CAPITALISM IS THE ONLY SOCIAL FORM WHEREIN PEOPLE CAN BE STARVING WHILE THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF FOOD; INDEED WHERE THERE IS AN OVERABUNDANCE OF FOOD, AND PEOPLE STARVE PRECISELY BECAUSE OF THIS OVERABUNDANCE.
Curious, isn’t it.
PS: The tale of the two kettles illustrates how market processes become mythologized: the transformation of objects from use value to exchange value —and the compelled conversion of people into both "workers" and "consumers"— serves to obscure the underlying structural dynamics—specifically, how surplus is systematically siphoned off by the owners of companies. What appears as a neutral act of exchange thus conceals the social extraction of value, embedding relations of power within everyday "market" transactions and mystifying the true sources of profit and inequality.
#transformation
Selected Q&A
Q- Seems highly questionable to me.
Is it really because of the overabundance? Or is it because of a moral failure of the local population where people starve? How do you come to that to that conclusion? Do you mean to say that capitalism inevitably makes people immoral?
A- The original statement is not about the “immorality” of individuals but about the structural features of capitalism that produce situations where abundance and deprivation coexist. Under capitalism, the production of commodities (including food) is driven not by need, but by profit, mediated through the market. So the argument is that the productive forces are so advanced (and incentivised) that they routinely generate more than is needed. As a result, surplus food is destroyed, left to rot, or turned into animal feed, while people without purchasing power starve. So the point is that individuals are not necessarily immoral, but the system objectifies and commodifies social relations, making solidarity conditional and instrumental. The “moral failure” in this context is systemic: when provisioning is determined by profit rather than social need, moral choices become structurally constrained. Individuals may be compassionate, but the system penalizes actions that undermine profitability (e.g., giving food away at scale, lowering your prices, taking less profit). Capitalism can incentivize both generosity and indifference—but only within limits compatible with market logic.
Q- Your observation is correct, but i would not blame it on capitalism specifically but on greedy egocentric leaders (only some of whom are incompetent) who take advantage whatever the system.
A- I think this is exactly where the structural condition is prior to any human agency. The entrepreneur who hires workers does not necessarily have bad intentions - it is capital itself which commodifies the worker through the abstraction of work and the extraction of profit
Q- Capitalism is the wrong term. Neo-liberalism is the right term to deconstruct since capitalism is nested within it.
A- Not quite. Capitalism refers to the mode of production centered on private property, wage labor, and the production of commodities for profit, with markets as the principal mechanism for allocation. Neoliberalism is the political-economic regime that globalizes market logics—through deregulation, privatization, financialization, and the reduction of state welfare. So, capitalism as a category captures the essential features of commodity production and surplus extraction that exist in both “welfare” and “neoliberal” variants. Neoliberalism is a late-stage form of capitalism—emerging in the late 20th century—marked by the retreat of collective provision, the ideological valorization of competition, and intensified commodification. Neoliberalism presupposes capitalism but is not reducible to it. Its specific pathologies—such as “markets in everything” and commodification of public goods—are intensifications of capitalist logic, not its origin.
Q- Colonialism is another such system where people starve where there is abundance. It is about the power structure of any system in the end.
A- Great point. Both colonialism and capitalism rely on commodification and allocation of goods by market/price or power—not by social need. Colonialism adds external domination—metropole extracting from periphery, often violently enforcing deprivation for metropolitan surplus. That said, as Nancy Fraser points out, the market logic is often constitutive of colonialism. Colonial empires did not simply extract by force; they transformed local economies into components of a global market system—often violently supplanting subsistence and communal arrangements with private property, wage labor, and commodity production. Hunger amid abundance thus results precisely from market logic: food is exported or sold to those with purchasing power, while locals are priced out—even as “surpluses” exist. Colonial authorities—and later, postcolonial elites—relied on market mechanisms (pricing, property rights, contracts) to justify exclusion, even as state violence enforced these rules. Starvation in colonial contexts is not a “market failure,” but a "market success": goods go where purchasing power is, not where need is greatest.
Q- How so? The reason the Holomodor was such a profound outrage is precisely because food existed, but wasn't directed to where it was needed. Not all of capitalism's evils are unique!
A- Excellent point. In fact, Stalinist central planning led to deliberate and structural misallocation of abundance. However, the deeper critique in my post concerns the systemic logic underlying the paradox of “abundance with deprivation.” In capitalism, the abundance is structured by market rationality—food is available but withheld from the hungry because they lack purchasing power; or because overproduction generates crises that ultimately deprive workers from income. The “scarcity” is not physical but economic: hunger exists because food is commodified, not because it is absent. The Holodomor, by contrast, was the product of authoritarian state control, with state power overriding both market and need, redirecting resources for political goals. If we take Marxism-Leninism as represented by Stalin’s regime, it’s clear that deprivation cannot be justified by the system's core theory—rather, it was a betrayal of its own ideals. Undoubtedly, starvation-by-policy is a tragedy of multiple systems. Yet, only under capitalism does systemic overproduction lead to deprivation through the market logic itself, not through a breakdown or a deliberate act of state repression. The horror is structural, not simply a failure or atrocity.
Q- I think we all understand the many imperfections. Yet we should maybe also reflect on the level of 'exclusion and suffering', as you put it, under our current system compared to previous and alternative systems. To take a few examples: In 1950, human life expectancy at birth was 47 years. Today it is 73 years. In 1990, 38% of people in the world were living in extreme poverty. Today that number is 8.5%. In 1950, 36% of the world’s population were literate. Today that number is 87%. Our current capitalist system is far from perfect. We all know the issues and can keep repeating them ad nauseam. That's the easiest game in town. Many highly competent people have worked over decades to try to find improvements - and, as above, dramatic improvements have been made - if haltingly and with difficulty. Is there a better system that actually works? If so, let's have it. If not, then this is what we have and we can strive to continue to improve. Nothing is perfect. As the Chinese say, sometimes you just have to pick the tallest dwarf.
A- We need to be careful with the so-called facts and the usual "Whig interpretation of history." Yes, there is progress—but the facts are ofc debatable. Consider the poverty line: once you use $6.85/day instead of the World Bank’s paltry $2.15, the picture shifts dramatically (>44%). Second, correlation isn’t causation. Claiming “capitalism caused” these improvements is simplistic—progress reflects public health, state policy, redistribution, tech, decolonization, global institutions, and social movements etc. Third, contra Bentham, you can’t justify structural violence with aggregate stats—and averages always mask distribution. Fourth, we can cite plenty of other numbers—inequality, climate extremes—that show very different trends. Finally, “show me a better system” is conceptually weak. First, we must define “better”—progress is not the same as legitimacy. The real intellectual and moral task is not to celebrate the “tallest dwarf” or seek the “least bad,” but to imagine and realize arrangements that don’t normalize suffering. And that must be institutionally fostered.