Large organizations cannot end poverty, at least not by themselves. They can’t do it right for the same reasons big public schools cannot correctly raise children. The children each need their own parents who can meet their individual needs, and similarly we need to fight poverty on a local, grassroots level.
We will never find a one-size-fits-all solution for poverty, because none exists. While we can use generally effective methods, only grassroots groups can attack local poverty with the detailed precision required to successfully eliminate it.
For that reason, I believe that the most effective large-scale efforts must focus on helping local anti-poverty organizations, rather than fighting poverty directly.
If you want to join the fight against poverty, I suggest you that you work with small local organizations in your community, rather than just donating to large-scale organizations. If you cannot find any worthy local groups, you can form your own.
If you want to talk about how to fight poverty locally, and about how to find or start a local anti-poverty group, you can join the Hunger and Poverty Forums. It’s completely free, and we have members from all over the world.
by Scott Hughes
The yew year comes whether we want it to or not. Without fail every year, all of us a year older celebrate the coming of a new year on New Years Day, and we wish ourselves a good year.
What’s so new about it, though?
As we close this year and tally up the millions of children who died of hunger, I have no doubt that millions more will die next year. In the so-called new year, AIDS will continue to spread. In the so-called new year, we will still blow ourselves up with bombs, missiles and other weapons, instead of building schools and educating the children. The new year will still deprive billions of innocent people the opportunity to gain healthcare, education, food, and employment.
I see nothing new about the coming year. I see the same traits in the coming year as the past year, and all the years before that. I see the same pain, hunger, poverty, disease, and unhappiness. I see the same neglectful and apathetic public. I see the same non-meritocratic social inequality. I see the same prevalence of coercion, violence, hate, and loneliness. I see the same deficit of cooperation, love, and solidarity.
The United States government will still put the majority of its funds – stolen through taxation – towards Pentagon spending. Mega-corporations will still use politicians to oppress the masses, and the masses will continue to let it happen. The prison-industrial complex will still ensure that millions of poor and working-class people will still rot in prison – many for “victimless crimes”. Instead of changing the world and bettering their own lives, the working-class and the general public will continue to squander their power and indulge in self-destructive and short-sighted vices.
Consumers will still buy the petty material things from the malls and shops, as directed from TV commercials and billboards. We will still take drugs – both legal and illegal. We will still eat unhealthy and addictive foods, as we grow fat and depressed in front of the same television that brainwashes us into doing it.
We won’t better our lives by bettering the world in 2007. We will continue to make the few rich and powerful people in this corrupt world richer and more powerful, at our expense. We will buy fast-food, cigarettes and beer, and fancy cars, houses, and clothes on credit. We will still neglect our kids.
We don’t need a new year, we need a new era! We need a new era in which no child goes hungry, and no child lives in poverty. We need a new era in which all people have access to education and socioeconomic opportunity. We need a new era in which healthcare is everywhere and homelessness is nowhere. We need a new era in which HIV and AIDS no longer spreads. We need a loving and happy era.
We can celebrate the beginning of the new calendar one day every year, but we also need to change the world and make both the world and our lives permanently better.
A new year will come whether we want it to or not, but a new era will only come if we make it.
Let’s make a new era. Let’s get motivated and use love, patience, and dedication to create non-governmental organizations based on voluntary solidarity and voluntary cooperation to solve the many problems facing us and our world.
Let’s change the number of the year tonight, and change the world tomorrow.
by Scott Hughes
A few weeks ago, my grandmother told me about the veterans’ charities that asked her for donations. She told me that she regularly gave to a specific veterans’ organization, but that other organizations continued to solicit her. She asked me, “if I give to one, I shouldn’t be obligated to give to the others, right?”
I responded, “you’re not obligated to give to any at all.”
A lot of problems plague the world, and a lot of people need help. However, we still need to respect the right of anyone to help or not help as they please. I define slavery as forcing someone to help. Enslaving others or robbing them cannot help our causes; it just creates needless conflict and enemies. Yes, we need people to help, but we have to ask and persuade them to help, not force them, because nobody has an obligation to help or give, neither morally nor legally.
Indeed, different people have different opinions about what constitutes ‘help,’ and these different people can choice to use their own money, body, labor, and time to help or not help as they see fit.
Everyone has their own moral judgments. Using these judgments against others has caused much conflict in the world. A wise man who we call Jesus said, “judge not lest ye be judged.” And, he said, “let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.” To have a positive effect, we need to focus our moral judgments internally. Focused externally, people tend to use their moral judgments to excuse violence and conflict, and to force their will on others. In contrast, we can use our moral judgments to direct our own actions and better ourselves, rather than harm or coerce others.
I personally avoid using the concept of morality at all, at least in the public light. I try to analyze and describe everything amorally.
Legally speaking, unfortunately many places in the world force people to help or give. For example, consider taxes. Taxation literally involves robbery.
