The Life and Times column from the December 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

A group of us recently did some leafleting in my part of the world. We were putting a leaflet through people’s doors entitled ‘A Different Way of Looking at Things’. It suggested that, though the word ‘socialism’ might conjure up ideas the recipients did not share, if they took up the leaflet’s invitation to click on its QR code and look at the Socialist Party’s website, they might find the ideas we were putting across sensible and attractive.

At one house, just as I was about to put a leaflet through the letter box, an elderly man came out and took the leaflet from me. He glanced at it and said: ‘The trouble with you lot is that all you see is what’s bad, you just don’t see the good things. You don’t see how much things have improved since I was a kid. You don’t know how lucky you are’. I told him I understood what he was saying but thought it would still be useful for him to read the leaflet and, if he could, to look at the website. But going on to the next house, what he had said started to give me food for thought, since I couldn’t deny that at a very basic level he was right. Most people’s standard of living is definitely higher than it was, say, in the 1930s, 40s or 50s. Most people have a lot more of the everyday things that make life more comfortable now compared to then.

The Good

And there have been a lot of what might be called ‘social’ improvements too. I’d recently read, for example, that the Championship football team, Watford, had players of 10 different nationalities in their team. It’s surely a step forward for people from so many different backgrounds to be cooperating as a team and idolised by the team’s largely British supporters. I’d also just listened to an episode of ‘Desert Island Discs’ with ‘The Repair Shop’ man, Jay Blades, talking movingly about the open, unabated and taken-for-granted racism he suffered as a boy – something dramatically less in evidence now. Again a famous footballer has recently been on trial for allegedly exercising ‘coercive control’ over his partner, a trial that would have been unimaginable in the 40s, 50s or 60s. And, just recently too, ecclesiastical child abuse from the 1960s and 70s has been exposed rather than ignored as it would have been in the past. And there is today, as never in the early lives of many receiving our leaflet, widespread and open coverage of LGBT matters. Who could have imagined all these things?

And yet, and yet … Well, there are also so many things which are not right in the world around us and which could not exist in the world of common ownership and free access that socialists advocate and want to see.

The Bad

In Britain today, for example, according to a recent Money Advice Trust report, people are skipping meals ‘just to keep the lights on’, and around 20 percent of adults, or 10.8m people, are behind on one or more household bills. A survey by Opinium found that 5.6m people have gone without food in the last months as a result of the cost of living crisis, nearly 8m have ‘sold a personal or household item to help cover bills’, and there has been a massive increase in the number of people forced to use food banks.

In the USA, the most economically advanced country in the world, 3.5m people are homeless, while 18.6 million homes stand vacant, and the number of Americans dying while homeless has risen dramatically (by 77 percent) in recent years from a variety of causes, but many just succumbing to the cold. The situation is even worse in less ‘advanced’ parts of the world. In Nigeria, for example, 82m people live on less than a dollar a day, and in Lebanon electricity, clean water, medicine and fuel are in short supply and the currency has lost 90 percent of its value with inflation in triple digits and more than 80 percent of the country’s population living below the poverty line.

The Ugly

But small beer this compared with the suffering in Yemen, where, according to the UN, 8 years of civil war have killed over 150,000 people, with more than 227,000 others having died as a result of famine and lack of healthcare facilities. Then there’s the drought in Somalia where the BBC News website reported that ‘young children are dying in growing numbers’ and told harrowing stories of suffering in which almost two-thirds of young children and pregnant women were suffering from acute malnutrition with the food situation being aggravated by a complex war between the militant Islamist group, al-Shabab, and the government. A 32-year-old mother of four living in a camp is quoted as saying: ‘No water, no food, a hopeless life. Above all, my children are starving. They are on the verge of death. Unless they get some food, I’m afraid they will die.’

More broadly, as reported by a network of charities from 75 countries in an open letter to coincide with the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, in the world as a whole ‘1.6 billion people live in inadequate housing (slum conditions) and 100 million are unhoused, a full third of the human population does not have reliable drinking water… and a staggering 345 million people are now experiencing acute hunger, a number that has more than doubled since 2019’. And all this without going into the ongoing and unpredictable effects of climate change, the persistence of deadly diseases such as Covid 19, and the untold terror and suffering caused by wars such as the one in Ukraine.

The Alternative

One of the signatories to the charities’ letter mentioned above, Mohanna Ahmed Ali Eljabaly of the Yemen Family Care Association, wrote: ‘It is abysmal that with all the technology in agriculture and harvesting techniques today we are still talking about famine in the 21st century.’ Though that is absolutely true, the charities’ proposed solution (‘Those with the power and money to change this must come together to better respond to current crises and prevent and prepare for future ones’), is a hopeless one. While the techniques and resources are indeed available to prevent famine and satisfy all reasonable needs, in the profit-driven society (capitalism) that exists throughout the world today, human welfare can never be a priority. In the socialist society of free access based on the principle of ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’ which we urgently need, any failure of crops, for example, through drought or any such natural calamity will be dealt with by food being made available to those who need it where they need it rather than people being left to die horrific deaths from starvation.

I could not of course say all this to my interlocutor on the doorstep, but I suppose I could hope that he clicked on the leaflet’s QR code and read all about it in the Socialist Standard.

Howard Moss

World population (1984)

From the October 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

. . .  if the human population of our planet were to continue to expand at the doubling time of 35 years then within a period no longer than that of recorded history the entire substance of the universe would be converted to human tissue and the diameter of the resulting human mass would be expanding at the speed of light. (Dr Paul Ehrlich, quoted in the Guardian, 18 June 1979)

Many figures and doomsday predictions like the above have been cited to express the urgency of the “problem" of population growth. In response to this the United Nations declared 1974 World Population Year, the key event of which was a conference in Bucharest. Last month, after a period of ten years, the second such conference was held in Mexico City; attended by delegates from over 140 countries, it discussed population in the light of the poverty and widespread hunger of humanity.

The real boost to concern with population growth came in the United States from the President's Commission on Material Policy in 1952. This report considered the question of “whether the US had the raw materials to sustain its civilisation". This was considered likely only "if Third World raw materials remain reliable". The report concluded that the greatest threat to those reliable resources was population growth. From then on population control gained respectability, growing to prominence in aid programmes and the activities of the World Bank, which sees population control as a necessary consideration in its lending activities: “The Bank does not feel it can legitimately allocate funds of its bond holders and contributing states to countries which are bad risks — don’t have population under control”. (Science for People Journal, No. 26)

This concern is not new. In 1798, the Reverend Thomas Malthus wrote his Essay on the Principle of Population at a time when the British population was rapidly increasing. The reason for this, as the Third World Quarterly explains was: "Until the seventeenth century, world population grew, on average, by less than one per cent a century. The extraordinary growth in human population occurred primarily after the Industrial Revolution” (Wasim Zuman, “The World Population Situation”. Third World Quarterly, July 1980).

