Democracy as a Cure for Famine

Abstract

1. Democracy and Famine It has been persuasively argued that wars do not occur between democracies (cf. JPR, vol. 29, no. 4, 1992). Since apart from the war the greatest killers have always been internal conflicts, destructive governance and famine, it is pertinent to examine the role that democracy can play in their prevention. Democracy implies the existence of societal institutions which exercise checks and balances on government. One of the most important of these checks and balances is the free flow of information, with that vital component, the free and independent press. The assumption here is that free speech, access to information and a free press allow the actions of governments to be monitored and the voice of the people to be heard. Recent research, especially that concerning the independent media in former Yugoslavia, suggests that it is virtually impossible for a government to wage war in the absence of popular support. It is not surprising that one of the first actions of a nondemocratic leader is to control the flow of information and especially the press. Thus begins the insidious practice of propaganda whereby the people, on a massive scale, are forced to believe what the government wishes and where the conditions necessary for perpetrating such injustices as war and famine are established. The eminent economist Amartya Sen (1994) has asserted that famine cannot occur in a democracy, or more specifically in a country with a free press. At its simplest, Sen's argument implies that gross disadvantage such as widespread death from lack of food would not be allowed by a democratic government in which the press can and probably would make it an issue of immense public concern. Thus, Sen indicates independent media as the cornerstone of democracy. But is it the democratic nature of a government which guarantees food for the starving, or is it the free media which enforce it? In other words, is famine preventable in a centrally controlled economy even if there is no tradition of a free press? The answer would appear to be no, because the equitable and adequate distribution of available food is entirely dependent on the whim of government. Thus, there is no accountability, and governments will easily sacrifice the needs of the less powerful for their own political purposes. Nowhere was this more clearly seen than in the Soviet Union under Stalin during the 1930s. Massive and strictly enforced collectivization caused a major famine in the Ukraine, yet Stalin continued to export the grain stocks that a less autocratic leader would have diverted to the starving at home. As many as 10 million peasants may have died as a direct result of Stalin's policies during these years. Famine is not the same thing as starvation, although one usually leads to the other. Famine can be described broadly as a series of increasingly desperate actions by people to obtain food. It is a social phenomenon which has profound and long-term disruptive effects on communities. Thus, famine is a so-called 'long-onset disaster' with a varying but usually quite long period of early warning during which preventive action is possible. At least 2