Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
Amartya Sen on famines and their causes
In his book Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1981), Sen criticises all analyses which interpret famines as phenomena due to the absence of food in a country.
The traditional doctrine explaining the cause of famines is that famines are due to a lack of food in a country:
– the consequence of absence of food is starvation;
– there is nothing to do against famines since there is nothing to do against the absence of food.
Famines are presented to be natural phenomena, for which exclusively the bad nature is to blame, and for which there are no human responsibilities. The formula “no food – therefore starvation” aims to conceal the authentic causes of famines, i.e., the political and social mistakes which bring about famines. The cause of starvation is, in Sen’s opinion, due to the lack of entitlements to buy food for the people who starve: famines are a problem of lack of entitlements, not a problem of lack of food as such. It can be seen through the analysis of Sen that famines and starvations involve only a precise part of a people, i.e., the part that because of different causes is not in the condition of buying food; famines do not involve the whole population of a country.
– If famines were a problem of general lack of food, they would hit the whole population.
– Since only a part of the population suffers from famines, whereas the greater part of the population is not hit at all by famines, this means that even in a country affected by famine there is food to be bought.
– The problem of famines has, therefore, to be interpreted as a problem of lack of entitlements: some people cannot buy food. Famines are caused by a lack of entitlement, not by a lack of food.
– Good public policy can eliminate the incidence of starvation: famines are not a natural phenomenon; they have precise social causes and precise social responsibilities. If starvation happens, this means that the public policy has been not efficient.
– Famines are not the result of a general lack of food. Famines are the result of the lack of entitlements by some groups of persons: because of the lack of entitlements, these persons are not able to buy food. To say that there is a food shortage is a device for all those who say that there is nothing to do against famines.
– The remedies to avoid famine and starvation are rather simple: they can be represented, for instance, by all income-generation measures, such as public employment; through these measures, a better distribution of food can be achieved.
– Sen’s definition of famines as a condition in which people do not have enough entitlements to buy food – and therefore not as a condition in which there is not enough food – changes the perspective of interpretation completely: if the cause of famines lies in the lack of entitlements, famines are to be considered as a social phenomenon which can be solved by a redistribution of income.
The ethical fundament of Sen’s meditation is that the state ought to intervene: the state or the public authority may not simply observe the events, wait and see.
