Much like 'democracy' and 'freedom', capitalism alone is not necessarily a factor. See India as a counterexample. On the other hand, despite the economic embargo imposed by US, Cuba leads Latin American countries -- the best performing group -- in achieving UN goals to improve child nutrition. As for China, international observers attribute its success to political commitment from the government as well as economic progress and higher education rates for mothers. This is about as convincing as SamFisher's contention that insufficient vegetarian diet option contributes to India's lack of progress in reducing child malnutrition. Valid, but hardly significant.
Indians eats 3 pounds of chicken per capita. Whereas Americans eat 100 pounds. This shows India's hostile stance against KFC.
Its doubtful the PRC could've made the kind of strides they are making in reducing hunger and improving the quality of life without the massive economic liberalizations. I think most Chinese will take capitalism over the economy of the old days. I mean we all saw how successful the Great Leap forward was when all of the above was suppressed. The Cuba is closer to the PRC and Vietnam model of countries that still claim to be Communists than North Korea. On a smaller scale there is quite a bit of economic liberalization while Cuba has been aggressively marketing themselves in the fields of medicine and tourism. Its true they are greatly hampered by being shut off from the biggest market in the World 90 miles away but that doesn't mean they haven't embraced a certain amount of capitalism. I will agree that Capitalism isn't the sole solution but neither is the absence of democracy. For any system to succeed there needs to be a universal commitment along with some measure of clean government and its a credit to the PRC they've been able to harness the massive economic benefits they are gaining from the market economy to do things like reducing hunger.
Wait until KFC unveils their secret weapon. The Crispy Briyani wrap. 3 pieces extra crispy tender strips with briyani rice and lentils wrapped in Naan and a special masala sauce.
Pizza Hut is really popular in India, which makes sense as Indian food is pretty bread-based to begin with.
actually, i usually go to madras mahal next door. it's also vegetarian, but damn good. lunch buffet $7.95, best in the neighborhood. oh, and i am far from being a vegetarian
I've never been too any of those South Indian spots on Lex though I live right up the street. Any good?
Went there for a birthday party one time. There was about 20 of us and we just ordered a bunch of platters to share, a little of everything. The food was great!
Even if a society as a whole has amassed sufficient wealth, there can still be severe hunger problem faced by the underprivileged when you have extreme socio-economic disparities and low mobilities, in addition to the failures by a government to tackle the problem. The Great Leap Forward was one man's irrational economic policy, not necessarily associable to communism per se. The Great Depression, on the other hand, was largely due to unfettered capitalism. At least in this example though, the nature of political system seems irrelevant. I notice you skipped the example of India, which has capitalism, religious/personal/political freedom, democracy, everything in place.
Fortunately for Chinese at the bottom, China seems more committed to the Swedish model than the American model.
India's economy involves, and has traditionallly involved, a significant degree of state regulation and planning. Kerala, e.g., has a communist government.
Sorry glynch, I don't see that happening. China's health care "reform" is a miserable failure, to say the least.
Its true India is lagging behind the PRC in some factors but a the same time India has made signifigant strides in improving the average standard of living and building a middle class thanks to economic liberalization. My point is though if you look at the history of modern economies, since industrialization, primarily capitalistic economies and democratic systems have done far better at providing a decent standard of living for its citizens than mostly command economies and states with less democracy.
The hard cold reality remains that 57 million malnourished children (most likely at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder) have to survive a liberalized economy in a democratic system. "Significant strides in improving the average standard of living" and "building a middle class" are no more than irrelevant red herring. Sorry to see you have to keep on circumventing the sore point. It can't be very comforting to the West that Commie states (politically speaking) like PRC and Cuba lead the pack in combatting poverty and hunger, can it?
You're underestimating just how much socialism we have in America, this is not a pure capitalist society we're living in. Obviously, one of the major drawbacks of capitalism is the inherent disparity of wealth it creates (i.e. creating a class-based/class-conscious society), along with greed, materialism, etc.
