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Well, a modern economy is pretty thoroughly different from the premodern one. When it took 90% of the population working in agriculture to feed the whole popula

Well, a modern economy is pretty thoroughly different from the premodern one. When it took 90% of the population working in agriculture to feed the whole population (nonfarmer/farmer ratio of 1:9), and food transportation costs were extremely high, then even a minor shortfall in food production could induce famine conditions in short order. Now that the nonfarmer/farmer ratio in an industrialized economy is more like 97:3 (and moving toward that figure elsewhere) famine is decreasingly caused by shortfalls only, and increasingly by other factors. Fundamentally, though, it's about productivity. And there's no obvious reason why productivity will be going down in most places in the world, nor why transportation should be getting more expensive. I think short-term oscillations in political fortunes are not a very good marker of these things.

jandrese 10y ago
That was my point. We have produced enough food to feed the world for centuries now, and we have had the means to transport it, but choose not to for political reasons. North Korea is a prime example, there's no reason anybody in the country should be hungry, except that their government is both highly isolationist and likes to meddle with the internal food supply.
- snrplfth 10y ago
  No, you said that "political strife has been the root cause of famine for over a thousand years." Which is not true - in a low-productivity, pre-industrial economy, inherently near the subsistence baseline, food shortfalls (and consequent famines) are frequently caused by weather, pestilence and other non-political-strife events. When it takes 8 or 9 farmers to feed themselves and one non-farmer (and year-to-year food storage capability is very poor) then even a 10% food production decline is a crisis. We absolutely have not had "enough food to feed the world for centuries", nor the means to transport it. In 1800, worldwide GDP per capita was barely above $1000 USD (current, PPP), and by 1900, just over $2000. The supposed surpluses simply did not exist. Ship transport was still relatively inefficient, and overland transport was extremely expensive in a world where ~80% of people lived in small rural communities with no paved roads between them, and even where roads did exist, they were of poor quality. The food surpluses and easy transport we see today are really quite a recent development, well within the 20th century.

jandrese 10y ago

That was my point. We have produced enough food to feed the world for centuries now, and we have had the means to transport it, but choose not to for political reasons. North Korea is a prime example, there's no reason anybody in the country should be hungry, except that their government is both highly isolationist and likes to meddle with the internal food supply.

snrplfth 10y ago
No, you said that "political strife has been the root cause of famine for over a thousand years." Which is not true - in a low-productivity, pre-industrial economy, inherently near the subsistence baseline, food shortfalls (and consequent famines) are frequently caused by weather, pestilence and other non-political-strife events. When it takes 8 or 9 farmers to feed themselves and one non-farmer (and year-to-year food storage capability is very poor) then even a 10% food production decline is a crisis. We absolutely have not had "enough food to feed the world for centuries", nor the means to transport it. In 1800, worldwide GDP per capita was barely above $1000 USD (current, PPP), and by 1900, just over $2000. The supposed surpluses simply did not exist. Ship transport was still relatively inefficient, and overland transport was extremely expensive in a world where ~80% of people lived in small rural communities with no paved roads between them, and even where roads did exist, they were of poor quality. The food surpluses and easy transport we see today are really quite a recent development, well within the 20th century.