Malthus took the view that widespread poverty was due to the fact that human population tended to increase more rapidly (by a geometric expansion) than their means of subsistence (arithmetic growth). Thus "to remove the wants of the lower classes of society is an evil so deeply seated that no human ingenuity can reach it". This "law of nature" therefore could justify starvation, slums and all the problems of poverty because “to prevent the recurrence of misery is alas! beyond the power of man". But this relied on a vastly oversimplified model of the relationship between human population and human environment.

The Malthusian view, and that of the quote at the top of this article, are based on very selective trends; they view human population as being solely subject to some constant and incontrovertible natural law. In so doing they fail to take account of the ability of humans to rationally apply themselves to their environment and so control nature.

Malthus was disproved by the first 150 years of industrial capitalism, when the population of England grew threefold and there was an unprecedented growth in the productive forces. In this period the supposed "superior power of population" was checked without producing "misery or vice” on the scale predicted. However these ideas of population control have been revived in recent years, appearing in the 70s in the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth, which claims that “The greatest possible impediment to more equal distribution of the earth's resources is population growth".

Is there then a problem of overpopulation? If so, then the reader should be well aware of it. for the United Kingdom is the ninth most densely populated country in the world and England and Wales is fourth in the demographers' league of overcrowded nations. For that matter, the whole world’s population could be accommodated, packed like passengers in the rush hour, in an area of only 20km by 20km.

If we accept though that overpopulation exists, when the population exceeds the available resources, we must then ask if the concept is a natural law or a relative one which holds in certain situations and not in others. Harry Rothman in his book on pollution and resources Murderous Providence answers this by detailing different situations:

In societies of nomadic shepherds one finds population densities of 40-100 per square mile; nomads with agriculture 200-300; with intensive agriculture 200-500; regions with intensive agriculture 2,000-4,000. In regions of India where irrigation makes multiple cropping possible over 10.000 people per square mile can be kept alive, and finally, in the metropolitan areas of industrial societies densities of over 15,000 per square mile are found.

Rothman concludes that “with the development of more advanced productive forces the capacity of areas to support human populations can be increased” (page 330). This was precisely the criticism that Marx had of Malthus, when he showed how capitalism artificially swelled or shrank the population according to its requirements — in recession the population appears large; in times of boom it appears too small.

As well as varying from time to time, it can be similarly seen that the requirements of capital will seem to vary the population from place to place — the initial rise of capitalism brought with it the first large- scale concentrations of men and women in cities to meet demand for a large number of wage slaves. Indeed, current concern for the problems of poverty in the Third World is largely due to the greater rate of urban population growth compared to rural in countries undergoing very rapid industrialisation. Yves Benot points out that “many of today’s underdeveloped countries could well show up as underpopulated if they were to experience the same developmental process as that experienced by 19th century Europe”. (Qu'est-ce que le developpement?, p. 9.)

The effect of capitalist requirements dictating what is the “natural level" of population at any one time can be seen in the large-scale movement of migrants to the United States, Canada and Australia, into Arab OPEC countries and in the guest workers of Western Europe. David Eversley describes this process: "In a country like Germany a dilemma threatens to arise: in the 60s they had the problem of their foreign workers; when the economic growth rate slowed down, they sent home as many as they could; but if, for instance, there is a new boom in the early 80s they will face this with an ever-shrinking indigenous labour force entry, and the necessity therefore to invite the guest workers back again until the next recession”. (“Zero Population Growth: Problems for the 21st Century”, New Internationalist, June 1977.)

This prompted a German politician to say in 1980 "the nation is dying beneath the blankets". In fact, a German ministerial report earlier this year expressed serious concern over shortages in the labour force, a lack of recruits for the armed forces and high unemployment in the teaching profession (Population Today, February 1984). This would really endanger the interests of the owning class in Germany, or any other country — “by the end of the century the army will be severely below strength" (The Times, December 15. 1983). Similarly in America a recent internal study for the Cabinet Council of Economic Affairs viewed with alarm the decline in the youth population as far as filling the volunteer armed forces goes (Population Today, March 1984).

This shows in exactly whose interests population levels are thought to be too great or too small from time to time, or place to place. Malcolm X (for one) noted this: "Whenever they are speaking of the population explosion, in my opinion they are referring primarily to the people in Asia or in Africa . . ." But he goes on: “. . . in fact in most of the thinking and planning of whites in the West today, it’s easy to see the fear in their minds . . . that the masses of dark people . . . will continue to increase and multiply and grow until they eventually overrun the people of the West" (Malcolm X Speaks, p.46).

This apology for an explanation conveniently ignores the fact that the worldwide capitalist system of society is run in the interests not of the "whites in the West" but in the interests of the minority who own virtually all the land and productive resources on it, regardless of the country or colour of skin of exploiter and exploited.

The Declaration of the United Nations International Conference on Human Rights in 1968 stated that "... couples have a basic human right to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children". But rights or no rights, regardless of any "free and responsible decision", there is a real material basis which "for most people in the underdeveloped countries is the stark reality that there is little or no economic security in old age or in case of disease, other than one's own children. not all of whom will survive until adulthood" ("Not Better Lives, Just Fewer People”, Science for People, No.26). This is summed up by a village blacksmith in India: "A rich man invests in his machines. We must invest in our children, it’s that simple" (quoted in The Myth of Population Control, Mahmood Mamdani). Therefore any attempt to reduce fertility by changing people’s awareness of their best interests, without trying to change their material basis, fails because, quite simply, people are unlikely to plan their families if there is no possibility of their being able to plan their whole lives.

Similarly countries like China, (held up by the Mexico City Conference as having ideal birth control measures) have problems with female infanticide because of the desire for sons, which occurs in the strict One Glorious Child scheme. The Scotsman, (25 May 1984) also considers other countries in South East Asia where ". . . children were so little valued that they were being bought and sold in markets". The article quotes Professor Scorer saying that people don’t care about their children "because they don't have any material opportunity to do so".