Again, many preventable problems plague the world. For example, 16,000 children die of hunger every day. Just like those children, the world needs help. Nonetheless, we cannot force people to help out or give. Even ignoring my personal disgust with theft and slavery, such offensive coercion cannot effectively solve these problems.
Attacking and coercing people only angers and offends them. It creates conflict. It creates problems, instead of fixing them.
To solve the problems such as hunger, poverty, and non-meritocratic inequality, we must not try to legally force people to help. We can ask for help, but not demand it. We can persuade people, but not coerce them.
We must tolerate the inaction of others. ‘Tolerance’ doesn’t mean ‘like’ or ‘promote.’ ‘Tolerance’ just means allow. We must allow others to do what they wish, insofar as they do not harm anyone else. We need to focus on actually solving our problems, and we cannot do that if we intolerantly waste time and effort using offensive force to coerce people who mean us no harm.
We have every reason to legally obligate people not to offensively harm us or anyone. Similarly, we have every reason to use defensive force to stop people from offensively harming us or anyone. Still, we must recognize the difference between ‘harming’ and ‘not helping.’
People have every right not to help if they wish not to. People have every right not to give if they don’t want to. For example, if a person works and earns money, that person now owns that money and can do or not do with it what ever they want, insofar as they do not offensively harm anyone else. Similarly, a person can use their body, labor, and time anyway they please, insofar as they do not offensively harm anyone else. That’s freedom, and we cannot solve socioeconomic problems such as hunger and poverty if we fail to respect people’s freedom.
This isn’t about morality. This is about practicality and effectiveness. If we waste time bickering and battling with others to offensively force them to do what we think they “should” do, then we just create needless conflict and more problems.
We have serious and difficult issues that we need to address, and come up with well-though-out and effective plans to fix. We cannot succeed if we lazily attempt to use the big clumsy hand of an interfering government to rob or enslave others, or “punish” them for acting “immorally.”
Instead, we need to use an open-minded approach to persuade others to help. We need to discuss and address the concerns of others, not pathetically attempt to coerce them to our line-of-thought. Based on voluntaryism, we can create non-governmental organizations and implement agreeable initiatives to actually provide effective help to society and solve the problems facing us, such as hunger, poverty, and non-meritocratic social inequality.
These terrible problems tear my heart apart, to think of the innocent children dying in the agonizing pain and suffering of preventable hunger. Like so many others, I desperately wish to solve these terrible problems plaguing our society. Nonetheless, we must not let that desperation trick us into using offensive coercion. We cannot afford to make enemies of our peers. Instead of working against each other, let’s work with each other. Let’s respect the rights of others, and fight the problem not the people.
About The Author: In addition to this blog, Scott Hughes administrates the World Hunger and Poverty Forums, where you can discuss this article and poverty in general.
by Scott Hughes
“The 4.8 pounds of grain fed to cattle to produce one pound of beef for human beings represents a colossal waste of resources in a world still teeming with people who suffer from profound hunger and malnutrition.” -Jim Motavalli
When studying the factors involved in world hunger, many overlook meat production and consumption.
I turned into a vegan, mainly due to the efficiency of producing a vegan meal in comparison to a meat meal. In other words, with the same amount of resources one can produce more vegetarian/vegan meals than meaty meals.
When raising livestock for consumption, the meat-manufacturer must feed the animal continuously. For example, imagine all the food that a farmer feeds a pig before killing it, and compare that to the relatively small amount of food that actually comes from the dead pig. Instead of that mistreated pig, all those resources could have fed a human being, namely one of the 16,000 children who die every day from hunger.
Obviously, world hunger and the causes thereof extend far beyond inefficient food production. In fact, the world has enough food to feed everyone in the world, even with current inefficiency. Neither vegeratarianism nor veganism can solve this problem alone. Political and socioeconomic phenomena cause the world hunger and poverty epidemic, namely corrupt governments, non-meritocratic social inequality, and disrupted trade routes.
Nonetheless, I myself choose to become a vegan still, because I have a personal principle not to use more than my fair share. For example, if I was walking in a desert with a group of people and we stumbled upon some water, I would only take my fair share of that water.
I’m not a communist. I believe in free-trade and meritocracy. For example, if I worked twice as hard as you and grew twice as much fruit, than I deserve twice as much fruit. Similarly, if you worked twice as hard as I, and you grew twice as much fruit, then you deserve twice as much fruit. That’s fair.
In my opinion, you deserve the fruits of your labor. I deserve the fruits of my labor. Everyone deserves the fruits to their own respective labor.
However, when talking about land, we speak not of the fruits of our labor. Rather, we speak of natural resources. Just like the water upon which we may stumble in the desert, the land is NOT mine, yours, or anybody’s. None of us did anything to produce the land.
