But The Idea That I Should Be

If The Government Is Vulnerable To Public Opinion, Then Famines Are A Dreadfully Bad Thing To Have. You Can’t Win Many Elections After A Famine, And You Don’t Like Being Criticized By Newspapers, Opposition Parties In Parliament, And So On. Democracy Gives The Government An Immediate Political Incentive To Act.

Hardly Any Famine Affects More Than 5 Percent, Almost Never More Than 10 Percent, Of The Population. The Largest Proportion Of A Population Affected Was The Irish Famine Of The 1840s, Which Came Close To 10 Percent Over A Number Of Years.

The Increasing Tendency Towards Seeing People In Terms Of One Dominant ‘identity’ (‘this Is Your Duty As An American’, ‘you Must Commit These Acts As A Muslim’, Or ‘as A Chinese You Should Give Priority To This National Engagement’) Is Not Only An Imposition Of An External And Arbitrary Priority, But Also The Denial Of An Important Liberty Of A Person Who Can Decide On Their Respective Loyalties To Different Groups (to All Of Which He Or She Belongs).

Famines Occur Under A Colonial Administration, Like The British Raj In India Or For That Matter In Ireland, Or Under Military Dictators In One Country After Another, Like Somalia And Ethiopia, Or In One-party States Like The Soviet Union And China.

China Had Managed To Reduce Their Fertility To A Large Extent Because Of Basic Expansion Of Women's Education, Not Because Of The One-child Family.