the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Aug 7, 2023
This article is translated from the July 28 issue #2869 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers’ Struggle), the newspaper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in France.
The latest United Nations (UN) report on “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” gives figures showing how serious this problem is.
Last year, 2.4 billion people suffered from food insecurity, 900 million of them severely. This is 122 million more people than in 2019. In 2021, 3.1 billion people did not have enough to eat properly. Malnutrition and stunted growth or being overweight affect more than one in five children under five years old.
International institutions say it is a positive sign that the numbers haven’t risen much since 2021. But what about all the goals to reduce world hunger, which get repeated year after year at international conferences? They have proved impossible to reach.
The UN blames the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. These circumstances have contributed to worsening the situation. But they do not explain the underlying trend. Hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity continue to afflict a large part of the world’s population in the 21st century. The economic system is directly responsible for this situation because it excludes billions of poor people from the market. Even more scandalous, humanity has the means to satisfy everybody’s needs.