Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

There is a focus on capitalism in the UK .  I don’t understand what Michael Roberts means by three socio-economic systems. Is it not capitalism the socio-economic system of our era?

Although today there are almost 14000 known nuclear warheads - less than the 50000+ in 1986  - the ’colossal threat is still hanging over our heads’. “Three hundred and eighty million years passed between the appearance of visible life and the moment a butterfly learnt to fly... and then another 180 million years before nature produced a rose, with no other purpose than being beautiful. It took another four geological eras for human beings — unlike our Pithecanthropus great-grandparents — to learn to sing better than birds, and even be able to die of love. It is by no means glorious that men’s talents have ensured, in the golden age of science, that such a colossal, multi-millennial process could return to its original nothingness with the push of a button.” A beautiful depiction by one of the greatest modern novelists

"The 923 million tonnes of food being wasted each year would fill 23 million 40-tonne trucks. Bumper-to-bumper, enough to circle the Earth seven times."  "Wasted food is responsible for 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions, so if food waste was a country, it would be the third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet." “While millions of tonnes of food was thrown away, an estimated 690 million people were affected by hunger in 2019. That number is expected to rise sharply in the wake of the pandemic.” Source: the bbc

 Washington’s Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups and Assassinations

Millions of working people exposed by pandemic

"The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that global food production is more than adequate to feed the world. For instance,  2,577 million tons of cereal  were forecasted to be produced in 2016, with 13 million tons leftover after demand is met. Worldwide we already  produce  over two thousand kilocalories (kcal) per person on average, the minimum level of energy humans require according to  USDA dietary guidelines . Still, with all this production,  780 million people are living with chronic hunger , many of them living in rural areas dependent upon agriculture for their livelihoods." Capital's hunger in abundance

Property is the mother of famine: On dispossession, wages and the threat of hunger

The following questions were asked in 1978: "With what moral right can the rulers of a nation speak of human rights when within it the millionaire and the beggar coexist, the Indian is exterminated, the black man is discriminated against, women are prostituted and large masses of Chicano, Puerto Ricans and Latin Americans are scorned, exploited and humiliated?  How can this be done by the rulers of a nation where the Mafia, gambling and child prostitution predominate, where the CIA organizes subversion and universal esp ionage plans and where the Pentagon creates neutron bombs capable of preserving material assets while exterminating human beings, in an empire that supports reaction and counterrevolution throughout the world, that protects and encourages the exploitation by monopolies of the wealth and human resources on all continents, unequal trade, a protectionist policy, an incredible squandering of natural resources and a system of hunger for the world?  How can this be...

Dr Hickel (LSE) argues that through the MDGs, the UN has misrepresented the true extent for poverty and hunger. “By massaging the numbers, the UN has created a good news narrative that justifies the present economic order and its logic of growth, liberalisation, privatisation and corporate power." "Challenging the UN good story about poverty and hunger" See also "Neoliberalism ans the end of democracy"