In our age, hunger is no longer a human tragedy; it is a political phenomenon consciously produced, managed and sustained by the global order. Any approach that still tries to explain hunger by fate, culture, faith or individual inadequacies is either the product of ignorance or an ideological partnership with power. Scientific data, economic policies and historical experience are clear: Hunger is neither natural nor inevitable; it is the logical consequence of a specific economic and political order.
The World Is Dying Not From Starvation, But From Not Being Shared
Today, the world population is about eight billion. At least 800 million of them suffer from chronic hunger, and around 2.5 billion people lack access to regular and healthy food. Almost one third of humanity lacks nutritional security. It is a scientific fallacy to explain this picture with a lack of resources. Because in the same world, there is an unprecedented concentration of wealth and income.
The Geography of Wealth Determines the Map of Hunger
Approximately 60-65 percent of the total income generated on a global scale is concentrated in the hands of the richest 10 percent of the population. In contrast, the poorest 50 percent of the world's population lives on only 8-10 percent of total income. The richest 1 percent of the world's population controls about 45-50 percent of global wealth. The 10 richest people own more than the total wealth of the planet's poorest 3.5 billion people. This is not a situation that can be explained by individual success or hard work; it is the mathematical result of a systematic transfer of wealth upwards. Hunger is not caused by the abundance of the poor, but by who has the money.
The Problem is Property, Not Production
The scientific data is clear: The world can easily feed all of humanity with its current agricultural production capacity. Despite this, around 1.3 billion tons of food is thrown away every year. This amount is enough to feed all the hungry people in the world many times over. The problem is not in production, but in property relations, distribution mechanisms and the profit-oriented economic order. The moment food ceases to be a human right and becomes a commodity traded on stock exchanges, hunger becomes a “natural” output of the system.
Hunger is a Weapon of War: Gaza
The starvation in Gaza is one of the most naked and harsh examples of this order. Here, hunger is not a side effect; it is a direct strategy of war. Food, water and electricity are used as military tools; starvation is a clear war crime under international law, yet it is legitimized by Western states either through silence or de facto support. The United Nations publishes reports, expresses deep concern, but does not impose sanctions. This is because the UN has become a geopolitical rather than a moral institution, politically paralyzed by the veto mechanism of powerful states.
Yemen: Arms Profits, Child Graveyards
The starvation of millions of people in Yemen is not a “humanitarian crisis”; it is a systematic destruction fueled by the global arms trade. Starving children in Yemen are invisible on the balance sheet of arms companies, but their absence is seen as an acceptable cost to the system. Hunger is not solved here either; it is managed, reported and normalized.
Africa: Imperialism, Not Nature
Hunger on the African continent is often explained by backwardness or climatic conditions. But the reality is this: Africa's underground and agricultural resources have been exploited for centuries, and economies condemned to monocropping for multinational corporations are driving people to hunger. Africa, which hosts about 17 percent of the world's population, is home to more than 25 percent of the global starving population. This picture is not a problem of nature; it is the direct result of imperialist political economy.
IMF Institutional Architect of Poverty
Poverty in South America has been deepened by military coups, IMF programs and privatization policies. The policies imposed by the IMF under the name of “structural adjustment” have resulted in cuts in public spending, the elimination of agricultural subsidies, the liquidation of the welfare state and the precarization of labor. Academic studies are clear: In countries where IMF programs have been implemented, income inequality has increased, food security has weakened and poverty has become permanent. Despite this, the IMF still maintains the rhetoric of “stability”. The only stability provided is the stability of capital.
The Aid Industry The Marketing of Conscience
Organizations like UNICEF collect donations with photographs of hungry children; however, they do not question the global order that produces hunger. Child poverty is transformed from a violation of rights into the object of emotional campaigns. The hungry child is not a citizen; it is a poster. This is an ideological practice, not a humanitarian one, and functions to whitewash the system.
