Capitalism no food
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
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Is this how they keep the shelves full?
In the USSR they always said they had lots of money but they couldn't buy anything with it because the shelves were empty.
After WWII, soviet caloric intake was higher than the U.S.
It took a once in a century flood, the collapse of the USSR, and sanctions for DPRK to reach those numbers. The US achieved that while still having food to spare, what an amazing system.
Let me add in the following about my country, Norway, whose material conditions I know all to well: There is way too much wealth disparity and rising poverty, but this infographic does not reflect a material shortage of food, of which there is on the other hand an over-abundance of to the detriment of the global south. Recall that we produce food for a billion more people than what exists, yet a billion starve due to the global north's over-indulgence and waste.
The main reasons for the rise in death to malnutrition are eating disorders such as anorexia. This reflects a wholly different contradiction which we should focus on instead of misrepresenting material reality.
EDIT: After some reading it seems the rise is due to a change in the policy of journalling deaths. These are probably old people not eating enough because they are in the process of dying. The important bit with regards to where starvation actually causes death, and not merely corrolates with it, remains true.
I almost can’t believe these stats. How is India almost at the same level as the US in terms of protein energy malnutrition? In a normal world this would be a national embarassment. The average Indian probably eats, like, 20 grams of protein a day and that’s not even entirely because of poverty
Ever been to a dollar general in rural America and looked around at the products, the people, and what other grocery stores are available in a 5 mile radius?
The vast, vast majority of America is a violent antisocial wasteland that would make the worst areas of China or the DPRK blush.
That slight raise is arguably relatively normal-ish variation. It probably represents the problems with capitalist lack of social care and resources to some degree. But 99.99% of people are still eating.
It's still bad, it's still unacceptable, it's still ridiculous for a wealthy nation and shouldn't happen, but it's also not huge, it's a tiny fraction.
To parse the math, if it keeps rising that would be concerning. But look at the scale... that "3" That the USA reaches isn't percent. It represents circa 1 in 33,000 people which equates to about 10,000 people in the entire USA.
Whereas according to the same source, North Korea's famine produced at least 450 sufferers every 100,000. That, represented 1 in 222 people.
Weirdly this actually doesn't tally with a lot of other sources. So I'm left scratching my head about it somewhat. The above reference suggests only 100,000 people suffered from the famine in North Korea yet, the minimum other sources put as having died in said famine is 360,000 and the maximum of 2,000,000.
Am I missing something? This does not compute.
Edit: Ah the context I was missing was the famine occurred over multiple years. Each year was 420 per 100,000 or below out of 20 million.
400 per 100,000 in 20 million is 90,000. Four years of that and four years of 150 per 100,000 puts you well within that estimate based on protein malnutrition alone, and not any disease or ailment exacerbated by said malnutrition.
Yeah my bad, my math was off and wasn't looking at it across the multiple years. Makes sense. Cheers mate.
Thank you for zooming out!
Interestingly, this is roughly the rate that France is constantly at. Most other EU countries seem to be at that much lower set-point. Fascinating.