Tyrants have often used the claim of land-ownership to justify a non-meritocratic and authoritarian social structure. They claim they own the land to create an illusory economic system in which they have all the pseudo-wealth and power. This is completely historically verifiable. For example these tyrants would say they own the land and other resources, and then would make the land surfs and slaves work on the land to live on the land and eat the food. The so-called “land owner” didn’t work, because he made money with the land, but the so-called “land owner” ate the best food, slept in the best bed, and lived comfortably off the fruits of the workers’ labor. So, in reality, the so-called “land owner” is a thief and a slave owner, but he uses a fraudulent concept of land-ownership and a convoluted economic system to disguise his tyranny.
We see this continue today. The banks charge mortgages, so debtors can buy land. The land lords charge rent to the people on the land. So-called third-world countries are plagued by corruption, because a tiny upper-class claims ownership of the natural resources, namely oil. It’s the poor working class in these countries that do all the work, make and run the factories, and so on, but it’s the lazy tyrants who have all the pseudo-wealth and power, simply because they’ve unjustifiably claimed control of the natural resources. (And, when anyone questions this unjustifiable claim, they get sneered at and called a communist or socialist.)
This is a global problem, and a global issue. The aforementioned situations simply exemplify this form of theft through economic deception.
I feel as much a victim as a perpetrator. I say that because, to convince anyone of this issue and all of the related issues, they need to understand the personal effects of the flaws in the common way of thinking about natural resources. When people understand their own victimization, then they prepare to stop it. Only collective changes in mindsets and voluntary cooperation can change and prevent global issues such as these. I think Lila Watson meant this when she said:
“If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” -Lila Watson
Nonetheless, once we realize how these problems negatively affect and victimize us, we need to understand that we perpetuate these problems, if we wish to stop them. Obviously, if we perpetuate the problems, we can only stop the problems by ending our perpetuation of the problems.
Not only do we need to prevent and stop world hunger, poverty, and non-meritocratic inequality, but also we need to stop this misconception about natural resources and the results thereof.
When we buy expensive meat, we perpetuate the socioeconomic problems that both victimize us and contribute to world hunger and poverty. Many Westerners willingly pay more for the luxury of meat than for vegetarian alternatives. For that reason, for example, instead of selling 4.8 pounds of grain, the farmer feeds it to a cattle, which only produces one pound of beef per 4.8 pounds of grain. Often on credit, the Westerns pay for all the excess land, grain, water, and such resources, thus denying those with less money (or less Western credit) the opportunity to use those natural resources.
I’ve often been told that it takes 10 times as much land to feed a meat-eater, rather than a vegan. I’ve also been told that there is not enough land and resources in the world to feed everyone in the world a luxurious Western diet rich in meat.
That’s not my land; that’s not your land; that’s everyone’s land. I’m not going to take more than my fair share. I’d rather see those resources go to feeding the hungry.
That’s why I am a vegan. That’s also why I work with Food Not Bombs, which offers vegetarian food to hungry people.
I’m not telling anyone to become a vegan or vegetarian. I’m not judging anyone who is not a vegan or vegetarian. I’m not going to throw stones, because I live in a glass house. We all contribute to the flawed socioeconomic system. We all have our vices, and we all have our different opinions on what constitutes a vice. To solve the problems plaguing our world, we need to look introspectively at ourselves and find ways to change ourselves.
Here’s a great quote by an unknown monk along those lines:
“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn�t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn�t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.”
With this blog post, I just want to explain why I became a vegan, and similarly how meat production relates to hunger and poverty. I leave with some facts:
“Americans spend $110 billion a year on meat-intensive fast food, and its growing popularity around the world may be a factor in dramatic increases in global meat consumption.” -Wikipeda
“One third of the world’s cereal harvest is fed to farm animals.” -International Vegetarian Union (IVU)
“More than 60% of the grains and soybeans raised in the U.S. are fed to animals, rather than to the world�s 840 million starving people. A mere 10% reduction in our meat consumption would free up the foodstuffs to feed the 24,000 people who die each day of hunger related causes.” -‘Veggies For Ecology’
“It takes 100,000 litres of water to produce 1 kilo of beef, but only 500 litres of water to produce 1 kilo of potatoes. Water scarcity is a major global problem.” -Compassion In World Farming
“The meat production wastes a lot of foodstuff. To produce one kilogram of meat, one needs 7 – 16 kg of grain or soya beans. When �transforming� grain into meat 90% of protein, 99% of carbohydrates and 100% of fibre are lost. Nevertheless, in Switzerland 57% of grain are being fed to animals for slaughter.” -The Swiss Union for Vegetarianism
“By eating 2 fewer meat dishes a week, the saving in grain would feed 225 million people every year.” -OneEarth.org
“36% of the worlds grain supply goes to feeing livestock and poultry.” – OneEarth.org
About The Author: Scott Hughes runs this blog in addition to The Hunger and Poverty Forums.
