Doomsayers were wrong & capitalism proved them so

Thank a farmer and a rancher.

Robert Pratt photo Copyright Pratt on Texas

Robert Pratt

Our friend Kevin D. Williamson, National Review’s roving correspondent and West Texas native, summarized a story with this:

“Not long ago, the great dream and aspiration of most of the people walking this Earth was to have enough to eat, for themselves and for their children, and to be liberated from worrying about whether they would eat again tomorrow or the next day. Capitalism can be a great deal of work, but it works if you let it work.”

The story’s headline is “US Farmers Lead World Hunger Reduction” and begins with an answer followed by a question. The answer: “California, Iowa, Texas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, Kansas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Indiana.” The question: “Whatever happened to world hunger?”

“World hunger is in dramatic decline. As our friends at HumanProgress.org reported over the summer, the hunger indicators are all moving in the right direction: Fewer people are going hungry, both in absolute numbers and as a share of the world’s population; hunger has fallen dramatically in China after a program of partial economic liberalization; those people around the world who are underfed are less underfed than they were a decade or two ago, with their average daily calorie deficits down to about 85 calories — just 1.5 McNuggets short of a full day’s nutrition; and world food prices are down steeply, having fallen by half in real terms over the past century,” Williamson details.

When I was a child the apocalyptic meme which permeated everything was “over population” which was to lead to starvation of more than half the world’s population. The message permeated our public school curriculum and the popular culture just as the “climate change” propaganda does today.

A funny thing happened when half the world was freed from communist-socialism and opened to markets. People suddenly had food and we’ve a few billion more eating now too.

Markets and freedom work. Thank the clarity of Ronald Reagan and, thank a farmer and rancher.

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