I love online dictionaries. Does this make me a Dork, a Geek or a Nerd? I especially like the OneLook Reverse Dictionary. If you ever feel lost for words, take a concept that leaves you speechless, put it in, and out come the suggestions.
One concept that has been leaving me speechless recently is how many people will die due to resource shortages if we keep on with this free-market stuff. How do you put this kind of thing into a word or phrase? Well, I entered “genocide by economic means” into my trusty dictionary and the first result was: Supply Side Economics. Who would have thought it? A dictionary with a sense of humour.
I also have to admit to being a wonk (though hopefully not a wonker). But this issue is so huge, it really bears explaining, and also a word of its own. Jared Diamond pointed out that there are a few things that often characterise civilisations on the brink of Collapse. Generally there is a party going on at the top, because this is the point on the exponential curve of resource usage where consumption is maxing out. But at the same time, as basic resource shortages bite, people at the bottom are starting to feel the pain, as basic neccessities start to run short. The problem that Diamond identifies, the one that is a killer risk for civilisations, is that those at the top do not pay attention to the problems of those at the bottom, because they are having such a great time. They are too consumed by hubris to address the emerging problems. It all sounds eerily close to home doesn’t it?
But here comes the really deadly bit. What happens to the price of a resource in shortage? Economics 101 says it tends to go up. What does trying to implement a global free market do? It tries to make prices the same for everyone everywhere, free from distortions. What does this do to people with little purchasing power (the poor) as basic resources run short? It kills them, efficiently.
Now this could be the most efficient killing machine ever invented by human kind, so surely it deserves a name? Genocide is not quite it, because, as people endlessly argue, it implies a deliberate intention to mass murder, and this particular form of wipe-out seems unplanned. We could go from the idea of manslaughter, which is applied to such unplanned or accidental killings by negligence, and generalise it out: mass humanslaughter perhaps? However it is, at least to begin with, a selective kind of killing, so how about mass poorslaughter?
None of these phrases really trip off the tongue, so perhaps we should use the words of Jean Zeigler, the UN special rapporteur for the Right to Food, who described biofuels, which turn land over from food to energy production, as an “Agricultural Crime Against Humanity.” Although I think there is an even snappier way of summing all of this up. Stupid.
One Comment
‘Econocide’ is a good term to describe the phenomenon you outline, Daniel. It was the title of a book by Seymour Drescher, subtitled, ‘British Slavery in the Age of Abolition.’ Free market globalisation may well be seen as a form of neo-colonial exploitation of the developing world. Interestingly, with a few notorious exceptions, slave owners or exploiters of indentured labour, however greedy or callous, were not sufficiently stupid as to destroy their workforces through starvation. The Nazis and operators of the Russian gulags were, of course, but theirs was an ideological, not economic form of exploitation.
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[...] There is a word for it …. [...]
[...] The environment: Limits to those resources makes the dynamics of inequality more acute (free summary). Distribution becomes more of an issue, as you loose cheapo consumer goods as a way of buying off the poor, and also as commodity prices spike, especially food… (Thus passim). [...]
[...] The problems we saw with the huge price rise in 2008 are still around, bio-fuels, huge agri-businesses exploiting market power, and so on. It is a myth that this was driven by increased demand from China and India, downwards pressure on wages in developing countries has actually reduced per capita food intake in the poor majority of these countries. Adding speculation in food markets yields a lovely recipe for population control (Thus Passim). [...]