Am I happy that Democrats took control of congress? Hell no. Democrat politicians are just as bad as Republican politicians. They’re both owned by special interests. They both support bigger government. Just like the Republicans, the Democrats aren’t going to solve any of our problems; They’ll just make them worse. The Democrats do such things as increase our taxes, increase the enforcement of victimless crimes (e.g. gun ownership), and increase government spending.
Republican or Democrat, I like most people I meet as individuals. In contrast, politicians are all a bunch of multi-faced crooks, and the government is nothing but a mafia.
Why I Didn’t Vote
I want to solve these problems facing, such as hunger and poverty, but we need to do it ourselves. We need to utilize non-governmental solutions and voluntary cooperation. Playing into divisive partisan politics just furthers the corruption of the status quo. Instead of that, we need to use non-governmental organization, such as creating and promoting private clubs, private charities, and grassroots movements based on voluntaryism.
Here’s some quotes:
Malcom X:
“The difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is the Republicans will stick a 12 inch knife in your back then the democrats will come along and pull it out 3 inches – I don’t call pulling a 12 inch knife out of my back 3 inches making progress”
Malcolm X had no illusions in the so-called differences between the Democrats and Republicans. “One is the wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they’ll both eat you.” In the 1964 presidential elections, when the candidates were Johnson (the “peace” candidate) vs. Goldwater (the “war” candidate), Malcolm X exposed the deciet of this phony distinction.
“The shrewd capitalists, the shrewd imperialists,” he said, “knew that the only way people would run towards the fox (Johnson) would be if you showed them the wolf (Goldwater). So they created a ghastly alternative… And at the moment he (Johnson) had troops invading the Congo and South Vietnam.”
Global Citizenship
by Scott Hughes
My favorite philosopher, Diogenes The Cynic, first said, “I am a citizen of the world.” He wanted people to recognize him as a human being and not by his geographic origins or some other trivial grouping.
I like to take that philosophy and apply it to the concerns and problems of our contemporary world. I want to feed the hungry children all over this world. I want to provide clothing, shelter, education, and socioeconomic opportunity to all the children – and adults for that matter – of this world.
I want to see the end of the world hunger that kills 16,000 children every day. Similarly, I want to see food, education, and opportunity offered to those who have it not, namely the 3 billion people living on less than $2.00 a day. I want to proved food, clothing, shelter, education, and socioeconomic opportunity to everyone in the world, not just the people geographically close to me or ethnically similar to me.
I do not want to rob people of another nation so that the people of “my” nation can benefit. For example, I do NOT want to wear fancy sneakers if it leads to the abuse of foreign children in a foreign sweatshop. I do not want innocent Iraqi citizens to die in an ignorant attempt by the U.S. and the U.K. to help and protect themselves. In the same respect, I do not want innocent U.S. citizens to die from collapsing twin-towers in an ignorant attempt by Arabs to help and protect themselves.
I value innocent lives equally – whether they’re the 40,000 slaughtered Iraqi citizens in the Iraq War, or the 3,000 American citizens slaughtered in the 9/11 Terrorist Attack, or the 16,000 innocent children who die every day from hunger, or the 2.2 million Americans rotting in American jails and prisons – most of whom have not been convicted and over 25% of whom are charged with victimless “crimes” – and the uncharged unconvicted children suffering in Guantanamo and other U.S. international prisons, many of which are secret.
I try to be a citizen of the world.
However, I do not think the recent adoptions by celebrities of third-world children exemplifies the aforementioned philosophy. That’s not to say I don’t commend these adoptions, such as that by Madonna. I find the adoptions very commendable; Madonna has not only saved this child’s life, but also brought the child into a whole new environment where the child won’t be deprived of many necessities such as would have happened otherwise.
Despite the incredible commendability of the adoptions, I think the adoptions exemplify a common misconception. They exemplify and symbolize the illusion of a separation between the hunger and poverty epidemic in the third-world and the global problems facing all of us, including working-class America.
It seems we find it easier to treat the terrible hunger and poverty epidemic in these third-world countries as some completely separate issue of unluckiness, rather than admit that that epidemic is just one terrible symptom in a global line of many symptoms of an even worse underlying problem.
So, while what Madonna and these other caring celebrities individually did is commendable, we as a collective cannot solve these problems of hunger, poverty and such if we look at these particular epidemics as separate issues.
For example, we must not just go to Africa like Madonna and see the problem as something only faced there. That’s not to trivialize the terrible epidemics in these third-world countries; they’re serious problems and they need to be addressed ASAP. Nonetheless, we cannot solve those problems unless we recognize and admit that they share the root cause with most of the social problems in our world. I’m not just talking about the 14 million children in the U.S. that live in food insecure households; that’s just another terrible symptom.
Henry David Thoreau said, “there are a thousand striking at the branches of evil to the one striking at the root.”
