Sen, Hunger & Rothbard's Law

The Economic analysis of hunger calls for only two things- an analysis of who is hungry (demand) and an analysis of who is willing and able to get food to the hungry (supply).

This is the only approach that works. It creates a coalition of the willing on the basis of 'money talks, bullshit walks'. Anything else, involves paying off corrupt rent seekers who will then have a vested interest in preserving the underlying problem.


Writing in 1997, Amartya Sen said-

Economic analysis of hunger calls for an informationally broad approach that takes adequate account of the distinct interdependences involved.

Such an approach would waste time and soak up resources. It would become the target of competing 'interessements' by nutters seeking 'obligatory passage point status'. You'd have to let the feminists drone on about how men steal their wives' food and then the vegans would drone about how meat is murder and then you'd have Sen himself talking shite about capabilities and entitlements.

This paper examines the interdependences between (1) income and food consumption,

Why bother? We don't examine the interdependence between income and getting a disease. Instead we identify who has the disease and how to get them help.

(2) operations of different economic factors,

Why? We want to end hunger not become virtue signaling Professors.

(3) production and trade in different countries,

A dangerous road to go down because it would lead to stupid populist measures like banning export of agricultural products

(4) macroeconomic stability and food security,

Utterly foolish! We want Macroeconomics to be wholly delinked from the Social Minimum. Food security has to do with infrastructure investment in storage and distribution. This too should be independent of macroeconomic considerations.

(5) intrafamily distributional rules and the sharing of food and health care,

Coz that's something we can change by waving a magic wand! No. The better way is to provide food for the hungry in a place they can easily get to and where they can eat it securely. For poor kids, this is at school. For women, it may be through Well Mother & Childcare centers. Make sure malnourished people get good cooked food twice a day outside the home and do meals on wheels for those who are housebound.

(6) women's power and fertility behaviour,

So we can listen to stupid UN rapporteurs drone on about how Scottish women are malnourished coz they have insufficient access to arable land due to Old Etonian Aristos have turned every last bit of the countryside into a grouse shoot.

(7) military expenditure and economic deprivation,

So the peaceniks can contribute their tuppence

(8) early undernourishment and its consequences on health and skills,

So WHO experts can jet in and give the same speech they have been giving for the last thirty years.

(9) political incentives and the direction of government policy,

So partisan intellectuals like Sen can utter tendentious sound-bites

and (10) public activism and social commitment.

Which means bores and 'chuggers' making a nuisance of themselves.

The better course is to roll up your sleeves and get on with the job. Find the hungry and give them food. It's what Herbert Hoover did in Belgium and it worked. But then the British in India had already set a precedent in this matter with their 'Famine Code'. Sadly, once responsibility for Food was devolved to elected Indians in the Provinces, a Famine could rage without a Famine being declared by Indian politicians. That's what happened in '43-44 in Bengal. Indians should be ashamed that the Brits had put a stop to Famines and then, seven years after they devolved power over Food, the Indians screwed up on a massive scale. Not all Indians. The Bengalis were the worst offenders. Interestingly, after Bangladesh was taken over by democratically elected politicians, it had a big famine. Both times, some people got very rich while millions died.

Sen, of course, wants to tell us a pack of lies-

 Communist China still did worse than 'Greater China' or Chinese influenced South Korea. The truth is the vast Han majority of Chinese are more similar to caste Hindus (who are barely a majority in India) in I.Q and Social Mores but quite different from the rest of the Indian population. Even so, the Chinese have rational dietary habits and a superior indigenous medical theory and practice. Also, they had an 'internal passport' system which meant entitlements were more closely linked to contributions. Furthermore, their Ruling Party could shoot corrupt or incompetent people. India had to just hope they'd fuck off to the U.N or a Professorship at Ivy League.

There is no point in comparing countries with completely different incentive mechanism and social habitus. No policy prescription can be made on such a basis.

Sen next compares India to war-ravaged, AIDS afflicted Sub Saharan Africa. He remarks that Africa had much higher child mortality but less child mal-nourishment. This is pure Darwinism. The African kids who survived were genetically superior. They could convert nutrition more efficiently.

Sen thinks something 'nasty' was going on in India. We all know what it was. Govt. Schools were crap coz teachers there count the votes at election time and thus can't be messed with. Since they can't be fired so they scarcely bother turning up for work. The proper way to tackle child malnutrition is to do it the way the Brits did it- giving kids milk and hot meals at School and sacking employees who stole from such programs.

Sen goes on to take potshots at the 'World Food summit'. These misfire. Summits of this sort should be about identifying the food availability deficit and creating a coalition of those willing to supply it. All that then remains is working out the logistics on the fly while those genuinely interested in alleviating hunger can roll up their sleeves and get on with the job instead of having to listen to Feminists and Vegans and 'native informant' Sen-tentious shitheads intent on obfuscating everything so as to create an 'interessement' mechanism for themselves.

The two World wars and their aftermath brought the specter of Famine to Western Europe. It was swiftly exorcised because capable people- not stupid professors- identified who needed food and who had it to spare. They then tackled the problem directly without doing any of the stupid stuff Sen recommends.

The setting up of the F.A.O- which was very successfully led by B.R Sen and also employed Sukhatme, an Indian Agricultural Statisticians whom, the Bengali, Mahalanobis had chased out of India- is an example of sensible post-war thinking. Sen, naturally, thinks it is fundamentally misconceived. Why have one U.N organization when you can have two which can fight with each other?

The FAO succeeded. Countries which followed sensible policies soon had too much, not too little food. Countries which listened to stupid mathematical economists accepted food aid from sensible countries. But this worsened the problem of hunger. Lal Bahadur Shastri- a very short and thin man- called on Indians to skip a meal because of the food crisis. Thankfully, the Planning Commission saw sense and so India's Green revolution could go ahead and kids like me grew up to be taller, not shorter, than our parents.

Sadly, successive Indian Governments have not reformed the Public Education and Health system in most States. To some extent this is because much of rural India is simply not livable in for anyone with a modicum of education. Just recently, near Nalanda- where an 'International University' exists of which Sen was the Chancellor- a Doctor was tied to a tree and forced to watch his wife and daughter being gang-raped. 17 men were arrested but, if they were juveniles, they'll be out and about in a year or two. If they are politically connected, the case will drag on till even the Doctor becomes a hostile witness. In this sort of milieu, only very corrupt Doctors and Teachers will be willing to work because their own criminal connections intimidate the hell out of their wives' would be gang-rapists.

No doubt, if the District becomes an RSS stronghold, then the criminal element will be contained. Perhaps that is what will happen if 'Nalanda University' gains 'autonomy' and perpetuates itself as a bastion for muscular Hindutva.

Sen thinks 'Democracy' and 'a Free Press' guarantee good administration. The evidence from his own native Bengal- 2 big famines under elected Governments- suggests that he lives in a fantasy land. He does not understand that Law and Order are not free goods which magically appear by themselves. Nor does he understand that when they do appear, all sorts of virtue signaling shitheads will start hollering that Democracy is being undermined and the Freedom of the Press is being curtailed.

Of perhaps it is I who am being naive. Sen understood all this- after all he was from Bengal- but just went ahead and said the opposite so as to create an obligatory passage point status for himself and get to pose as the Mother Theresa of Economics in obedience to Rothbard's Law- economists specialize in what they are worst at.