POLS1701 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Soup Kitchen, International Development, System On A Chip
Lecture 6 - 03/04 - Hunger in the Midst of Plenty
How we understand hunger informs our response
e.g. nature approach - if we think it occurs naturally, we may refrain from intervening
social approach - if we understand it is an outcome of soc. + pol. institutions, we
can construct responses and policy to mitigate the issue
Monsanto etc. have accounts of hunger regarding to food availability - we must increase
production
Hunger is a failure of nature, it is entitlement failure
Hunger as an organised feature of global development
Sahlins: hunger is an institution in the era of greatest technical power
dismantling of welfare = lengthening soup kitchen lines
Two approaches: nature focused + society focused
Nature Focused:
population growth will outstrip food/the carrying capacity of nature
natural causes will restore equilibrium
question of food and hunger is approached primarily in relation to the question of
population and food availability
Malthusian perspective:
the crucial variable is the ratio of aggregate food supply to population
there is a natural tendency for that ratio to fall, leading to starvation.. until it goes up
again as a result of increased mortality
humans face checks to population
Preventative - natural causes, e.g. illness, hard labour
Positive - choice, e.g. not reproducing if you cant afford a family
abstraction from various social influences, making the food problem about two
physical magnitudes
Malthusian pessimism (assumes cycle of food/population declines), and optimism
(natural causes restoring equilibrium - we dont have to worry) as policy
assumes if there is enough food, people will have it
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Lecture 6 - 03/04 - hunger in the midst of plenty. How we understand hunger informs our response e. g. (cid:1684)nature approach(cid:1685) - if we think it occurs naturally, we may refrain from intervening (cid:1684)social approach(cid:1685) - if we understand it is an outcome of soc. + pol. institutions, we can construct responses and policy to mitigate the issue. Monsanto etc. have accounts of hunger regarding to food availability - we must increase production. Hunger is a failure of nature, it is entitlement failure. Hunger as an organised feature of global development. Sahlins: (cid:1684)hunger is an institution(cid:1685) in the era of greatest technical power dismantling of welfare = lengthening soup kitchen lines. Nature focused: population growth will outstrip food/the carrying capacity of (cid:1684)nature(cid:1685) natural causes will restore equilibrium question of food and hunger is approached primarily in relation to the question of population and food availability. Preventative - (cid:1684)natural(cid:1685) causes, e. g. illness, hard labour.
