Talk:Famine

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Pranathi (talk | contribs) at 15:26, 21 August 2005 (india). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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I would propose the following structure:

  • Definition of Famine
  • Famine in contemporary societies
    • Hotspots of Famine
    • Causes of Famine
    • Responses to Famine
  • Historical famine, by region
  • Links to infamous famines or famine-related topics
  • Links to external resources on current and historical famine

--Ilya 11:43, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There has not been any significant famine in Bangladesh since the nation was formed, so I have removed that link. There have been at least two significant Bengal famines though, articles still to be written. Imc 19:29, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I rather like Ilya's proposal above as it allows the general case to be described before getting into the intricacies of specific historical events. BanyanTree 18:24, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Causes of famine

I disagree with the opening to this section, many famines are caused by food shortages (often due to plant disease), made worse by administrative mismanagement. I will make adjustments if there are no complaints.--nixie 02:08, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think the issue that needs to be made clear is that food shortages are a necessary, but insufficient, condition for a modern famine. So the explanation, "Famines are caused by lack of food" is often misleading. - BanyanTree 05:10, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

POV

I find it very POVd that the author chose to point out that according to a proeminent economist, no famine has ever occured in a democracy. Its POVd because its intended to make people believe that because of democracy there will be no famine, and that other regimes are more prone to the appereance of famine. This is absurd.

Famine is caused either by low production/high consumption of food or poor administration of these resources; a democratic governmetn is by no means an assurance that food resources will be well distributed. One such example comes right below, when the author comments on the Irish Potato famine, being a classic example of famine in the first world.

Later on, as examples of famine are given in the world, a noted example is those of sub-saarian Africa. Its a well know fact that people in that area suffer a great deal with very little food or drinkable water, diseases, high mortality rates and such. First world countries, however, not until recently ago, did very little to help such countires, even with surplus food that could not be stocked. Why is that? Hunger is not contagious. Grasshoppers, on the other hand, cen travel from Africa to Europe, thus destroying crops and plantations, and thus deserve attention by the 1st world europeans in an attempt to exterminate them. 200.244.240.42 15:10, 27 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Last comment by meLtDoc 15:13, 27 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I made a similar comment above a few months back, but it appears to be worth raising here. The Irish Potato Famine actually reinforces the democratic argument as the UK government (as a whole) was not beholden to the Irish electorate. Read Irish Potato Famine and look at how marginalized the Irish were politically, socially and economically. The democratic argument is basically that politicans who get their power from the popular will of the people won't let those people starve to death because it affects their jobs. They will cut back spending, take out international loans, appeal for charity, etc in order to please the voters. If the government is not beholden to the affected population, either because it is a monarchy, dictatorship, etc or the affected population is a disaffected minority, then chances are pretty good that a lot of people are going to die.
Causation is obviously hard to prove in situations this complicated, but studies have established a strong correlation between high levels of participatory democracy and low occurrence of famine. Looking at the history of famines compared to the spread of democracy, a causative link seems pretty well established. Even in the current crisis in Niger, the government has repeatedly attempted to silence local journalists and ignored demonstrations demanding immediate government action.
Also, please note that as this is a wiki, there is not one "author" as you seem to suggest. The collaborative efforts of numerous people have resulted in the article as it appears now. - BanyanTree 15:48, 27 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My point was exactly that; that a democraticly elected gov isnt necessarily a govt that will look for its people, thus a democracy is not necessarily a govt that will have no famine, as its implied on the text. Another example of "implicities" that occur on your comment is that If the government is not beholden to the affected population, either because it is a monarchy, dictatorship(...); With it you imply that a monarchy is a system that is not mindful of the people it governs; and extrapolating, that all govt types that are not democracies are necessarily "bad". You also mention studies that have estabilished links of democracy and lack of famine. Please indicate references, and specify which studies did this or that; Can we tell if a democratic nation has no famine because its democratic, or because of the technological advances, better farming techniques, better use of soil, better tools, soil care, use of plague and insects killers and such? And about my mention of "the author", Im well aware of the wiki spirit; but as it is often the case, the major part of a single article is written by one single person or a finite group of persons (hence the singular term), when then the numerous wikipedians collaborate with their bits of information over the "core" of the article. ~~LtDoc~~

