My only criticism is that I wish the ads would explain clearly that the option is an option. The word “option” is not registering with some people. There seems to be a widespread believe that the option will be mandatory.

I want to say a few words about libertarian logic that says only government can ration; therefore, there is no rationing in a private, for-profit health care system; therefore, in a private system people who aren’t getting the care they need have only themselves to blame.

There’s an article about addressing famine by Frederick Kaufman in the June issue of Harper’s. In “Let Them Eat Cash,” Kaufman explains that ideas about how to address famine have changed from the old CARE package days. But this is the bit that most interested me:

The stories varied in focus and emphasis but employed the same basic plot points: biofuel production, caterpillar plagues, commodity speculation, crop disease, drought, dwindling stockpiles, fear, flood, hoarding, war, and an increasing world appetite for meat and dairy had bubbled into a nasty poison. Every day, another 25,000 people starved to death or died from hunger-related disease: every four seconds, another corpse. Rising prices for corn, cooking oil, rice, soybeans, and wheat had sparked riots in Bangladesh, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, and nineteen other countries. Not to mention Milwaukee, where a food voucher line of nearly 3,000 people descended into chaos. (“They just went crazy down there,” said one witness. “Just totally crazy.”)

Oddly enough, almost none of the food riots had emerged from a lack of food. There was plenty of food. The riots had been generated by the lack of money to buy food, and therein lay what may have distinguished today’s hunger from the hunger of years past.

Kaufman goes on to describe the cast of characters (and I mean that in the fullest sense of the word) who are more or less in charge of getting food to the starving, and how the director of the World Food Program actually bubbled about how starvaion presented a wonderful opportunity. It’s a fascinating read.

But the larger point is — if you’re starving to death, how much does it matter if you lack food because of scarcity or prices?

These various food shortages are caused by myriad factors, but for the most part food is being produced by private agricultural industries, and for the most part private market forces are setting prices. And people starve.

Once again, let’s remember the Famine. In th 1840s most Irish did farm work on land owned by others, and in exchange for farm work the workers were given little huts to live in and little plots of land on which to grow their own food, mostly potatoes. Potatoes are nutrient-rich and keep for a long time, and the Irish depended on them for food, especially in the winter. But then a disease wiped out the potato crop several years in a row. The agricultural workers of Ireland were growing plenty of food for the landowners, but the landowners shipped the food to markets in Britain. The Irish peasants had no money to buy it, so more than a million Irish starved. No government food rationing was involved; that was strictly the work of the privately owned farming industry of Ireland.

And in Parliament, some PMs actually argued that the Famine was a great opportunity, because starvation might force the Irish to start businesses. That the Irish Catholic peasantry were barely educated and had no access to capital did not register.

The fact is, people have been deprived of essential resources all kinds of ways. I’m betting that if you looked at all of history, more people have been deprived of resources by private interests than by governments.

Here’s another little bit from the Kaufman article you might enjoy:

Even the most well-intentioned, well-fed capitalist may fail to recognize that his own actions are causing the very problems he most sincerely wants to solve. After all, it is rational to invest in a commodity when its price rises, even if corn costs do happen to push up feed prices. Chickens eat chicken feed made from that corn, so the price of a dozen organic eggs hits $6.39. “All indications are that soaring feed costs are going to force livestock and poultry producers to raise prices,” said Joel Brandenberger, president of the National Turkey Federation, “or risk going out of business.” Bill Roenigk, chief economist of the National Chicken Council, predicted that “food inflation is poised to begin and continue for many, many months.” All of which impelled Iowa Senator Charles Grassley to wax rabid and liken the American grocery lobby to the Nazi Party. “They have to have an excuse for increasing the price of their food,” said Grassley. “It’s another Adolf Hitler lie.”

Fascinating.

Update: Something I forgot to say before I pushed the “publish” button — the situation in the U.S. regarding health care may be unprecedented. At least, I can’t think of any other time in history when so many people vulnerable to or actually suffering deprivation of resources are passionately supporting the status quo and fighting the very reforms meant to help them. I hope the social psychologists are taking good notes.