A few weeks before the World Population Conference, the media discovered that people were starving to death in drought-hit Ethiopia. This is despite the statement by the editor of the Observer to his staff (8 April 1984) that "Hunger is boring" — no doubt the hungry wish it were so. Boring or not though, the BBC did not think twice about perpetuating a few myths by laying the blame for hunger squarely on the 2½  million hungry: "They expected too much from the land which could not provide enough . . .” (roughly quoted from Jan Leeming on the News Report, 22 July 1984). With “overpopulation" mistaken for the cause of the problem of poverty and starvation, any attempt at a solution amounts to little more than trying to do away with the poor rather than the cause of poverty.

What the conference ignored is that the world has the capacity almost immediately to provide enough food, drink, housing and health care for the world’s population many times over — yet one out of every ten babies born today will die within a year, victims of a system that must put the profits of the owning minority before the needs of millions who cannot put money where their hungry mouths and swollen bellies are.

Lester Brown of the World Watch Institute. Washington, disputes this, putting forward a falsely simplistic relationship between population and food production which does not recognise that capitalism requires food to be produced and distributed only when it can be sold. "Throughout most of human existence”, he claims, "there were more fish in the oceans than humans could ever hope to catch or consume. As world population expanded following World War Two. population continued to grow, but the fish catch did not". As well as oceanic fisheries he cites grasslands as a second global life-support system that is under mounting pressure. He sees this as evidence that "human needs have begun to outstrip the productive capacity of many local biological systems". This may well be true, but the world under the capitalist system has effectively become an integrated unit of production of all wealth and has the potential (which cannot be realised under the profit system) to overcome specific problems of failing harvests and famines.

Nevertheless it is still commonly held that attacking the population levels provides some solution to the problems of poverty. Lester Brown, for example, suggests that, short of an abrupt slowdown in world population growth, there will come a time when "the rationing of scarce supplies through rising prices in the world market may leave some people unable to get enough food while others enjoy a surfeit". But there is no maybe about it. People were starving to death in the early 1970s, when food production was at its highest levels in the areas Brown cites — fish in 1970; mutton 1972; cereals 1971. And the last two decades have seen a doubling in the world beef production. Yet every so often we face the sickening sight on television of mass burials of children, and the only slightly less unpleasant sight of Frank Bough or some other talking head appealing for a few pounds for charity in the hope that it will keep this quiet carnage of capitalism off the television screens for at least a few months.

Brian Gardner

Let’s abolish food banks (2023)

From the August 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are various providers of free or very cheap meals all across the country. They may rely on donations from individuals or companies or they may ‘recycle’ food which would otherwise go to waste. Foodcycle’s answer to the question, what is surplus food is that ‘Surplus food is designated for people to eat but which has ‘no commercial value for the retailer.’ ‘In the UK, an estimated 12 million tonnes of food is wasted each year at all levels from plough to plate whilst 4 million people are affected by food poverty. At least 400,000 tonnes of this food is thrown away at retail level’ (foodcycle.org.uk/who-we-are).

This provider says it wants to ‘make food poverty, loneliness and food waste a thing of the past for every community’. Admirable. Who doesn’t support that? Other similar providers have similar ideals. The Trussell Trust says ‘…the stark reality is that too many people are unable to stay warm, fed, and dry right now’. Too true unfortunately. No argument there. ‘It doesn’t have to be this way’, Trussell says. Spot on. Ticking all the right boxes definitely.

They all put forward their solutions for minimising the impact of the underlying conditions that lie at the root of food poverty. The underlying cause is capitalism. Do they realise that?

All these various providers, whether large or small, still have to function within the straitjacket of capitalism. They have paid full-time staff, have to pay for their premises, have to pay their utility bills. Those employed by the charities and those who volunteer also have to live according to the norms of a capitalist society. They need money in order to live too. Check any website in the Third Sector. Capitalism means it will always be channelling Bob Geldof at Band Aid. Give us your money! But generally much more politely than Sir Bob.

The issue is, how is poverty in its many forms to be eradicated?

A solution that appeals to many is, vote for a more society-friendly (sic) party. Kick this heartless government out of office, then things will change for the better! It’s not difficult to find examples of the stony attitudes within one of the political parties which is regularly put into the position of running capitalism on behalf of the UK asset-owning class.

The Marie Antoinette of the Tories, ex-Conservative-MP Ann Widdecombe, said a little while ago, ‘Britons don’t have an automatic right to low food prices’, adding that people should simply go without certain items if they are struggling financially. Widdecombe also advised people who cannot afford to pay for some food items, like cheese, to simply stop buying them:

‘Well then you don’t do the cheese sandwich. None of it’s new. We’ve been through this before’, she said. ‘The problem is we’ve been decades now without inflation, we’ve come to regard it as some kind of given right’ (Guardian, 17 May).

Discussing the UK’s cost-of-living crisis on the BBC’s Politics Live show, the former Tory and Brexit Party MEP suggested that anyone claiming unemployment benefits should be made to fill labour shortages by picking fruit.

Under-fire Andrew Bailey told workers to stop asking bosses for unsustainable pay rises – shortly after piling interest rate misery on households. The Bank of England governor battling to bring inflation under control, said the country ‘can’t continue to have the current level of wage increases’ (tinyurl.com/5a78w28s).

In Peter Tinniswood’s stories about Yorkshire family the Brandons, Carter Brandon’s fiancé Pat opens conversations with, ‘Isn’t the price of sprouts outrageous’? Yes, and so’s the price of nearly everything in the supermarket nowadays. The cost of living has surely superseded the favourite topic of the British, the weather.

The Trussell Trust recently issued a 100-page report called Hunger in the UK. It makes sobering reading. One in seven people in the UK faced hunger in 2022 due to a lack of money, they say. The survey equated this to an estimated 11.3 million people.

Why were people being forced to use food banks? Money. Or rather the lack of it due to living in a capitalist society where the price of nearly everything keeps getting higher and higher.

The United Kingdom has the second largest economy in Europe and the sixth largest economy in the world.

Hunger in the UK: 

‘… insufficient income is the fundamental driver for almost all peo-ple forced to use a food bank. The vast majority (86%) of people referred to food banks in the Trussell Trust network in mid-2022 have an income so low that they were experiencing destitution when they were supported by the food bank. (They) are further destabilised by a lack of savings and having to cope with arrears and debt’.

The report lists those who are most like to feel the pinch. This includes a high proportion of people renting, ethnic minorities, the disabled, unpaid carers, those living alone, those with dependent children, and single parents.