I commend Madonna and anyone who strikes or even takes out a branch of “evil.” However, no matter how many of us – and we’ll never get everybody – hack away at the branches, we’ll never knock down the tree unless we strike the root. To truly solve these problems, we need to strike the root – social inequality and corrupt politics.
To put this in perspective, look at the following facts: The U.N. says that a $40 billion increase in funding could feed, clothe, and educate the entire world. The U.S. governments alone spend over $50 billion every year on the war on drugs. (Interestingly, the war on drugs not only wastes money that could help, but the war hurts the poor and minorities. It’s poor and black people who end up rotting in jail-cells. For example, in the U.S. more white people take illicit drugs, while more black people go to jail for illicit drugs. Classism is even more of the issue, with rich people using expensive lawyers, bribes, and such to get off.)
Some would say, make the government solve this problem. That’s an arguable solution, but I would argue that the government will never solve these problems. Obviously, the politicians care about their own well-being and their own interests, not ours. The politicians only pretend to care about our interests to gain votes. We need to understand that the government – and the mostly-corporate special-interests that control it – use OUR money, which they steal through taxation and inflation. The government – and the mostly-corporate special-interests that control it – will never spend that money the way we want it spent, and they will never spend it to solve our problems. Indeed, it is these very problems that give the government an excuse to steal the money and freedom from the people. If we want to decide how to spend the money, I believe we can only do that by taking our money and freedom back, and then using it to solve the problems that face us, namely hunger, poverty, and lack of socioeconomic opportunity.
Thomas Jefferson said, “when the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
We want to solve the preventable problems plaguing the citizens of this world, right?
To do that, we need to tell the powers that be that we no longer will allow them to steal our wealth, freedom, or rightful power. We need to tell and show them that we plan to use OUR wealth, freedom, and meritocratically rightful power to solve the problems facing us, the citizens of the world. We can tell them that they can do whatever they want, but from now on they will have to do it without stealing our wealth or freedom, and without the government.
The key of course, we actually need to use our wealth and power to invest in education and development, namely with student loans and business loans, respectively. If we include food, clothes, and shelter with tuition costs, then we can solve these epidemics essentially for free.
About The Author: Scott Hughes runs a Self-Defense, Safety, and Security Blog as well as this Hunger and Poverty Blog. He also owns The Online Book Club, and SpokenWordArt.com. Discuss these serious issues with him at The Hunger And Poverty Forums.
© Copyright 2006, Scott Hughes. All Rights Reserved.
by Scott Hughes
Do you remember 9/11? I cried.
2,819 people died in the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers [1].
16,000 children die every day from hunger [2]. That’s about one child every 5 seconds.
No doubt we have to end hunger, especially childhood hunger. This terrible horror plagues the whole world, not just isolated places. For example, 14 million children in the United States are food insecure [3]. There is no question about the horrible nature of hunger, nor about the need to reduce and eliminate this problem, ASAP. The only question is: “how?”
I think the biggest threat to successfully reducing and eliminating hunger isn’t from the lack of answers to that question. The biggest threat to eliminating hunger isn’t from the apparent apathy of certain people. I think the biggest threat to successfully reducing and eliminating hunger is the false methods, the fools gold that hunger and poverty activists chase after.
Welfare will never end hunger nor poverty. While these activists dream up some amazing deux ex machina, involving some fictionally philanthropic government swooping in and saving everyone, in the real world children are starving to death. We have to end hunger and poverty, but welfare and government spending will never solve those problems.
Taxation
First of all, social spending such as welfare is funded through taxation. I don’t know what these hunger activists are thinking when they come up with the idea of stealing from the rich to end hunger. It’s unfeasible for so many reasons, namely because the rich have too much power. If you try to steal $100,000 from the rich, the rich will just buy politicians for $10,000. The rich never end up paying the taxes, the working-class ends up footing the bill.
Taking from the working-class only hurts the hungry and poor more. Unlike the rich, working-class people live with the poor and hungry, and work with the poor and hungry. In fact, many times the hard-working working-class people are poor. Depending on the criteria of “working poor“, there are between 6.4 and 28 million working poor people in the United States [4].
When the working-class have money, they invest it in their communities by opening businesses, schools, and local stores that increase communal wealth and alleviate hunger, poverty and unemployment. But, these foolish hunger activists ask the government to rob the working class, and thus indirectly rob the hungry.
When a parent finally finds a job that may at least feed half, clothe, and house half of her children, are we actually going to pilfer her earnings though taxation?
By robbing the middle-classes in the name of the poor, these hunger activists increase class war and hinder the lower and working classes. Theft can’t end hunger, but why would we want it to?
Debt
The United States government is in debt trillions of dollars. There’s no money to give the hungry and poor, anyway. Again, the rich aren’t going to foot the bill on this. They’ll push it down to the lower and working classes. In turn, that will just perpetuate the artificial rat race that oppresses the poor, hungry, and working classes.
