The Scarcity Fallacy

"The Scarcity Fallacy" by Stephen J. Scanlan, J. Craig Jenkins, and Lindsey Peterson discusses the main causes and issues concerning world hunger. Although popular perceptions of world hunger point to food scarcity being the cause of the problem, the authors argue that the less obvious issue of "food security" poses a much greater problem. The World Bank describes food security as "the inability to acquire the food necessary to sustain an active and healthy life." According to the article, the primary cause of hunger is poverty. Other causes include gender and ethnic inequality. About sixty percent of the world's hungry people consist of women. Ethnic discrimination in places such as Eritrea, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Indonesia, and the Sudan can prevent certain people (minorities) from producing or earning money to purchase food.

International food aid was created to assist in feeding the hungry around the world. However, this seemingly beneficial solution is actually quite ineffective and misdirected. Corruption and problems in delivery prevents food aid from helping those who need it most and benefit US shipping companies and agri-business more than those people who the program is supposed to help.

Some possible major solutions to this problem include: a global recognition that food is a fundamental human right, overcoming the corruption and inefficiency of international food aid, and promoting sustainable agriculture emphasizing local food systems. Food scarcity is an issue; however, major societal changes are needed to combat the problem of world hunger and to ensure that all people receive food.

Questions:
If significant societal changes are needed to decrease world hunger, what kinds of costs and societal problems might come about do to these changes? Are there downsides to the suggestions that the article made to solve the global hunger issue?

Emergency Food

Sweet Charity by Janet Poppendieck discusses the major issues of hunger and poverty that has been prevalent for some time. She emphasizes the effects of programs such as soup kitchens and food banks that arose to provide emergency food to people that have trouble feeding themselves and their families. In chapter two, "Who Eats Emergency Food?," Poppendieck explains that the major causes of the need for emergency food is unemployment and underemployment, high housing costs, inadequate public assistance, and reduced food assistance. These problems are worsened by things like a failing economy and recession. The chapter also describes the poverty line and how the system that defines poverty is rather outdated. When the line was first created, people who spent a third or more of their total income were said to be below the poverty line. Fifty years later, people are spending much less of their income on food and the standard of living has changed drastically.

In chapter three, Poppendieck brings up the "social constructionist" perspective on hunger. This view moves away from the individual and looks at the broad spectrum of problems that are associated with hunger. The perspective claims that hunger is thus a societal problem and addresses how larger issues such as politics and economics are some of the major causes of this problem.

Questions:

Should the government redefine a poverty line to accommodate people with specific needs and for changes in living standards? If so, what kinds of changes should be made to help more people in need? What are the consequences of these changes?

The McDonaldization of Society

George Ritzer discusses in his chapter, "The McDonaldization of Society" in Sociological Odyssey, how the process of rationalization has taken over many aspects of human society. Ritzer breaks down rationality into several characteristics which are: efficiency, predictability, calculability, substitution of nonhuman for human technology, and control over uncertainty. The emphasis on these aspects in our society correlates greatly with how industrialized and mechanized our way of living has become. Constantly improving technologies have been steadily increasing the efficiency of production to allow for greater quantities of goods to be produced and sold at significantly reduced costs. This also leads to lower quality products and uniformity, or predictability as Ritzer calls it.

Although rational systems provide many benefits, Ritzer argues that rationality comes with a price. First, there are almost always negative byproducts produced in rational systems that people need to remove, or in some cases simply cover up, using some artificial solution. An example of this in the food industry is the massive amounts of chemicals and antibiotics we feed our livestock so that they can consume feed that they would not be able to process otherwise. Another problem with rational systems is dehumanization. Rationalization promotes efficiency in human actions and work. The way people work most efficiently is by doing repetitive simple tasks (i.e. assembly line style of work) and this leads to people acting as robots.

Ritzer clearly states that he is not urging society to become less rational but rather gain greater control of rationalization so that we do not experience its negative consequences. This notion makes sense but is it even possible to do so? With more and more reliance on technology and a huge demand for greater efficiency, will rationality eventually dominate our society? Will we ever reach a point where machines do all the work of humans?