In the report’s introduction the Chief Executive of the Trust says:

‘That means we know what needs to change if we’re going to build a more just society where everyone has enough money for the essentials. It is clear that we need a social security system which provides protection and dignity for people to cover the costs of their own essentials, such as food and bills’. 

‘Because in coming together, and working together, we will build a future where none of us need a food bank, because none of us will allow it’ (tinyurl.com/nhhr7evt). 

We certainly know what needs to change but we need more than to tinker with a knackered engine. We need to replace it. Whilst a capitalist society continues to receive support from very many, including those globally who suffer badly under that system, sticking plaster solutions are not the answer.

Working together for socialism, we can build a future where none of us will need a food bank ever again. Our solution is one that eradicates the problem once and for all.

Dave Coggan

Material World: Food, another banking failure (2023)

The Material World Column from the June 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Figures from the British Retail Consortium show an increase in the cost of food which is impacting the standard of living on many; especially the low paid and those on fixed incomes. Aren’t the majority of the British working class low paid these day?

‘Food inflation accelerated to 15.7% in April, up from 15.0% in March. This is above the 3-month average rate of 15.1%, and is the highest inflation rate in the food category on record.

Fresh Food inflation accelerated in April, to 17.8%, up from 17.0% in March. This is above the 3-month average rate of 17.0% and is the highest inflation rate in the fresh food category on record.

Ambient Food inflation accelerated to 12.9% in April, up from 12.4% in March. This is above the 3-month average rate of 12.5% and is the fastest rate of increase in the ambient food category on record’ (tinyurl.com/26n52k26).

Sticking plaster

How many food banks are there in the UK? How many people use food banks? How many food parcels are distributed? Do the statistics quoted below surprise you? Have you of necessity been, or are presently, a food bank user? Should those residing in a country with the wealth of the UK be forced to live with food poverty? What is the solution to permanently eradicating food poverty and poverty and inequality completely?

‘In 2022, the Trussell Trust operated 1,400 food banks in the UK. It has been estimated that there are a further 1,172 independent food banks in the UK. This takes the number of food banks operating in the UK to around 2,500.

In March 2023, data from the Food Standard Agency’s ‘Consumer Insight Tracker’ suggested that 13% of participants had used a food bank or food charity at least once in the last month. This was down slightly from the 15% figure of March 2022’ (tinyurl.com/4su6t7ft).

In its end of year report the Trussell Trust reports the following:

‘Close to 3 million emergency food parcels were distributed by food banks in the Trussell Trust network in the past 12 months — the most parcels ever distributed by the network in a year. Food banks in the Trussell Trust network saw the highest ever levels of need, even more than during the peak of the pandemic, as more people found their incomes did not cover the cost of essentials like heating and food. Between April 2022 and March 2023, the number of people that used a food bank for the first time was 760,000’ (tinyurl.com/3ervwv9h).

December 2022 was the busiest month on record for food banks in the Trussell Trust network, with a food parcel being distributed every 8 seconds.

The Trussell Trust mission statement says: ‘We know it takes more than food to end hunger. That’s why we launched our five-year strategic plan. We know our goal to end the need for food banks is ambitious, but by working Together for Change, we believe it is achievable. We’re calling on the UK government to ensure Universal Credit covers essential costs such as food, travel and household bills. By acting together with one voice, we are incredibly powerful. We are a movement of thousands of people who believe that no one should have to use a food bank. We need a long-term commitment that the social security system will always protect people from needing a food bank, which means ensuring people can afford the essentials we all need. Together we can call for a more just society where everyone has enough for the essentials.’

Whilst casting no aspersions on those involved with charities, formally or informally, it must be obvious that five year plans, good intentions and a desire to make things better are insufficient. Treating a major trauma injury with a sticking plaster doesn’t work.

Charities, a growth industry

‘There is one industry that continues to grow in Britain today – the Charity Industry. In 1991 there were 98,000 charities registered in Britain, today there are 153,000. The number of paid charity workers is now 569,000. Figures from the National Council of Voluntary Organisations, quoted in the Observer Magazine (4 April [2004]). When one considers the legion of unpaid charity workers that pursue you from door-to-door to shopping centres it can be seen that this is truly a major industry. But if workers are supposed to be getting better off, why does capitalism need more charities?’ (Socialist Standard, May 2004).

‘There were approximately 168,850 registered charities in England and Wales as of 2023. Between 2000 and 2007 the number of charities increased by around 10,000, before the 2008 global recession culled the number of charities by the same number in just two years. Since 2011, the number of charities in England and Wales has recovered to levels seen just prior to the financial crash’ (tinyurl.com/mr93dxpc).

Volunteers

Gov.UK statistics for 2020/2021 (Community Life Survey) provide the following information:

‘62% of respondents (approximately 28 million people in England) have volunteered in any way in the last 12 months, and 41% (approximately 19 million people in England) at least once a month.

63% (approximately 29 million people in England) of respondents said they had given to charitable causes in the last 4 weeks. This is a decrease from 2019/20 where it was measured at 75% and the lowest proportion recorded in the CLS.

Formal volunteering at least once a month in the past 12 months decreased in 2020/21 (17%) from 2019/20 (23%), the lowest that it has been recorded in the CLS.

Informal volunteering at least once a month in the past 12 months increased in 2020/21 (33%) from 2019/20 (28%), the highest that it has been recorded in the CLS’ (tinyurl.com/yavn8ury).

It is a long given argument against real socialism that removing the cash incentive from people would mean that nothing would get done. This has been disproved time and time again. Within capitalism, people not only do unpaid volunteer work, but also all other kinds of things, for no monetary reward, for all kinds of reasons. The human nature is inherently selfish argument is an erroneous one.

To return to the question posed at the beginning: should those residing in a country with the wealth of the UK be forced to live with food poverty? A resounding ‘No’ and it would, or should, be hard to find anyone who would argue with that.

What is the solution to permanently eradicating food poverty and poverty and inequality completely? It’s what we in the Socialist Party have been putting forward for over a hundred years – the replacement of capitalism with a money-free, wage-free, class-free society where goods are produced for use, not profit. Abolish charity. Abolish capitalism. You owe it to yourselves.

Dave Coggan

The Food Crisis (2022)

From the August 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bible-belt America may be rejoicing the Supreme Court decision to restrict abortions of ‘unborn children’, but there has always been a noticeable lack of concern expressed for the living children needlessly dying around the world from hunger-related causes. According to UNICEF 40 million children in 15 countries are food insecure and of those 20 million are severely food insecure.

