Food Price Spikes and Social Unrest: The Dark Side of the Fed’s Crisis-Fighting

Emergency monetary policies produce an unintended consequence: rising food prices around the world.

Food Price Spikes and Social Unrest: The Dark Side of the Fed’s Crisis-Fighting Chile-food-riot-coronavirus-GettyImages-1213720480

In early December 2010, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization released a policy brief that noted: “Recent bouts of extreme price volatility in global agricultural markets portend rising and more frequent threats to world food security.” Several days later, on Dec. 17, a Tunisian street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi lit himself on fire after officials seized his fruit cart—depriving him in an instant of his sole livelihood. This act inspired dozens of copycat immolations and motivated large street protests—driven in large part by sharply increasing food prices—that quickly spread through the Middle East and North Africa.

This wave of social upheaval became known as the Arab Spring in Western media outlets, but activists in the region described it as the Hunger Revolution, an apt name considering that unrest was hardly limited to the Arab world. Nor were these domestic uprisings contained within their borders. The ensuing civil conflicts in Libya and Syria, in particular, became internationalized, and the 2015 refugee shock from the latter conflict contributed to populist-nationalist political movements, first in Europe and then around the world.

The coronavirus crisis has already prompted worry regarding access to affordable food, particularly in developing countries. Earlier this month, President of the U.N. General Assembly Tijjani Muhammad-Bande warned of a pandemic-induced food crisis, while the U.N.’s World Food Program now expects a doubling of acute hunger relative to the pre-crisis baseline. While there have been strong harvests in recent periods, public officials worry about fragility in global supply chains as well as hoarding and food protectionism. As hunger rises, so does the potential for widespread episodes of contentious politics, including protests, mob activity, and both violent and nonviolent mobilizations against governments.

.https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/20/food-price-spikes-and-social-unrest-the-dark-side-of-the-feds-crisis-fighting/
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Anarcho-Capitalist, AnCaps Forum, Ancapolis, OZschwitz Contraband
“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.”-- Max Stirner
"Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it." -- Kurt Hofmann

Food Price Spikes and Social Unrest: The Dark Side of the Fed’s Crisis-Fighting

Emergency monetary policies produce an unintended consequence: rising food prices around the world.

Food Price Spikes and Social Unrest: The Dark Side of the Fed’s Crisis-Fighting

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