Re: The Political Economy of Famine

It has long been establishd that North and South ag producers and
consumer DO comp[ete in the SAME world market, which is one reason why
the northern ones do subsidize 'family farm' ag production in US,Canada, 
EU [which latter did all it could to exclude East European ag 
competition]. And remembver that the major rift at Seattle WTO delegates
was b etween the US and Europe because the former kettle is calling the
latter pot black, just because one uses price supports and the otehr
incopme supports. And the Cairnes [Aussie] group screams a plague on both
your houses. All of these are primarily in grain and meat/dairy wich
alos depends on grain. Of course it is market UNwise absurd that
the US b e the major world grain exporter - also to Europe- and that
croded Europe be a meat exporter, and even if not that tehy not be
importers of both products, not to mention sugar proedced by highly
subsidiezed beets in Europ[e and by subsidized beet sugar in Calif and 
subsidized cane sugar in Florida and Louisiana - which in turn depend,
especially in Calif, on subsidized water that thus is not avaialble to
metropolitan areas.

Of course this highly subsidized ag production in the North OUTcompetes
 that from the south both on northern markets and in southern ones
[and now East European ones too!]: eg. everywhere in the North, grain
and meat from Argentina, Brazil, Central America, West Africa, Egypt;
dairy in rthe form of powdered and canned milk anywhere that it undecuts
local dairy producers who are driven out of business; since NAFTA very
significantly subsidized US corn/maize is undercutting local M exican
producers and generating Chiapas uprising; i dont know about cotton, but
proabaly also, and definitely tobacco - no smoking in the US is driving
US tobacco companies into foreign markets in a big way -; and still sugar.
Poor Cuba. No cuota in the US and "world price" only elsewhere. Ah, but
what is the  'world' price? it is the low one on the perhaps 20 percernt
of wrold sugar production that is sold on the low 'world' market as
surplus over and beyond all the controlled/subsidized high price markets
on which the bulk of world sugar is 'traded'. That also means that the
Soviet days US charge that Cuba was so heavily subsidized by the Soviet
Union was a bogus calculation based on the difference between the
also alos subsidized high Soviet price and the low world market price,
which was low pricsely because the US, EU and Soviets all traded at
highly subsidized high prices. No market competition? when Gorbachev
prohibited some vodaka, all sugar disappeared from the Soviet market and
went into bathtub moonshine instead. It is hard to believe that Putin
wants - as recently announced - to make the same mistake again.
Anyway, one could go on and on, but ... and another related main issue
is genetically altered produce in and from the North competing with
'natural' products from/in the South, also collecting  genes there,
monopolizing them in the North, and then selling the products back to
the South. that is called 'value added'! 
I am sure that experts like Mark Ritchie in MSP and Manuel Lajo in Lima,
which i am not, could supply far more and bvetter evidence with
documentation.
gunder frank
On
Tue, 18 Apr 2000, Jeffrey L. Beatty wrote:

> Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 01:00:32 -0400
> From: "Jeffrey L. Beatty" <Beatty.4@osu.edu>
> To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Subject: Re: The Political Economy of Famine
> 
> 
> [Apologies for multiple postings]
> 
> While some on these lists are more concerned with matters of rectitude in
> the present conflict in the Horn of Africa, I would urge that list members
> not lose sight of the more basic issue raised in the Sameh Naguib article.
> Note the following paragraphs.
> 
> >    The logic of the world food market is particularly conducive to 
> >starvation. Advanced countries in Europe and North America, as well as 
> >Japan, produce over three-quarters of the world's exports of foodstuffs. 
> >These countries maintain schemes to protect their agricultural 
>production. 
> >In general, people in these countries pay vastly inflated prices so that 
> >high and stable prices can be guaranteed to the farm and food processing 
> >sectors. One of the first results of this system is a decline in 
>imports, 
> >which translates as a loss to Third World countries that export 
>foodstuffs.
> >
> >To keep the prices up, governments create massive stocks of foodstuffs, 
> >which are then taken off the market. World grain stocks exceed 200 
>million 
> >tonnes, while the shortfall of grain in the Horn of Africa will not 
>exceed 
> >10 million tonnes. The cost of storing food in Europe alone runs in tens 
>of 
> >billions of dollars, but the massive cost of storing vast quantities of 
>food 
> >leads governments to the "logical" conclusion
> >that they must either process it into something else or simply dump it.
> >
> >The fragile integration into the world market means that any serious 
>fall in 
> >the demand for Third World exports leads inevitably to hunger. Without 
> >export earnings, it is virtually impossible for governments to subsidise 
> >food for the poor. Moreover, the peasant farmers can ill afford to buy 
>the 
> >fertilisers, pesticides, oil and machinery to keep up their own 
>subsistence 
> >farming practices, let alone producing cash crops.
> >
> >
> 
> 
> I find this argument plausible, although it would be worthwhile to check
> into the degree to which agricultural commodity producers in the 
>developing
> world are competing in the same product markets as developed country
> producers.  In many cases, the two groups of producers clearly produce
> different products.  In any event, if we take the argument seriously, we
> can see a very direct way in which those of us, like yours truly, who
> benefit from U.S. farm income are arguably better off because of policies
> that make developing countries worse off.  This is a point that should
> tweak the consciences of the middle-class agrarians of Europe, Japan, and
> North America.
> 
> I mention this not only to nudge consciences, but also because Naguib's
> argument relies upon economics that even the most uncompromising classical
> liberal could not dispute.  It indicates the degree to which a powerful
> critique of the existing world economic order can be developed without
> departing seriously from mainstream social science.
> 
> Radical critics of the existing world order should bear this in mind when
> relying upon dubious Marxist notions like the law of value or the
> diminishing rate of profit when making their case.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Jeffrey L. Beatty
> Doctoral Student
> Department of Political Science
> The Ohio State University
> 2140 Derby Hall
> 154 North Oval Mall
> Columbus, Ohio 43210
> 
> (o) 614/292-2880
> (h) 614/688-0567
> 
> Email:  Beatty.4@osu.edu
> ______________________________________________________   
> '_Sapere aude_'--'have courage to use your own reason'
> --this is the motto of Enlightenment--Immanuel Kant,
> "What Is Enlightenment?"
> 
> 


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                     ANDRE GUNDER FRANK
          Visiting Professor  of  International Relations       
University of Miami           &         Florida International University  

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My professional/personal conclusion is the same as Pogo's - 
            We have met the enemy, and it is US 
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