The space of vulnerability: the causal structure of hunger and famine

Abstract

Mass poverty results from long-term changes in social production and distribution mechanisms; famines result from violent short-term changes in the same mechanisms. Growth of mass poverty increases vulnerability to famine through raising the proportion of the population surviving on the margin... Famines increases mass poverty by permanently altering the distribution of assets in favor of the [rich] (Ghose, A.K., 1989: 127). The focus on entitlements, which is concerned with the command over commodities, has to be seen as only instrumentally important, and the concentration has to be ultimately on basic human capabilities... It is in fact possible to see ’poverty ’ itself as a failure of basic capabilities (Dreze, J. and Sen, A.K., 1989: 13-15). ’Could we feed everyone? ’ asks Adam Przeworski (1991: 24) in his recent discussion of the relative capacities of capitalism and socialism to satisfy basic human needs. Under what hypothetical conditions might full food security be achieved, and might these conditions ever be realized? In Przeworski’s account, socialism is incapable of providing basic needs because it is economically (i.e., productively) ‘infeasible’. Capitalism conversely produces ’irrationality and injustice ’ but its feasibility (understood in a productive sense) renders it capable of providing for human sustenance, and a minimum of social welfare. All that is required says Przeworski is ’a state that would organize efficient markets, tax those who