The media’s propaganda has been blaming the invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russia for the food shortages.

Is it so? The war in Ukraine is not the root cause of the present food shortages. Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many people around the world were already food insecure.

While humanitarian assistance has been rushed to help Ukrainians, the budget to provide foreign aid to others countries is being reduced. The UN and NGOs are now actually cutting the food rations issued to the hungry.

Tens of millions of people across Africa do not receive enough food. Tens of millions are food insecure. Half the population of Somalia, for instance, lack sufficient food. Across the Atlantic, Latin American nations and Brazil also have food-insecure populations in their millions.

International agencies are over-stretched with appeals for funding going unheeded. It means food rations being reduced or eliminated entirely. Three-quarters of all refugees supported by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Eastern Africa are now on half-rations. In West Africa, where hunger has reached a record high in a decade, the WFP has significantly reduced rations for refugees living in the Sahel.

Much of the hunger problem is not due to any Russian blockade of Ukraine’s crops but to the effects of global warming and changes in weather patterns leading to increased drought conditions. Somalia is enduring its fourth season of failing rains. It means no harvests, with livestock dying from lack of grass. Many of the armed conflicts blamed on religion are in fact feuds between herders and farmers competing for pasture and water. News outlets feature the atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine but the almost daily massacres in Africa never attract similar headlines.

According to a May 2022 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the world enjoys ‘a relatively comfortable supply level’ of cereals. The World Bank noted that global stocks of cereals are at historically high levels and that about three-quarters of Russian and Ukrainian wheat exports had already been delivered before the war started. Ukraine’s 2021/22 harvest yield saw exports up from 41 to over 46 million tonnes.

We are not saying there is no impact from the war but that we should delve deeper into the simplistic superficial explanations offered up by politicians.

So what is causing the global food price inflation? Why are prices sky-high?

Just as it was in the previous food crisis of 2007/8, profiteers have taken advantage of the uncertainty of volatile food supplies to speculate on the world market.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, financial institutions began recommending clients to invest in the rising food prices through commodity-linked ‘exchange traded funds’ (or ETFs). By April, two top agricultural ETFs had attracted net investment of $1.2 billion – compared to just $197 million for the whole of 2021, a 600 percent increase.

The University of Bonn concluded that ‘we cannot rule out the risk that excessive speculation already contributes to food price volatility and amplified spikes’. Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights commented, ‘Speculative activity by powerful institutional investors who are generally unconcerned with agricultural market fundamentals are indeed betting on hunger, and exacerbating it.’

The New York Times reported that ‘in April, speculators were responsible for 72 percent of the buying activity on the Paris wheat market, up from 25 percent before the pandemic,’ hoping to make money out of a self-created shortage. The corporations that control the bulk of the world’s commercial grain trade hold large stocks of grain in reserve so to as benefit when the prices go up.

The reality is that the world produces far more food than we eat. Over 33 percent of the food produced globally is used for animal feed as well as for other non-food uses, mainly ‘green’ biofuels. Over 40 percent of the roughly 400 million tons of corn – 160 million tons – goes to ethanol production. And the USA, despite the food crisis, insists that it has no intention of reducing its ethanol production. The Green Alliance thinktank found that the land use associated with the production of ethanol for consumption in the UK in 2021 was 107,300 hectares. If this land instead grew grain, 3.5 million people could be fed each year. The land used for biofuels for the EU, China, USA and elsewhere would be far greater and feed far more people.

The capitalist food system is built on volatile commodity markets and financial speculation. Hunger is systemic to a financial system that turns necessities into commodities to be traded so that it threatens the well-being of people. It is easier to make Russia the culprit for the current food crisis rather than accept that it is capitalism itself that is culpable.

2023 may well be a critical year if the situation is not addressed by states cooperating together, which is a very doubtful prospect. Therefore, we can expect that:

Climate change intensifies. People now suffering from food insecurity will face actual famine. Wars and civil unrest spread. Countries introduce policies to restrict their food exports and governments will fall.

ALJO

Life and Times: Will We Always Have Food Banks? (2022)

The Life and Times column from the April 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

This week we are looking for:

• Small coffee – jars
• Custard – tins
• Rice – tins
• Packed flavoured rice
• Milk – long life
• Dog food
• Tinned fruit

said a post on my local community Facebook page calling for contributions to the week’s food bank collection. It went on: ‘Please try to help us, I will be at Pantygwydr Church on Tuesdays between 9 and 12.30. Food can still be dropped off on Mondays to Fridays at the Church between 9.30 and 12.30. Thank you for your continued support, you lovely people. Well done to you all.’

Enough to go round?

That this food bank ‘thrives’ is at one and the same time both a tribute to people’s kindness towards their fellow human beings and a matter of unutterable sadness that it is necessary at all. Though exact figures are hard to ascertain, a House of Commons Library report from 14 July 2021 stated that ‘both the number of food banks and the quantity of emergency food parcels they distribute have increased. In February 2021 there were over 1,300 Trussell Trust food banks in the UK, in addition to over 900 independent food banks’. It has been further estimated that, in 2021, up to 10 million people will have depended on food banks.

Of course, the UK is by no means alone among ‘developed’ countries where people either go short of food or are driven to the humiliation of queuing to be handed it from stores by volunteers. The USA, for example, the wealthiest country in the world, has a chronic problem of hunger, with 35 million people suffering severe food insecurity, especially among the 3.5 million of its population who are without homes – even while the number of vacant homes is 18.6 million. And, according to United Nations data from 2019, 746 million people worldwide – nearly 10 percent of the earth’s population – are likely not to know where the next meal is coming from.

Yet all this is happening in an era when, according to Tristram Stuart’s book, Waste, ‘farmers worldwide currently provide the daily equivalent of 2,800 calories of food per person – more than enough to go round’ and he goes on, if food were produced and distributed rationally (by that we understand for need rather than for profit), there could be enough to feed those going hungry 23 times over. So there is patently enough to feed everyone on the planet. Yet large numbers continue to go hungry – or even die of malnutrition – and, even in countries where food is manifestly plentiful, many people are still forced to have recourse to food banks.

A food utopia?

