Maverick's World

Food insecurity and political stability

Political systems are often anchored to key economic flows.

For example, in the medieval period, feudals earned their keep by ensuring a steady flow of agricultural taxes. The extent of food commodities recovered from taxation effectively capped their ability to access strategic metals, fabrics and ceramics. Those caps in turn kept the size of the feudal's army in check and that led to obvious limits on the size of the fief etc... 

If there was a drought and the feudal did not possess enough reserve to keep the famine small (i.e. as situation where commodity prices are extremely unstable or worse still - farmers are too hungry to farm) - the feudal was kicked out of power. In this fashion the productivity of the land determined the half life of the local feudal order.

In our modern world - a variant of the same phenomena is at work.

I say "productivity of the land" but more correctly it should be the apparent or perceived productivity of the land.

This is because productivity is (at its core) a psychological construct. I have to believe/feel that the effort I am putting into the doing this activity is going to yield a large bounty in the future. This is a very big part of agro-economics as it takes time for the crops to grow, the herds to grow etc... there is no instant gratification.

There is a flip side to this.

If the land grows things I do not want/cannot eat - I feel it is not productive. If I fear I will not be able to eat my next meal per my choices - I become what the US agro-economists called "Food Insecure".

At one extreme "Food Insecurity" relates to the physical availability of food - but in another extreme it relates to the perception of the loss of a part of my preferred diet *and* any ensuing loss of status.

A very good example of this is the attitude of midwestern White Men towards beef. Having grown up in a culture of farming (which Sarah Taber refers to a "Farming Cosplay") - Beef is seen as the ultimate symbol of the productivity of the land. To be able to afford beef on the table is a big deal, it is correlated the status in society, to wealth, the number of women you can put in your bed at any given time etc... (Hence Trump Steaks was a status symbol - never meant to be successful as a product but meant to show that Trump was a guy who could afford big steaks!).

I am not saying that the thickness of the steak you eat is thickness of you penis but ... yeah it is just like the thickness of your penis. This why mere talk of vegan ideas bring forth a very derisive response from this demographic. Losing access to beef - is losing status in society.

This is not unique to the US, on a global scale it is observed that richer nations eat more meat. Meat eating correlates with wealth.

Now think about India.

India does not have enough land to allows free grazing like the US or Australia. Here meat is a luxury - even more tied to status. Populations that live along the peninsula - have a diet that emphasizes eggs and seafood. This is also India's most productive belt economically - having benefited from participation in the sea borne trade. The result is a deep sense of economic security, tradition and culture surrounding eating meat.

Now you take a population like that - and you impose vegetarianism on them. Either by indirectly taxing the trade in meat (eg "Cow Slaughter") or by directly imposing dietary bounds on any free meals you supply (such as the approach of the Akshaya Patra Foundation*). What would be the result of this?

The consequence will be a deep sense of food insecurity. This is because food insecurity is a metric that captures the psychological factors associated with the fear of the loss of a food source.

And how will that be different from a situation in Medieval India where a drought has wiped out the land?

Okay there is still food on the plate, but when your culture, ethnic identification etc... are deeply tied to your diet - will not food insecurity bleed over into political insecurity?

And what if the people of these states already fear loss of political representation due to demographic shifts? or the linguistic hegemony?

And what will be the outcome for a political formulation which is already so inefficient? where the Rs/Vote is at least 10x higher than it's peer competitor?

Will there be political stability?

Sure the Left rules WB with a similar structure in place for decades, but is that sustainable at scale? or will one see the kind of dynamics one saw in Soviet Union? Where brutal subterranean battles raged while the General Secretary ruled largely at the pleasure of a highly militarized Siloviki?

They say Amit Shah will become PM. I welcome it - I like him more than I like Modi or Yogi or other incompetents.

Also please forget about Art 370 removal. It is more important to focus on crafting a new Art 370 framework for southern states, otherwise when the redistribution of LS seats occurs the Peninsular states will simply secede from the Republic.

* Being a Brahmin myself I am extremely reluctant to criticize Akshaya Patra Foundation as it is one of the *few* Brahmin organizations that are actually doing socially productive work, but I feel compelled to say something because of the possibility that its efforts may be perceived as negative and the ensuing social opprobrium will derail a vital effort.

posted by maverick @ 6:58 AM