Dependency
Even if there was a magical money tree to fund these gifts, welfare will never work because of dependency. By just giving away what little wealth they can muster, these activists won’t fight hunger. The way to fight hunger is to stop the cause of hunger. Just giving food to these people will make them dependent on the gifts rather than on actually solving hunger.
As Lau Tzu said, “Give a man a fish; you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish; you feed him for a lifetime.”
What even Lao Tzu didn’t mention was that when you give a man a fish, that man also becomes lazy and dependent on that gift. The man won’t have any reason to learn to fish if you give him one for free. The efforts to end hunger must involve employing the poor and reconnecting labor with wealth. Unfortunately, the working-class don’t get the full fruits of their labor, because a non-working upper-class gets it. To fix this, we can’t just try to give away stolen money. We must find a solution that will give the money back to the working. We must find a solution based on production.
To do that we must utilize education. Education and loans are the key to solving hunger.
There’s no way an under-educated populace will change the non-meritocratic system. So, the first step is education, which can easily be funded with loans. What’s a more secure thing to invest in than education? Additionally, food, clothing, and housing can be included in tuition costs. Best of all, student loans don’t need to be taken from government. Private investment can fund student loans, and even turn a profit via interest.
Welfare won’t work because it requires large amounts of non-existent funds, breeds dependence, and increases class war. Instead of helping solve the problem, welfare and the promotion thereof increases the problem. The solution isn’t welfare, it’s education. Although I believe private education is more effective, government sponsored student loans still don’t have the drawbacks of government-sponsored welfare, namely because loans have no net cost. Essentially, we can fight hunger for free.
About The Author: Scott Hughes owns and operates Millions Of Mouths – a website dedicated to ending hunger. You can discuss hunger on the hunger and poverty forums. Read more articles like this at his hunger and poverty blog on MillionsOfMouths.com:
http://millionsofmouths.com/blog/nfblog/
[1] http://www.newyorkmetro.com/news/articles/wtc/1year/numbers.htm
[2] State of Food Insecurity in the World 2005. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
[3] Nord, M., Andrews, M., Carlson, S. (October 2005) Household Food Security in the United States, 2004. Washington, D.C.: Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_poor
by Scott Hughes
Hunger’s a beast of a problem. 15 million children die from it every year. Even in the United States, 14 million children are food insecure. The facts keep going like that. Off the top of my head, I could probably spit out enough facts about hunger to make you cry. I’ve got pictures too. In fact, I have an entire website dedicated to ending hunger and poverty, namely childhood hunger and poverty. 10 minutes on that website and it becomes clearly obvious to anyone that as a society we must fix this problem.
Since I run a website dedicated to fighting hunger to the end, it seems appropriate for me to explain the methods that we as a society need to take to end hunger.
In and of itself, food is far from the end-all solution. It’s not even the last step. Of course, it is a step. In fact, it’s the first step. Food is the first step. That’s because, if a hungry child fails to eat today, that hungry child dies tonight. However, if the hungry child eats today, then we still have a hungry child tomorrow. We cannot end hunger without food, but food alone won’t solve the problem. Simply giving food to the hungry to solve hunger is like shoveling water out of a sinking ship. For example, in 2005 the World Food Programme (WFP) distributed 4.2 million metric tons of food to the world’s hungry [1], yet in 2005 852 million people across the world went hungry. [2]
In addition to food, we must utilize education. Education is the silver bullet required to rid the world of the vampire that is hunger, sucking the blood of justice from our society. In this context, it isn’t even a metaphor to use the clich�d Lao Tzu proverb: “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” The future of a child is literally determined by the availability of education, and the quality of that education.
What an unjust world, in which simply the birth location of a child can sentence the child to a life of poverty and starvation!
It isn’t a far-fetched dream to imagine a world in which all children, and even all people, have access to education. For example, less than one percent of what the world spent every year on weapons could put every child into school, yet it doesn’t happen [3]. Unlike weapons which blow up, education can be funded by student loans, meaning it doesn’t even require spending or charity, just investment.
Education doesn’t just help fight hunger for the one educated person. Rather, the viral benefits of education spread outward and back like Karma itself. For example, an educated man from a poor neighborhood may open a business and employ other people from his neighborhood, who would otherwise be unemployed or under-employed. Perhaps, those employees then could use some of their pay to invest in their own education…
Although education is the most powerful tool in the fight against hunger and poverty, just like food alone won’t solve the problem, neither will education. There is still more needed to fix the problem once and for all. This last step is of course the hardest step. The society and the social system in which people, namely children, starved must change. This change can’t be quick and won’t be easy. Rather, it must be a change caused by the education itself. Just like food is required to allow education, education is required to allow this social change. Just as educating a starved corpse is useless, enticing social change with an undereducated populace is useless. In contrast, as we educate ourselves and our communities and the entire world, then as an educated society we can finally hack at the root of the dysfunctional social system that now allows hunger and poverty. It isn’t until we can hack at that root that hunger and poverty can finally be eliminated.