So what do we do about a situation in which existing resources are not in themselves a limiting factor to feeding the whole world at a decent level? Various ideas have been put forward. The 2020 book by Carolyn Steel, Sitopia. How Food Can Save the World, for example, argued that world hunger could be solved by making the existing structures of money and the market work more benignly and cooperatively. And now the ethnobotanist James Wong, presenter of the BBC’s ‘Follow the Food’ series, has made a BBC webcast entitled ‘How We Can Reach for a Food Utopia’ (Link), in which he too proposes ways of feeding the world adequately. He asks the question ‘What if we could reimagine the global food system so that it worked perfectly?’ He attempts to answer this by talking about food being made ‘more affordable, either by making it less expensive, or by tiering it based on people’s incomes’, and he explains how food could be produced in far greater quantities using fewer resources and less land, water and carbon using such methods as hydroponics and vertical urban farming with robots. He also talks about how negative environmental impacts can be remedied by using technology such as drones, satellites and GPS and by making basic natural processes such as photosynthesis more efficient with new innovative techniques.

Money the barrier

But among all this, James Wong fails, as Carolyn Steel did before him, to consider that, no matter how technologically efficient food production may become, under the current economic system it can only feed the people with money in their pockets to pay for it. We could, it seems, produce at least ten times as much food as now, but, as long as the buying and selling of it stands in the way, the world’s hungry or less well fed will not have access to that food. This is what the scientific and technical experts who write about food, no matter how well meaning they may be, seem incapable of taking into account. They either fail to understand or do not want to understand that use of the current system of money and markets to produce and distribute food, regardless of any tweaks to it that may be proposed or enacted, will never cease to lead to massive wealth for the few and hunger or the food bank for many. Adequate resources to provide a decent life for all are indeed available, but that decent life cannot be realised under the profit system. It can only be possible in the kind of moneyless, marketless society that we stand for.

Failing that, the food bank volunteers at Pantygwydr church, behaving in the cooperative and human-centred way we all applaud, will continue to be needed. And will only cease to be needed when we have a whole organisation of society that is cooperative and human-centred.

Howard Moss

See also:

Review of Carolyn Steel's 'Sitopia. How Food Can Save the World' (June 2020 Socialist Standard.)

Notes by the Way: Workers Better Fed 200 Years Ago (1940)

The Notes by the Way Column from the November 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Workers Better Fed 200 Years Ago

Sir William Bragg in an interesting article on the kind of food we ought to eat and the possibility of supplying it to everyone in war-time (Times, October 26th, 1940), throws light on what has happened to the diet of the workers during the past two centuries—the centuries when we were reaping the supposed benefits of capitalism: —

“Professor Drummond, of the Ministry of Food, has recently made it clear that in this country our people were worse fed at the end of the nineteenth century than at any time within the preceding 200 years. White bread and meat in some plenty had become the principal foods of a great part of the population, and, though energy and warmth were thus supplied in sufficient quantities to appease hunger, a number of constituents necessary to health were no longer included in the popular diet. This was not so when milk and vegetables, fruit and wholemeal bread were more commonly consumed. The result of the change was the frequent occurrence of certain diseases, and the nation was horrified to find in 1914 that a considerable number of the people must be classified as C 3.”

—(The Times, October 26th, 1940.)

He goes on : —

“White bread and meat are the cheap foods when the demands of hunger are alone concerned, because they supply the energy and warmth which the body wants and asks for. Consequently, when there is very little money to spend on food, the body is allowed to go without the necessary aids to health and growth which the cheaper foods do not contain. Thus the poor suffer first when the proper supplies are not available, not because they go hungry but because they are insufficiently protected from disease and structural failures. From the national point of view the protective foods are the cheapest, because it is costly to maintain an unhealthy nation.”

Sir W. Bragg appears to think that the fault has been one of the population merely falling into bad habits, and he is gratified with “the effort now being made by the Minister of Food to bring milk and other protective foods within the reach of the poorest.” He does not touch on the fact that there have been and will continue to be the interests behind the food trades whose concern is not with working-class nutrition, but with making a profit. They have at their disposal powerful means of encouraging the population to buy their well-advertised products whether good or bad, and the small voice of any disinterested scientist or doctor has no chance of being heard against them.

It will, too, be noticed that Sir William Bragg is anxious that certain foods should be brought within the reach of the poorest—he has nothing to say about the problem which underlies it, the existence of rich and poor.

* * *

The Scientist and Accumulated Knowledge

Incidentally, Sir William Bragg wrote interestingly about the use the scientist makes of accumulated knowledge and experience : —

“Scientists have so many new tales to tell that they are often supposed to pay little regard to that which is old. It is a fundamental mistake. Science is built on the accumulation of experiences, and every scientist knows that he must not base his conclusions only on the last few experiments in the laboratory. He must take into account all that has been done before. History is to him a very real thing; tradition is priceless, because there is no substitute for it. Practice is based on the experiments of innumerable years, and even when there are no written records to be consulted, the behaviour of men, the thoughts they have turned over and sifted, the knowledge they have gained in ages of trial and error are all of value; they are not to be thrown aside in favour of the last galvanometer reading. When a scientist records a discovery he only makes a new entry in an old book.

Now in this matter of food the scientist is at the. present time insisting that certain old ways are best, and it is queer that he should be supposed to be trying to introduce fads that have no merit but novelty.”

* * *

“There Is No Morality”

The Daily Worker (October 28th, 1940) had a smug editorial under the above heading telling us that “there is no morality in power politics. The European system has always been based on the balance of power, with France perched between Britain and Germany—the two strongest imperialisms. After their own military defeat and the vital elimination of British influence on the Continent the French ruling class now enters the camp of their former enemy. Capital knows no frontiers….”

It comes ill from the Communist Party, which has defended the Russian Government’s power politics through thick and thin, to talk in this strain about other governments. The choicest passage in the editorial comes later when the Daily Worker says that “the Tory ‘anti-Fascists’ are still itching to switch the war, and they would take Hitler into their arms to-morrow if only he would honour his promises of Munich. And so would the dollar capitalists of America.”

The Daily Worker seems to forget that one principal reason why other people cannot take Hitler into their arms is that he is already in Stalin’s arms, but, apparently, in Communist eyes, hobnobbing with the Nazis is only a crime west of the Rhine.

Remembering Finland it is ironical to be told by the Daily Worker that it is the code of the detested “power politics” that “conflicts can be settled only by means of superior force and violence.”

* * *

Those Bus Tickets Again

It was recently suggested in these columns that if the powers that be really wanted to save paper, and if their vision were not limited by the capitalist necessity of profit making, they would not waste efforts printing thinner bus tickets, but would do without tickets. Now the “Londoner” in the Evening Standard has been thinking about the problem : —

“The reduction in the length of the London bus ticket has caused some people to suggest that London Transport should find means of using tickets a second time, or even of dispensing with tickets altogether.

