Show t Voice of f Business Feeding the hungry By Oy Arch both Booth president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States Some people are storing extra food at home these days in case the world famine spreads to the US U.S. or the economy collapses Others are fasting so there will be more food for the worlds world's hungry Who's right Neither as far faras faras faras as I am concerned I dont don't see sec any harm in what the squirrels are doing although I dont don't see much need for it either If their food caches bring them peace of mind the modest expense is probably worth it There are those who would disdain the practice as hoarding But on the other hand it could be defended as prudent obedience to the biblical injunction to provide for tar the ean years MANY OF the appear to be pure of heart but soft of mind The belief that what one American doesn't eat will automatically become available to feed the hungry elsewhere betrays a vast about the economics of food production The American farmer produces what he thinks he can sell If very many Americans reduced their food consumption sharply farm production would eventually fall off Thus the net result would be less food not more Constructive Altruism There is a way for the or or anyone else else to to get more American food to the hungry overseas Donate money money money mon mon- ey to one of the international international international inter inter- national relief agencies that distribute food to the hun hun- gry The agency will buy from the farmer the farmer fanner will raise more in in a anticipation tion of an expanding market and tie the worlds world's food supply will grow larger An individual who wants to con connect ct the the act act of fasting with the sharing of food could simply set aside a contribution equal to the Ule value of the food he has for forgone one We tend to l lose e sight of how phenomenally well Americas America's free enterprise Capitalist food lood production system works IT IS fashionable to criticize this country today for consuming 35 percent of the worlds world's raw material with only six percent of the worlds world's population But people who make this observation often conveniently overlook the related d fact that with only six percent of the worlds world's population we produced ed in 1972 44 percent of all wheat for export 76 percent of the corn 85 percent of the soybeans 28 percent of the rice 36 percent of the cotton and 62 percent of the sorghums raised for grain Of course much of our exported food is sold But then we pay for the raw materials we use too No one else anywhere has demonstrated an ability to 10 produce more food a at t less cost- cost surely that is an excellent reason for laying claim to scarce resources The Failure of Socialism Its It's instructive to examine the theother theother theother other side of the coin too Professor Irving Kristol points out that tha t there would be no world food shortage if just three countries could feed themselves China India and Russia It is no coincidence that all three espouse a socialist philosophy of agricultural production Theres There's no physical cause preventing these countries from growing enough food Their repeated repealed agricultural failures are simply the price they pay for dogmatic dogma tic insistence on the superiority of central economic planning in the f face ce of overwhelming evidence to the contrary And that's food for thought The trouble with politics today is not politics but calculating men who use politics for their own selfish ends |