And thus the solution: The hungry children must be fed, so they can then be educated, so that finally these educated people can secure – not just for their lifetime but for all lifetimes to come – social freedom, justice, and peace… a world in which no child goes hungry.
About The Author: Scott Hughes owns and operates Millions Of Mouths – a website dedicated to ending hunger. You can discuss hunger on the hunger and poverty forums. Read more articles like this at the hunger and poverty blog on MillionsOfMouths.com:
http://millionsofmouths.com/blog/nfblog/
[1] Wikipedia Aug 23, 2006
[2] Human Development Report 2005, United Nations Development Programme. http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/
[3] http://www.newint.org/issue287/keynote.html
by Scott Hughes
I had a friend recently ask me why I called myself an atheist. She said, “you seem to have such a big heart.” Apparently, she thought that there was something oxymoronic about a benevolent atheist. (In her defense, it turned out she thought I was a Satan worshiper, not an atheist. 
)
As a history buff, a news junkie, and a political activist, I certainly must acknowledge all the helpful and philanthropic accomplishments of religious people and religious institutions. One must commend what religious people and religious institutions have brought to this world – in terms of education, healthcare, nourishment, housing and unity.
Even though I acknowledge these achievements, the idea that religion could possibly have a monopoly on philanthropy shocks me in its absurdity.
I could reject the suggestion of a link between religion and philanthropy on the basis that religious people have committed great atrocities in the name of religion. However, humans have committed great atrocities in the name of many non-religious ideas as well – Namely communism and nationalism. The fact of the matter is that humans commit atrocities, religious or not.
Despite that cynical point, I think it’s manifestly false to say that the only reason a human would be kind is because a god or gods told the human to. Yes, mankind is far from perfectly benevolent. However, mankind is equally far from perfectly callous.
The reason I help people is not because a god told me to. The reason I help people is not because I believe such actions will get me into heaven. The reason I help people is not because I believe it is moral. I don’t even believe in god, heaven, or morality.
I help people because it makes me feel happy. I believe that I am not the only person who receives this pleasure. In fact, most (if not all) of humanity takes pleasure in helping each other out.
Love may be a deep emotional connection that’s hard to define, but I think it�s a secular word. Philanthropy literally means love of people. There is nothing necessarily religious about loving people. People, religious or not, love other people. Are we not all philanthropists in our own light?
I’m a cynic; don’t get me wrong.
It may seem that the abundance of social conflicts between mankind are incompatible with the theory of mankind’s inherent philanthropy. However, this seeming incompatibility quickly vanishes when one remembers that people often engage in self-destructive and foolish activities.
If one can accept that a person would harm themself due to their own self-destructive folly, one can equally accept that a person would harm the object of their love due to the same self-destructive folly, even if that object is all of humanity.
What religious people may call sin, I call foolishness. What religious people call good, I call wise.
Whether you are religious or not, let me ask you to do something that will make you happy. Remember that inside of you and every person is a quintessential love. This quintessential love conflates the self with humanity. Fundamentally speaking, to say one loves oneself and humanity is redundant. Whether you believe this love is endowed by a godly creator or not, let yourself act on that quintessential love. By helping others you help yourself. By pleasing others you please yourself. Let yourself be at one with humanity.
About The Author: Scott Hughes owns and operates Millions Of Mouths – a website dedicated to ending hunger. Read more articles like this at the hunger and poverty blog on MillionsOfMouths.com:
http://millionsofmouths.com/blog/nfblog/
You may republish this article so long as you keep all links intact and keep the “about the author” footer.
by Scott Hughes
Sure, those who want to end world hunger also happen to often want to end war. Sure, sympathetic activists sympathize with both causes – the fight against hunger and the fight for peace. However, the reason war and hunger are linked is not just that these two movements happen to be motivated by similar sympathy. There is also an inherent link that conflates both war and hunger into an irreducibly complex problem. Although in the abstract these two problems – war and hunger – may seem like separate humanitarian issues, in practice they are just opposite sides of the same two-faced monster.
In our world, almost no social issue can be studied without understanding the context of social stratification. Both war and hunger are no exception.
The international community is an unofficial federation of oligarchies – meaning that most (if not all) of the wealth and power is in the hands of a few. Factually speaking, a few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the worlds poorest 2.5 billion people [1]. While the 200 richest people in the world have over $1 trillion [2], half the world – nearly three billion people – live on less than two dollars a day [3]. Financial statistics such as these just scratch the surface, as the value of paper money is just a social construct. The actual issue is the underlying social system that systemically keeps the power and wealth in the hands of the few. Of course, this oligarchy is enforced by the strong arm of the law – i.e. war.