You appear to define democracy as any government is elected, while I am drawing a distinction between the people who elect the government and people excluded from the process. Democracies certainly do any number of horrible things to people under their control, e.g. US against black slaves, British against Kenyan rebels, Australia against Aborigines, but all of these people were/are excluded from the political process. For the U.S., the slave descendants of Africans were not "its people" except in the possessive sense; the slaves were of the U.S. but the U.S. was not of the slaves, if you get what I'm saying. Politicians don't respond to those they control, they respond to those who control them. The Irish potato famine and the great Bengali famine of the 1940s both happened when the affected population did not have effective democratic representation, though under a democracy. The extent of democratic participation is vital in mitigating a natural food crisis.
The lead thinker on this is the economist Amartya Sen, who did the initial statistical analysis drawing a correlation. See this NY Times article for the proposition and some critiques. One of the main sources is in the article reference section, though any websearch of "democracy famine" will turn up reams of pages referencing and critiquing his work. People point out, working within the framework Sen has described, Bihar almost had a famine in the 1960s and some parts of India sometimes seem to be on the point of famine now, but "almost had" is not "had" and the basic argument "No democracy has had a famine" still holds. Looking at the modern famines described in the article for the past century, there are none that would be considered functioning democracies with reasonably free press.
The actual statistical work is available in the referenced work (and I assume on the net) and there have been any number of studies examining spin-off conclusions - "good governance" indicators on HIV infection rates, etc - and I've never seen one that contradicted the basic proposition. His economic studies of how income inequality interacts with famine is also useful reading.
Your question about whether the economic growth associated with democracy is primarily responsible for the decline in famine occurrence, rather than the political system itself is a good one and been asked before. If you look at countries with nearly identical per capita GDP, the primary factor indicating vulnerability to famine is political freedom.
I consider your rephrasing of my "not beholden" to "not mindful", and then to "bad", to be a red herring tangential to the actual discussion about article content and won't respond to it beyond this. - BanyanTree 20:03, 27 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So we both agree that democracy per se is not a guarantee that people under it will not face famine. Perhaps a better frasing the the article´s first part should make us both content.

As for the reason on why famine is not present in countries with political freedom, the fact that no study ever contraindicated the preposition that "no famine when in (representative) democracy" isnt necessarily impling that because of democracy theres no famine. Theres a big "selection bias" in this study, because in representative democracies the press has usually more space, there are better economic indicators, there are bigger personal freedoms and so on. To better exemplify my point, is like saying "no country which has won the World Cup at least three times has had vulcanic activity in the past."; even if the affirmative is true, one cannot hold that vulcanic activity has not occured because the country won 3 world cups. Did I make myself clear?

I ask that because (as you might see on my user page) Im not a native speaker of english, and every now and then might find myself in trouble trying to express some concept or idea. For the very same reason, I dont quite get what is a "red herring tangential to the actual discussion", and thus cannot comment on that. LtDoc 22:05, 27 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • The issue isn't a specific form of government: it is the relation of a government to the people. The fact that some constituency is enfranchised is obviously irrelevant if the victims of the famin are not.
  • Siege conditions in wartime can create famine regardless of the nature of government.
  • That said, it is hardly a novel view to say that democracies don't have famines. It probably should not be said in the narrative voice of the article, but we should find one of the many scholars and political thinkers who claims this, and cite them as saying so. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:32, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

discussion about merging content in

There is a discussion at Talk:Food security about merging at least some of the content of famine scales into this article. Please offer your thoughts there. - BanyanTree 13:54, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Famine in India

I removed the phrase about cannibalism. To reinstate, if anyone can point to the actual reference, it would be appreciated. I have found many websites saying the same thing (exactly same phrase), so it seems to have originated from one source, but could not find a valid reference to the actual 'records'.

Most colonialists thrived on stories of imagined cannibalism to justify their conquests. See Conquest of Spain, Columbus in America. --Pranathi 19:29, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Also removed (in your generally excellent edit) was all mention of two specific famines formerly mentioned in the article:

Why were these removed? And if this article is not the best place to handle them, can you suggest somewhere better? I would say that any famine of significant proportions merits mention somewhere in Wikipedia, and that all known famines in India should be listed together in some place. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:22, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

I thought the Ahmedabad famine was localized and realtively minor. One-third of the population perished in the 1770 one, one of the first in Bengal. That one should stay, but didn't know where to place it in the parah-type description. I haven't been able to get a listing of famines (or major famines) and maybe if there is such a listing it should go into a seperate article on Famine in India? --Pranathi 15:26, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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