The article is actually decently well written good-faith satire meant to address how poverty and hunger are inherent to capitalism as a system. The title was just too bold lol

  • whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    So he’s not defending/promoting “world Hunger”, just arguing that it’s not a bug but a feature developed to have cheap labor, and that the people in power don’t want to end it

    • ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Sounds good at a glance, but when you look at the way he reaches that conclusion (that the threat of hunger is the only reason people are willing to work), and his solution (for a class of “intellectuals” like him to take charge) however, are just neoliberal swill…

      • Dasnap@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Maybe they should build a city in the ocean where these intellectuals have full control. Maybe experiment with some cool drugs.

        • ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          Lmfao, I’d pay to watch them descend in to chaos as they insist on ranking each other by importance or whatever arbitrary measure of superiority they choose, because they simply can’t function otherwise, until they all end up dead from refusing to “lower” themselves to cooperate with “inferiors”.

            • ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              If only… But I suspect whatever happens in November, it isn’t going to be pleasing at all (to me as an anarchist, anyway), especially because it isn’t themselves they consume, like the hypothetical “intellectuals” on the desert island would, but the rest of us, and those most vulnerable first.

      • Arcturus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        I imagine the UN wouldn’t let an author publish something that calls for revolution though lol

      • abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 months ago

        Usually most sane people go “Hunger is used to extract labour from people so rich people can make money, so we should change this state of affairs” not “this is good and how we should continue, in an evil usually the preserve of 19th century British Imperial officials.”

        • ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          How does the saying go? When your only tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail?

          The only tool he has is what capitalism gave him - the idea that people will only work if threatened with starvation, homelessness, or other punishment.

          The idea that the benefit of a community and society at large, and by direct extension - our own, could motivate people, or to be more precise, the idea that society would benefit everyone not just a “select” few, doesn’t even come in to consideration.

      • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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        3 months ago

        his solution (for a class of “intellectuals” like him to take charge) however, are just neoliberal swill

        This is such a common pitfall that even self-described communists fall into it as well. When you hear people talk about a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” what they’re describing tends to devolve into “a class of intellectuals needs to guide the working class to the correct decisions” when questioned about what a “dictatorship of the proletariat” actually entails. Often they’ll try to justify it by saying it’s only temporary, but we all know how that pans out (see the USSR). This is why I consider myself an anarchist rather than a communist and regularly critique marxism-leninism.

    • abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 months ago

      Isn’t this what Anarchists and other Anti-capitalists have been saying for well over 100 years? That despite having the ability for abundance, we use scarcity to extract labour from people to make rich fuckers money?

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        Lenin made the clearest case for it in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Financial and Industrial Capital is exported directly to the sources of raw materials and lower cost of living, which is then hyper-exploited for super-profits domestically.

        Even within Capitalist countries, starvation is kept dangerous because Capitalism requires a “reserve army of labor,” as Marx put it. It’s the idea of “if you weren’t doing this job, someone would kill for it” that suppresses wages.

  • Allero@lemmy.today
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    3 months ago

    This is such a clickbait, and it backfired.

    The actual point conveyed in the article is that world hunger is beneficial for the rich as it allows to operate sweatshops and employ people under tyrannical conditions over low pay, which is not far from modern slavery. Which is super bad for everyone else, hence world hunger must be stopped and rich should get the taste of their own medicine.

    But people did react to the headline, and possibly rightfully so.

  • Infynis@midwest.social
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    3 months ago

    hunger is “fundamental to the working of the world’s economy”

    I mean, he’s probably right, but that means we should work to change the system, not throw more orphans into the crushing machine

  • Alsephina@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    Well, he’s not wrong about hunger being an intended part of capitalism so workers are coerced into working for even less pay.

    Calling it a “benefit” is very clickbaity though.

  • Generous1146@beehaw.org
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    3 months ago

    Read that fee article as well and it seems like the author just stated, that certain institutions benefit from world hunger.

    In the interview, Kent explains he was not advocating global hunger but was intending to be “provocative” by saying certain individuals and institutions benefit from global hunger.

    “No, it is not satire,” Kent told Marc Morano, founder and editor of Climate Depot. “I don’t see anything funny about it. It is not about advocacy of hunger.”

