by Pedro Miranda

Created on: January 12, 2009

Fairness, fairness; the most common words out of an older child's or teenager's mouth are: "Not fair."

The first phrase or thought that sets you on the track to being a grown up is when you internalize the thought: "Life's not fair; deal with it."

Is it fair that food is wasted in some places like the UK, US or Western Europe while people starve in others? Probably not but, what is the alternative?

Economy and industry are not zero sum games, if industrialized nations can and do waste food is because they have an excess production capacity, whether for food as in the US or, in the case of the UK of industrial capacity (The UK and Western Europe are not self sufficient in food production and import a significant amount of food from other nations)

Hunger in the third world is not due to lack of production capacity. All of these countries were able to feed their population in colonial times, and also to have an excess production of goods, which is what made colonizing them profitable in the first place. The problem is that almost all of these countries are ruled, if at all, by kleptocrats that simply steal large amounts of the domestic product to feed their cronies and sustain their hold on power.

Take Zimbabwe for instance; it was a food exporting nation before Mugabe, and is now unable to feed itself. Ethiopia was able to feed itself and be prosperous under Haile Selassie but, after he was overthrown, it became a nation of warlords fighting each other and, for a period of time, synonym with hunger. A similar thing happens in Somalia, where the only two apparent sources of income now are foreign aid and piracy.

When corrupt, kleptocratic governments or warlords hold power the people subject to them will not exercise their industry to produce food or goods that will be immediately stolen from them. If work is futile, why do it?

On the other hand, all those countries where food is "wasted" send huge amounts of humanitarian and food aid to third world countries. The aid is usually stolen by the warlords and local governments which are empowered by it, and only a small amount actually reaches the intended recipients.

The alternative would be to make it impossible for people in industrialized nations to waste food. How to do it would be tricky; you could for instance tax the food to make it so expensive that waste would be unthinkable, or you could ration it. In the first case, you would only be punishing the poor and middle class, in the second you would just be creating a black market for food, like they have in third world dictatorships. Even this would not help because as soon as you tried, you would find the excess production disappearing in thin air.

I may work 50 or 60 hours a week to get more money that would buy me extra goods and services (read food to waste if you want) but as soon as those extra goods and services are not there for me to buy, why would I work so hard? The farmer that ultimately grows the excess food that is wasted is getting paid for it; if he wasn't he would not grow it. If the excess food is taxed or taken away, to give to the needy third world countries, at some point the farmer would stop growing it, or the people who pay the taxes would stop producing beyond their own needs.

The net result would be no food waste, but also no excess food production and, the large part of it that is currently being given away as foreign aid would no longer be there.

The end result would be more hunger and poverty worldwide.

On the other hand, maybe the people of third world countries would then revolt and overthrow their dictators No, I don't see that happening.

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