The Right to Food; E. C. Pasour, Jr.

within a decade no child will go to bed hungry and that no family need fear for its next day's bread. In the same spirit, a '''Right to Food" resolution was introduced in both houses of the U.S. Con gress in 1975. This resolution de clares that every person in the U.S. and throughout the world has the right 'to a nutritionally ade quate diet. The resolution has re ceived the official sanction of vari ous religious groups. Members of the Lutheran Church in America, for example, have been exhorted to contact their Representatives and Senators to "urge its passage." The concerned citizen cannot be oblivious to his neighbor's condi tion. The fact that a problem exists, however, does not imply that all possible solutions are either feasible or right. What should be the attitude of the mor ally sensi tive person toward this 229 230 THE FREEMAN April (or any other) "Right to Food" resolution? Do we, as individuals, have an obligation to support this legislation? More generally, what should be our stance toward world hunger problems? What can we as individuals do to alleviate the hunger problem facing half a bil lion people throughout the world?

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the "Right to Food" reso lution. In doing so, the legitimacy of the right to food by citizens in the U.S. and in other countries will be discussed. The distinction between public and private char ity will be stressed. Finally, limi tations of charity as a long-run solution to hunger and poverty will be described. The Concept Examined There can he no universal right to food. The concept of the right to food cannot be supported on either economic or moral grounds. First, consider the economic im plications of the right to food. The right to food basically involves the problem of income distribution. Food is man-produced. Proposals which assume a right to food (or income) by individuals within or outside the U.S. imply that there is no relationship between the in centives of food producers and food production. Many of the countries in which the hunger problem is most acute have attempted to ignore this relation ship.

The right to food is fundamen tally no different than a right to housing, clothing, and the like. Thus, there can be no economic bill of rights assuring everyone a specified level of "necessities," since dividing income differently will affect the output of goods and services and, consequently, the amount of income to divide. That is, the more equal the income dis tribution, the less enthusiasm there will be on the part of indi viduals to engage in wealth-pro ducing activities. Food and other goods must be produced before they can be dis tributed. This is just as true for a highly developed modern econ omy as it was for Robinson Cru soe. The absurdity of the concept of "Right to Food" is obvious in the case of a Crusoe economy. The same basic problem remains, how ever, for a modern economy. There is no way to legislate prosperity for all. The recent bankruptcy of New York City is a predictable outcome of an attitude by public officials which holds that "we will not be constrained by economics in car ing for our citizens." The mini mum wage provides another good example of attempting to increase incomes by ignoring economic principles. Increases in the mini1976 THE RIGHT TO FOOD 231 mum wage cannot be used as a device to insure a mInImum amount of income for all. Instead, the evidence in scores of examples has shown that the effect of an increase in the minimum wage is to eliminate jobs for marginal workers - not to increase their in come.

Though a policy which is not feasible from an economic stand point could hardly be moral, there are other moral objections to any universal right to food. Any right to a given level of food must be at someone else's expense. Granting individual A the right to food (or any other good) means that an obligation is simultaneously be ing imposed on person B to pro vide the food since food must be produced to be consumed. Any right for one individual which im poses an unchosen obligation on other individuals can hardly be regarded as a moral right. This point is closely related to the dis tinction between "public" and private charity. Public V5. Private Charity Charity by its very nature im plies a voluntary, freely chosen act. However, the "Right to Food" resolution involves not private charity but an involuntary gift of food (and income) from people who are not disposed to provide such aid. The "Right to Food"

resolution involves the use of the state's power to collect from in dividuals more than they are will ing to contribute privately. Any individual is now free to con tribute privately as much as he chooses for domestic and foreign relief agencies. The "Right to Food" resolution means, however, that individuals should be forced to contribute more to such work than they freely choose. Support of legislation to coerce individuals into performing or abstaining from particular actions is inconsistent with the Judaeo Christian concept of freedom. Blue Laws, prohibition, and anti-por nography provide other recent ex amples of legislation attempting to coerce individuals into particu lar modes of behavior. Freedom involves choice, not necessity, but means little if man is not free to choose - to choose good as well as evil. Thus, it is difficult to under stand why a religious imprimatur should be placed on legislation in tended to coerce individuals into supporting a particular activity.