    It doesn’t look like he’s advocating for global hunger, but criticizing those who do benefit from it

    • Match!!@pawb.social
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      3 months ago

      things that were obvious satire in 2008 are ambiguous now i love 2020s capitalism

    • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.mlOP
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      3 months ago

      Yeah I posted this and went to bed without ever looking for the article. Made an edit that should federate soon enough acknowledging this

  • danc4498@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    “No one works harder than hungry people”

    While this is probably true, the problem is that their reward for this hard work in no way comes close to fixing their hunger problem.

    Meanwhile the assholes in control of the economy and responsible for their hunger problem are taking all the rewards and hoarding it for no better reasons than to compare with other assholes.

    • kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      To quote the article in question (highlight is my own):

      “[H]ow many of us would sell our services so cheaply if it were not for the threat of hunger? When we sell our services cheaply, we enrich others, those who own the factories, the machines and the lands, and ultimately own the people who work for them. For those who depend on the availability of cheap labour, hunger is the foundation of their wealth.

      • danc4498@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        So is the title “the benefit of world hunger” more of a cynical title, then? Or is it actually making an argument in favor of world hunger for the benefit of our economy?

        • OhNoMoreLemmy@lemmy.ml
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          3 months ago

          Both. It’s satire.

          The “benefit” of world hunger is that it keeps people locked in their place and entrenches the status quo. This is actually true, and the author believes it, but he doesn’t like it.

          Many people benefit from world hunger though, and every time you hear that poverty is a hard problem to solve you should ask yourself, how much of that is actual problems and how much is the status quo resisting change?

        • kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          It’s an ironic title. Like saying “A benefit of loosing your legs is that you don’t need to buy shoes anymore. I mean I can’t get down the stairs to leave my apartment, but at least I never have to shop for shoes again!”.

          The benefit is real, but it’s also clearly not in proportion to the drawbacks presented, so focusing on the benefit is a joke.

    • HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      No one works harder than people whose lives are threatened [for example, by starvation] and they are working to not die.

      The logical conclusion of this is that we should bring back slavery and extermination camps because that’s how you maximize the efficiency from of humans. /s (obviously)

      • Mossy Feathers (She/They)@pawb.social
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        3 months ago

        Y’all should actually read the article because it seems like it’s saying something completely different from what OP is trying to make it sound like. Basically, if I understood correctly, Kent was being critical of the idea that market-led solutions (i.e. capitalism fixes hunger) are better than community-driven solutions. He was also saying that hunger is part of capitalism, and you’ll never get rid of hunger while capitalism exists, because capitalism needs to withhold resources to force people to work.

        This paragraph seems to sum up the article pretty well:

        In Kent’s view, one gathers, global hunger is not a complex problem that is being addressed by free market capitalism; it’s a moral one that requires empowering intellectuals like Kent to solve it.

        • skittle07crusher@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          And to be clear you mean the original UN article, not the article from the libertarian think tank “Foundation for Economic Education” (“FEE”)

          And the UN article link (archive) is in the comments

          • Mossy Feathers (She/They)@pawb.social
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            3 months ago

            I couldn’t find the original UN article which is why I was referencing the FEE one. Also, while I quoted the bit about “empowered intellectuals” I assumed that was pro-capitalist cynicism towards education and community due to the heavily pro-capitalist slant in the rest of the FEE article. I kinda figured everyone else picked up on that too.

            Thanks for the link! I’ll have to read the original in a bit.

  • celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    Kinda like how Kevin O’Leary thinks more poor people incentivizes more business startups. As if homeless people and poor families are just a few business courses away from millionaire status.

    • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      In a sense he is right, since more people without work means more people you can employ in a new business, it’s just that this makes the case that our economy is organized in a bad way rather than that poverty is good.

      • celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        The context that he meant it was poor people are going to be hungry, so they’ll hustle and start businesses to be rich and successful.

  • Visstix@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    He calls it “not satire” but “provocative”. So he doesn’t mean it, but says it to provoke a reaction… Like satire.

    • mister_flibble@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      This just feels like either

      A. He doesn’t fully get what satire is and assumes it has to be lighthearted or

      B. He’s using “provocative” to basically mean “clickbait, but I’m too pretentious to call it that”

    • Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      Yeh it’s pretty clearly not sincere in voice. Seems like by saying ‘not satire’ they’re trying to avoid people thinking they mean the content of what the article describes isn’t sincerely true, but given how it’s written, it’s hard to conclude the author cheering on from the sidelines. Te nonchalance and unaffected language when discussing a travesty seems pretty clearly to be a device used for effect which frankly is pretty close to what gets called satire.