Abstract

Why do so many people worldwide suffer hunger and poverty when there is enough food and other resources globally to prevent it? This book shows how famine and food insecurity are an essential part of modern capitalism.

Although trade, debt relief and development initiatives are important, they do not alter the structure of the global economy and poverty continues to be created by processes like privatisation, trade liberalisation and market reform. Despite the 'end poverty' rhetoric of the World Bank and the G8, these high levels of poverty sustain Western wealth and power. Is there any hope for change? Using case studies from Egypt and North Africa, Nigeria, Sudan and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, Ray Bush illustrates that there is resistance to neoliberal policies, and that struggles over land, mining and resources can shape real alternatives to existing globalisation.
'Unveils the conceptual uses and abuses of 'poverty' and breaks new ground in the way we think about class and other social struggles in Africa'
Patrick Bond, Director, University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society, Durban, South Africa
'This is a truly refreshing and engaging book on neo-liberalism and its discontents in the Global South'
Adebayo Olukoshi, Executive Secretary, CODESRIA
'Ray Bush explains eloquently and powerfully the persistence and deepening of poverty in Africa'
John Loxley, Professor of Economics and Research Co-ordinator, Global Political Economy Program, University of Manitoba, Canada
'A hard-headed and systematic critique of the way the goal of development has been replaced by hand-wringing about 'poverty' has been badly needed. Ray Bush's cogent and detailed analysis is one no student - and no 'anti-poverty' campaigner, however celebrated - will be able to ignore'
Colin Leys, Emeritus Professor at Queen's University, Kingston, Canada, and author of The Rise and Fall of Development Theory