Such legislation will inevitably restrict the individual's freedom of choice. The act of supporting legisla tion affecting income levels on moral grounds raises a host of questions - theoretical and prac tical. Numerous groups, some pre ponderantly low income (e.g., eld232 THE FREEMAN April erly) and some preponderantly high income (e.g., doctors and lawyers), use or attempt to use the power of the state to affect their incomes. What moral basis can one use to determine whether the income of a particular individ ual or group is too high or too low? The Aristotelian idea of a "just price," meaning anything other than the competitive market price, has long been discredited. The idea of a "just wage" deter mined administratively is just as spurious. The market provides only the objective basis for deter mining what the wage of a partic ular individual should be. In reality, the incomes of most groups are influenced by the po litical process. Decisions to in crease school teacher salaries or the level of social security bene fits for the elderly, for example, are made in the political arena and reflect the political power of their individual constituencies. How ever, we have no objective basis apart from market forces for determining the "just" level of income for these or any other groups.

The fact that individuals or groups have no moral basis for at tempting to coerce other individ uals into involuntary acts does not mean, of course, that the hunger problem is not worthy of our at tention as individuals. We cannot be oblivious to problems of hun ger and malnutrition within the U.S. or in less-developed countries. Private charity is an important activity and can often playa key role in alleviating distress. Un fortunately, the impulse for pri vate charity and the individual's concern for his fellow man is be ing reduced by the progressively larger role of "public charity." Right to food resolutions also have a pernicious effect in foster ing expectations which, aside from problems of economic scarcity, are incapable of being fulfilled. There is no way to assure everyone the right to a nutritionally adequate diet or to insure, as proposed at the Rome Conference, that "no human being's future and capaci ties will be stunted by nutrition."

Nutrition problems exist in all countries for persons at all income levels. All parents know that pro viding the proper food does not guarantee that a nutritious meal will be eaten. Interest in "Weight watchers" and other diet programs indicates that practical difficulties associated with eating properly (even when food is abundant) are not limited to children. Alternatives For most of the world's hungry people, however, the basic problem is to obtain enough food. The question is not whether the plight 1976 THE RIGHT TO FOOD 233 of hungry people should be allevi ated, but how. If the "Right to Food" resolution is not the prop er approach toward alleviating hunger, what should we as indi viduals do? There is certainly a key positive role for private char ity. Such aid can perform a valu able role in providing temporary relief in case of earthquakes, floods, and other disasters. Western "imperialism," lack of resources and weather are being used as scapegoats by many under developed countries to hide the effects of their own mismanage ment. The advantage of abundant resources can easily be negated by government policies (as in Jamai ca). On the other hand, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan demonstrate the fact that resource-poor areas can develop when economic incentives are pres ent. The fact that Russian farmers produce 25 percent of their food in private plots worked by farmers in their spare time provides addi tional evidence of the effect of economic incentives on output.

The only long-run solution to low income and hunger is to in crease the output of the people involved, since wages depend pri marily on the productivity of labor. For a given economic sys tem, the productivity of labor de pends on the amount of resources, including machinery and equipment available to work with. In creasing the ratio of capital to labor requires incentives to invest and produce. Yet, many of the underdeveloped countries fail to provide the climate for economic development, with an overt hostil ity toward a system of economic incentives. Attempts to avoid the "mis takes" of a market economy through comprehensive central planning in "Third World" coun tries are almost certain to impede economic development. There are no short cuts to economic develop ment or panaceas to solve low income and hunger problems. Cap ital formation requires time, and hasty decisions adversely affect ing investment by domestic and foreign investors can affect the lives of a country's inhabitants for decades to come. The short ages, "bottlenecks" in production, low emphasis on output of con sumer goods, and the like in Rus sia and other centrally directed economies are predictable results of relying on central control in stead of the market in organizing economic activity. The typical per son has little appreciation of the way in which the price system of a market economy provides in formation to market participants.

For example, the amount of infor mation required and number of decisions involved in getting a 234 THE FREEMAN April loaf of bread into a consumer's hands is staggering to contem plate. Though charity may alleviate some temporary distress problems, the only long-run answer to world hunger and low income lies funda mentally within the countries themselves. Neither private nor "puhlic" charity is an effective substitute for basic political and economic reforms. Good intentions are not enough. "Right to Food" resolutions, whether passed or not, are likely to have a harmful effect on development efforts, since they divert attention from the basic problem. If enacted, such resolu tions may also impede long-run development by enabling develop ing countries. to adopt policies which discourage capital forma tion both from within and by for eign investors. , DWIGHT R. LEE AND ROBERT F. McNoWN EconomicGrowth TheProblems of Halting ECONOMIC GROWTH is no longer a uni versally accepted goal of eco nomic policy. To be sure there are still plenty of defenders of eco nomic growth, but it has become Messrs. McNown and Lee are Assistant Pro fessors, Department of Economics, University of Colorado at Boulder.