But no one can explain how this is to be done and, while invention in most fields marches on, the majority of tickets used to-day on road vehicles all over the country are issued by a device that has known no major change since it was first made, some sixty years ago.

I am told that nearly £1,000,000 has been lost in efforts to establish various new types of issuing machines. One of the successful is the “Tim” printer used now on some London buses, but the old “bell punch” system remains pre-eminent.”

—(Evening Standard, October 22nd, 1940.)

For a very long time Socialists have been trying to persuade the workers that while capitalism has provided the incentive for much technical and economic development, it now stands in the way of the development of society. Perhaps something that seemed unnecessary or even Utopian under peace conditions, in the eyes of men and women still steeped in tradition, may be more easy to grasp under the stress of war. Under a sane, economical system of society road vehicles and rail transport systems would exist simply to convey people to their work and their places of entertainment, etc. Consider then the absurdity of a social system which permits the problem of transport to be cluttered up with financial considerations and the employment of an army of men and women engaged in checking and counter-checking the payment of fares, and generally in safeguarding the interests of a body of shareholders who own and control what are mistakenly known as “public” services. Even under the stress of travelling to and from work during the war the companies are still concerned with the problem of profits. Consider the absurdity of the disclosure that “nearly £1,000,000 has been lost in efforts to establish various new types of issuing machines.” Consider the absurdity of the following : —

“Many people have been told that the little confetti-like circles of ticket that fall into the bus conductor’s machine are counted as a check on receipts. And most of them think that it is not true. But it is true—up to a point.

The scraps of paper are counted if the conductor’s takings do not agree with the serial numbers on his unissued tickets when he goes off duty.

Generally the clippings are emptied out of the “punches” and heaped together to become pulp.”

And all of this puerile business proceeds in what the Labour Party calls the “socialised” London Passenger Transport Board.

* * *

The Army and The Workers

Readers of the Socialist Standard over a number of years will remember several occasions when Communists have argued that the S.P.G.B. is wrong in holding that when a Socialist majority is in control of the political machinery this will also give control over the armed forces. One of their arguments has always been that the army, both rank and file and officers, would be out of sympathy with Socialism and would assist reactionary elements to prevent the majority from democratically and peacefully introducing Socialism. In particular they have argued that the officers would challenge the democratic system. In the light of this controversy it is interesting to read the following views expressed in the Soviet newspapers. The summary was published in the Times (October 7th, 1940), from their New York correspondent: —

“New York, October 6th. 

Soviet newspapers published last night what foreign correspondents in Moscow were permitted to say were “significant,” approving references to working-class participation in Great Britain’s war efforts. They were contained in a two-column message of the Tass Agency from London, which praised British defences and the discipline, moral, living conditions, and social conditions in the British Army. The article, in giving an eye-witness account of a British anti-aircraft battery in action, reported that most members of the battery were trade unionists and of working-class origin. This, it declared, was “unlike the last war when few trade unionists were among the British soldiers.” It was unlike the last war, too, it added, in that British officers were now drawn from all walks of life and were not professional soldiers.”

* * *

Without Comment

Mr. William Hickey, in the Daily Express (October 22nd, 1940), has the following: —

“A worker in a Torquay hotel (“which of course might bias my outlook,” he says) sends this choice there’s-a-war-on cutting from a local paper: —

” Dog nurse wanted. Woman to take care of small dog, partially paralysed. Vet. attending daily. Only those who have some experience & knowledge of this type of case need apply. …”

I feel sorry for this dog’s obsessed owner ; sorrier still for the dog. Wouldn’t it be best to coin a phrase & put him out of his misery ?”

* * *

The Case of Prince Starhemberg

The following report of some heated questions and answers in the House of Commons is taken from the News Chronicle (October 24th, 1940): —

“Captain Balfour, Under-Secretary for Air, replying to Mr. Wedgwood (Lab., Newcastle-under-Lyme), said that Prince von Starhemberg held the rank of lieutenant in the Free French Air Force, and received £1 4s. 11d. per day in pay and allowances.

Mr. Wedgwood: Is it not rather indecent that this man, who assassinated democracy in Austria, should now be allowed to fight on our side and be paid by us in a war against all that Starhemburg has stood for ?

Captain Balfour: I reject wholeheartedly the hon. member’s suggestion. We owe a debt of gratitude to anyone who risks his life in the air to fight on our side.

Mr. Woodburn (Lab., Clackmannon and Eastern) : Is there any suggestion that we are going to impose this man on Austria at the end of the war ?

Mr. Shinwell (Lab., Seaham) : Supposing his name were Starhemberg, instead of Prince von Starhemberg, would it make any difference ?

Captain Balfour : No. None at all.

Mr. Wedgwood : Why does not he allow other aliens from Austria who hate Nazism to fight ? Why keep them in prison ? Why allow this scoundrel to fight for democracy? (Loud cries of “Order!”) I want an answer.

At this point the Speaker intervened and the next question was called.”

* * *

The Times and the Causes of War

On October llth the Times published the first of two articles on “Fallacies of Nazi Finance,” written by an unnamed correspondent. He touched, incidentally, on the world scramble for markets, and had the following to say about its relationship to war : —

“Beyond doubt one of the fundamental causes of this war has been the unrelaxing efforts of Germany since 1918 to secure wide enough foreign markets to straighten her finances at the very time when all her competitors were forced by their own war debts to adopt exactly the same course. Continuous friction was inevitable.”

The Times correspondent’s main concern was to show that “Hitler has not advanced Germany one step towards the solution of this problem,” and he did not go on to the still wider problem of how to get rid of this struggle for markets. Socialists, having become aware of the facts long before they were discovered by the Times, know quite well that the problem is utterly insoluble short of introducing Socialism.

* * *

Do We Want to Legislate for the Talented or for Everybody

In an article which otherwise showed a good deal of insight into the real nature of the poverty problem the Reverend W. Rowland Jones (Daily Herald, October 28th, 1940), describes the “better world” that he wants to see as one in which “the backward son of the rich” shall not be able to pass through a sheltered life “to a position of responsibility just because he is a son of the rich,” and in which “the brilliant son of the slum” shall not be hedged in and “kept out of the advantages of education just because he is a son of the slum.”

