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I don't mean to diminish the concerns you are raising, which are serious, but until the modern era China was beset by regular famine, and civilizations of the p
by emodendroket 4y ago
I don't mean to diminish the concerns you are raising, which are serious, but until the modern era China was beset by regular famine, and civilizations of the past did not necessarily farm in a more sustainable way -- it just doesn't matter if you're doing slash-and-burn agriculture with a small enough population relative to the land at your disposal.
- giraffe_lady 4y agoAren't like 4/5 of china's famines in the modern era? They certainly happened before but became much more prevalent after it was connected to the emerging global market system. A trend repeated in many other places. Food output decreases for many reasons, but famine is a political problem. During most of the worst famines in china, as elsewhere, starving regions were still exporting grain.
- emodendroket 4y agoDepends how you want to define "modern" I guess; I wouldn't count anything before the Communists took power but that still leaves the big one ending in 1962.
- giraffe_lady 4y agoI had in mind "late modern period" as frequently used by historians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_modern_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_modern_period And for china specifically (and also very much india) I would definitely include the 19th century victorian famines. They were driven by distinctly "modern" forces like global grain market prices, and bureaucratic/political prioritization of exports over sustaining the local population. Pre-modern famines were usually more directly caused by regional failure to react to specific climate events and crop failures. Or, traditionally, just local military aristocrats hoarding the grain.
- emodendroket 4y agoI was thinking more about how completely its governance had taken the form of a modern state, which I'd say was an incomplete process even in the Nationalist period.