The tiny minority of people who have the power make the choices regarding war. It’s not surprising that the leaders – the rich and powerful few – choose to go to war, because war makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. For example, the oil war in Iraq cost the average U.S. taxpayer over $2,300 dollars [4], but Big Oil keeps announcing record-breaking profits. (Dick Cheneys partner-in-crime, Halliburton, is rolling in dough.) Unfortunately, that creates a mutually causal relationship: The few are given the power to send the people to war through oligarchic social stratification; And, war further stratifies the social classes.
As if the devastation of war wasn’t enough, social stratification also causes poverty & hunger. The world has enough resources to feed, clothe, house, and employ the entire world. The problem isn’t caused by a lack of resources, but rather by social inequality – the powerful few using war to hoard the wealth, so they can plate their bathtubs gold while children die of starvation.
Of course, war makes the poor poorer in many ways. It’s the working-class – who struggle to feed, clothe, and house themselves and their families – that pay for the war, both financially and with their lives. For example, while thousands of United States working-class soldiers have died in Iraq and tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousand) Iraqi civilians died in the Iraqi war, the Bush twins happily swipe their credit-cards in an upscale retail mall.
The victims of war aren’t only abroad. Rather, war makes victims of the taxpayers. Despite the prevalence of hunger, poverty and debt, the leaders have no qualms about taxing (i.e. stealing) the working and lower classes to fund their wars. The U.S. spends $420 billion a year on “defense” [5]; And, that’s NOT including the cost of actual wars, such as the Iraq war which cost well over $300 billion (so far) [6]! (That $300 billion could have fully funded anti-hunger efforts for 12 years!) Thus, when adding in other countries, the world spends well over $1 trillion on “defense” every year. Instead of helping the masses, those taxes are spent to hurt the masses, increase poverty, and increase hunger.
See, the rich leaders don’t care about the working-classes. When these leaders get money (by stealing it from the working-class through taxation), they use it violently, carelessly, and selfishly, which causes harm to the working and lower class. In contrast, when the working-class gets to keep their own money, they spend it in ways that benefit their communities. For example, unlike when rich people steal money through taxation, a working-class person may have opened up a school in a poor neighborhood, or a bank that sells home-loans to local young couples. Working-class people benefit from peace, and thus the hungry benefit from peace. It’s the rich who benefit from war – at the expense of the working classes and lower classes.
As Immortal Technique said, “We act like we share in the spoils of war that they do. We die in wars; we don’t get the contracts to make money off ‘em afterwards! We don’t get weapons contracts… We don’t get cheap labor for our companies…We are cheap labor! Turn off the news and read.” [7]
The expenses on the working-class and lower-class people are horrid; from both the bombs that violently blow people into pieces, to the starvation that tortures people to death.
It seems no one is cold-hearted enough to say that hunger isn’t a huge problem. However, it seems some people may think that war is a necessary evil. These people don’t make sense, because hunger and war come together, and both fuel each other. Justice and peace don’t come at the barrel of a gun. And, as long as the people keep letting their leaders waste their money on wars and “defense”, hunger will still plague the earth.
I always say justice and peace in that order, because justice precedes peace. There will never be peace without first justice. Similarly, I always say freedom before justice. There will never be peace so long as children starve.
In the same way that both hunger and war have the same causes, they both have the same solutions. For example, education is a method to lift entire communities out of poverty. Indeed, there is a direct correlation between education and quality of life. In the same respect, wouldn’t education reduce violence and war? If student loans and quality schools were available to all children – regardless of race, sex, ethnicity, nationality, geographical location, sexual preference, and etcetera – can anyone really suggest that war would ensue? Of course not.
Unfortunately as newint.org points out, less than one percent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen [8]. Perhaps, George Carlin was right when he said that the true owners of this world don’t want an educated populace.
There are many activist organizations working under the name Food Not Bombs. Despite the commendable work of these activists, all the leaders of the world give the people is bombs, not food, not education, not solutions. Our leaders do not care because the hunger and war that plague this world do not plague them.
For those of us that do care, we must remember to attack both hunger and war as one large overarching problem. We must take a radical (meaning literally at the root) observation. Henry David Thoreau once said: For every thousand hacking at the branches of evil, only one is hacking at the root.
Let us find the root of this irreducibly complex problem – both hunger and poverty. Radically speaking, let us rid the world of both poverty and violence, of both hunger and war.
About The Author: Scott Hughes owns and operates Millions Of Mouths – a website dedicated to ending hunger. Read more articles like this at the hunger and poverty blog on MillionsOfMouths.com:
http://millionsofmouths.com/blog/nfblog/
Sources:
[1] panos.org.uk
[2] Human Development Report 2000, p. 82 at hdr.undp.org
[3] povertymap.net
[4] nationalpriorities.org , answers.yahoo.com
[5] http://borgenproject.org/Defense_Spending.html
[6] http://costofwar.com/index-world-hunger.html
[7] From the afterword of the song The 4th Branch
[8] http://www.newint.org/issue287/keynote.html