The idea behind this is to be found mixed up with all the reforms demanded by the Labour Party, it is the idea that attractive careers should be open to the talented, not kept as a preserve for the rich and influential. It is naturally a very good idea in the eyes of those who think they are talented, but thwarted in their striving for success in the world of to-day. It is not a Socialist idea. Giving a privileged place to one select group means relegating the rest of the population to an inferior position. Socialism, on the other hand, will give every human being access to the means of life. Socialists are not concerned with enabling a selected few of the poor to climb into the ranks of the rich, but with abolishing both rich and poor.

Mr. Jones should consider the problem again, and particularly consider what he means by his own phrase that the new world “shall have no poor and rich.”

* * *

Really, Mr. MacDonald ! 

Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, Minister of Health, spoke recently about the future health of the population. The Times reports his speech as follows: “He insisted that the lessons taught by the war must be remembered in peace. One of these was the stimulating effect on their physical well-being of sending children from the cities to the country; after the war the children in cities must be able to draw fresh draughts of life from that source. Another lesson was that there must ! be adequate consumption of the right kinds of food.”—(Times, October 18th, 1940.)

Obviously the Times noticed nothing odd about the speech, for they did not make any critical comment. Yet the speech is odd and incomplete. Why, in the past, have poor children not been sent to the country and not been given enough of the right kind of food. Mr. MacDonald implies that fathers of children did not know, having had a war to teach them, or if they did know they forgot, and in future they must not forget. And if it wasn’t the fathers who forgot then it was someone else, perhaps the Government, or the rich. The truth is that most of the fathers had a very good idea about it all and did not forget. The Government and the rich did not forget (they remembered about their own holidays and food, anyway), they just weren’t concerned. The fathers failed to take the necessary step because they were poor, and for no other reason. It is therefore up to Mr. MacDonald to tell us precisely what he and his fellow Ministers are doing to abolish poverty.

* * *

The Complacent Bishop

Bishop Hensley Henson, Canon of Westminster, preached a sermon at Westminster Abbey on the anniversary of the declaration of war. He touched the social reforms that were introduced since the last war.

“The last War had stirred deeply the social conscience of the British people, and perhaps one reason why the nation was so perilously slow to realise the fell significance of Hitlerism was its fear that war would arrest the salutary movement for social reformation which, in the interval between 1918 and 1939, had effected such great improvement in the life of the people and brought new hope into the darkest places of industrial society. The determination to fight was accompanied, and in some sense conditioned, by a determination to continue and complete the effort to re-order British social and economic life on more reasonable and equitable lines. The combination of these two objects—defence and reform—was deeply significant, for it separated sharply the British ideal of a rightly ordered society from the ideals of Moscow and Berlin, which were either coldly indifferent or professedly antagonistic to Christian faith and morals.”— (The Times, September 4th, 1940.)

The complacent view of “such great improvement in the life of the people” is hard to square with the well-known facts of poverty in the distressed areas and elsewhere. A few weeks after the sermon was preached a letter was published in the Manchester Guardian (September 24th, 1940) from Mr. Eddie Williams, Chairman of the Children’s Nutrition Council (Wales). The following is taken from the letter, which dealt with investigations “into the income and expenditure of some of the poorer sections of the community” :

FAMILY A.

1. Number in family seven—father and mother and children aged 14, 13, 11, 9, and 5.

2. Income £2 5s. unemployment assistance.

3. Expenses: Rent 12s., coal 2s. 6d., light 2s., clothing club 3s., insurance 1s.

The parents say : “What we are receiving is not sufficient to clothe and shoe the lot of us and to feed the children and ourselves all the week. Often there is nothing in reserve in the larder. We cannot afford to buy milk; and butter is too dear. Three of the children get free meals in the school feeding centre, and we are thankful.”

FAMILY B.

1. Number in family seven—father and mother and children aged 26 (a cripple), 13, 12, 10, and 9,

2. Income £2 5s. from unemployment assistance and the cripple on relief just enough to keep himself.

3. Expenses: Rent 11s., coal 2s. 6d., light 2s., clothing 4s., insurance 1s. 6d.

The parents say they are unable to use meat coupons because meat and bacon are too dear. Their children are without boots most of the year because boots are out of their reach. They buy one pint of milk per day and two tins of milk a week. The children in school have free dinners. Other instances were also given.”

It is true that these investigations were made after the war had been in progress some time, but even if the families had received the same income before the war their standard of living must have been deplorably low.

* * *

How To Win Elections in Rumania

Mr. Noel Panter, Balkans correspondent of the Daily Telegraph (October 17th, 1940), tells how Rumanian and Hungarian peasants were induced to vote for Nazi-minded politicians: —

“Nazi propaganda in the Hungarian provinces is of the most blatant type.

It was in Rumania that M. Goga, who became Premier, gained electoral support by proposing to bring the printing presses and royal mint from Bucharest to the village market-place so that the peasants’ pockets should be filled with crisp 1.000-lei notes as these rolled off the machines, “instead of those officers and courtiers who have the advantage now.”

To-day the Hungarian peasantry are being told that when a Nazi Government is in power pengoe notes will be scattered about the streets and the millennium will have arrived, with the wealthy being compelled to share with the poor. The benevolent Greater German Reich, they are also told, will assure work and plenty for all.”

This sounds very childish—until we remember the Social Credit Movement and the way the Alberta Election was won by Dr. Aberhart with his promise of “dividends for all.”

* * *

Candid Mr. De Valera

It is striking to contrast the above with Mr. De Valera’s gloomy words to his supporters : —

“The Prime Minister, who, when in opposition, had painted a rosy picture of what he could attain if given a majority, admitted that the problem was disconcertingly difficult. Indeed, he went so far as to say that it defied solution, and that it is an apparently incurable ” blot on our social organisation.”

. . . The working classes must produce more and, if necessary for this result, work harder. The trade unions must cease to practise restriction of output and must be prepared to accept a lower standard of living.

—(Economist, September 7th, 1940.)

Mr. De Valera also stated, according to the Economist report, that “Nationalisation of industry or the manipulation of credit are incapable of improving the situation.”

At least the Irish workers will not be able to complain in future that De Valera has given them less than he now promises.

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:

This column was actually unsigned but it was obviously by Hardcastle, who was the usual writer of this column. It just happened to be the case that Hardcastle - who was on the editorial committee of the Standard - already had three signed articles in this issue of the Standard, and my guess is that his usual signature ('H') was left off this column because it didn't want to give the (true) impression that he'd written the majority of this issue.