Hunger at the Center of Capitalism
In the United States, the center of capitalism, millions of people are homeless; food banks and aid lines have become commonplace. If there is a hunger and housing crisis in the richest country in the world, the bankruptcy of the neoliberal order is indisputable. Despite this, the United Nations and the World Bank still treat poverty as a “manageable” problem. Because the issue is not to end hunger; it is to maintain the order without questioning it.
Turkey: Charity Regime
Turkey is not excluded from this global picture. IMF policies are being implemented without the IMF, labor is suppressed and poverty is managed with a regime of charity. While social rights are being liquidated, poverty is legitimized with religious and national discourses; hunger is presented as an individual fate. However, the scientific reality is clear: Poverty is structural, not individual; hunger is political, not moral.
The Solution is a Change of Order, Not Aid
To remain silent here is to approve this order. The fight against hunger is not possible through aid campaigns, but by coming to terms with power relations. The real solution lies not in humanitarian aid packages, but in a public, egalitarian and rights-based economic order. Food and shelter must be recognized as basic human rights that cannot be left to the mercy of the market. Agriculture and food production must be included in public planning; small producers must be protected and the domination of multinational agricultural monopolies must be broken. Excessive wealth must be controlled through a wealth tax and a progressive income tax; public resources must be transferred to society, not to capital. Austerity policies imposed by the IMF and similar institutions must be rejected; the social state must be rebuilt. The minimum wage must be raised to a living wage and labor security must be made a universal right. At the international level, sanction mechanisms must be implemented against those who use hunger as a tool of war; the United Nations veto system must be democratized.
Numbers Don't Lie
At this point, it is necessary to move the discussion away from abstract calls for morality and talk in concrete numbers. According to calculations by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Food Program, approximately 40-50 billion dollars of additional resources are needed annually to completely eradicate chronic hunger in the world. At the same time, total global wealth is about $450 trillion, of which about 45-50 percent, or $200-225 trillion, is held by only the richest 1 percent of the world's population. Approximately 2 trillion dollars, which corresponds to only 1 percent of the wealth of this group, is large enough to eliminate all chronic hunger in the world for decades, according to the calculations known today. Even a 0.25 percent wealth tax on the richest 1 percent would generate about 500 billion dollars, enough to end global hunger for at least a decade. A permanent 2-3 percent super-rich wealth tax on a global scale would generate 4-6 trillion dollars in public resources every year, enough to end not only hunger but also extreme poverty and basic nutrition insecurity historically. Hunger is therefore not an unsolvable human problem, but a direct consequence of the political choice to leave wealth untouched.
Hunger and Obesity: Two Faces of the Same System
But the rottenness of the global system does not end there. At the same time as people are dying of hunger, the “obesity and weight loss industry” has become a market of unprecedented size. Today, the total annual budget spent worldwide on diet products, weight loss drugs, aesthetic operations, the fitness industry and the “healthy living” market is around 400-500 billion dollars. The volume of the weight loss drugs and supplements market alone has exceeded 150 billion dollars. This is almost ten times the annual resources needed to end all chronic hunger in the world.
On the one hand, people spend billions trying to lose weight because of excess calories, while on the other millions of people die because they cannot access a single meal. This is not a “contradiction”; it is the conscious organization of capitalism. The same system produces both obesity and hunger. Because the issue is not health, but profit; the issue is not life, but market value. When food is consumed in surplus, it creates a new industry; when it is made inaccessible to the poor, it produces silence.
Capitalism does not see the starving body, but sees the overweight body as a “market”. Hunger is shame, it is hidden; obesity is commodified and marketed. Thus, the system manages both poverty and overconsumption at the same time.
Last Word
The conclusion is clear and indisputable. Hunger has no religion, because hunger is not about theology, but about economics. Poverty has no homeland because capital knows no nation, no borders. Hunger will not end until this order changes. And this order can only change through an organized, conscious and political struggle.
Because hunger does not wait.
Because poverty is not defeated by patience, but by politics.