Consciousness of Sheep
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Charity often fills in the gaps that neither markets nor government can fill. But through the ongoing post-2008 depression, those ‘gaps’ have grown bigger even as both market and state retreat. Nowhere is this clearer than in the spectacular growth of foodbanks across the UK. In 2010, when David Cameron and George Osborne arrived in Downing Street to implement their programme of sharp austerity cuts, hardly anyone knew what a foodbank was. In 2007, there were just 25 foodbanks in Britain. By 2010, this had risen to 80. But with the onset of austerity, the numbers quickly exploded. By 2015, there were 800 and by 2017, 1,200. In the wake of the pandemic, the number had risen to 2,500, and today it stands at more than 3,000.
But far from seeing the need for emergency food parcels as an indictment of an increasingly threadbare social safety net, politicians began to celebrate the opening of new foodbanks in their constituencies. This drew criticism from the foodbanks themselves, who pointed out that it was often state-imposed sanctioning of social security benefits which left people unable to feed themselves in the first place.
Nor is food relief limited to those on social security. As prices spiked upward during the post-pandemic supply shock and the subsequent self-sanctioning of cheap Russian oil and gas, a large part of the low-paid workforce also needed to access emergency food supplies… something which should – but didn’t – ring alarm bells.
Charitable giving follows a ‘U’ curve, with those at the bottom donating a far larger proportion of their income than the middle classes to charity. And since there are so many people on lower incomes, taken together they account for a large part of the support which keeps genuine (i.e., not astroturfed or sock puppeted) charities running. So, when the kind of people a charity relies on for donations start showing up in need of emergency food, the danger is that charities will fail just at the point when they are needed most.
With the price of food rising faster than official inflation in the UK, and with many of us adjusting our spending to account for higher fuel and energy prices, I was not surprised to see this appeal from the local foodbank turn up on Facebook:
“We’re very worried. We have never seen our warehouse so empty, and now, for the first time ever, we’re out of crucial items—such as long-life fruit juices that make up our three-day emergency food parcels…”
This is something new – donations drying up just at the point where a food crisis is developing. And it isn’t going away soon even if the Trump-Iran memorandum of understanding sticks. Next year’s harvests are already affected by the current fertiliser shortage. And even if the Strait of Hormuz ‘opens’ at the end of the week, it will take time to de-mine the waters and to repair the infrastructure. And even if some ships set sail, it will take the best part of a month to reach Europe (more if the insurance companies refuse cover for sailing in the Red Sea). Indeed, it is likely that refinery reserves will hit ‘tank bottom’ (the point where refineries have to shut down) before new tankers begin arriving to unload. And so, further increases in fuel (especially diesel) prices can be expected, along with the inevitable second order price increases on everything made from or transported with that oil. And just to add to our growing woes, the lunatics who run the west’s central banks have decided – just as they did immediately prior to the 2008 debacle – that raising interest rates just at the point when even spending on essentials is collapsing is just what the economy needs.
Nor is the collapse in donations a local problem. Foodbanks across the UK are already seeing the same problem – food donations drying up just at the point where the need for emergency food support is growing. And given the time delay between ending the Iran war and getting the food supply chain even close to normal, this is not going to improve any time soon.
When we try to imagine the impact of food shortages, we might think about the 2011 ‘Arab Spring,’ or, for those old enough, the desperate mass of humanity in Ethiopia in 1983-85 (which gave rise to the Live Aid concerts). But this time around, we are facing famine in the western economies too. And this shortage in foodbank donations is merely the first wave. As food gets more expensive, even as unemployment is rising, the hidden hunger that comes in the form of such things as parents skipping meals to feed their children, or teachers providing food to clearly undernourished pupils is going to become far more widespread… as, I suspect is the current wave of shoplifting which is forcing shop closures in Britain’s most depressed areas, which leaves the poorest paying even more for their food.
This, of course, is precisely why the 1940-45 wartime coalition government suspended the old Poor Law system – which also depended upon charities filling the gaps – and why the post-war Labour government made the wartime arrangements permanent. Because it is precisely at the point that charity is needed most that donations (whether cash or food) dry up. That was the experience of the 1930s and, sadly, it is going to be the experience of the coming months and years.
The hunger will stay hidden behind closed doors. We will not see UN food relief camps or even empty shelves. Rather, we will see supermarkets selling food at prices far too high for those at the bottom. And gradually, the news media will fill with stories about people dying from malnutrition.
As you made it to the end…
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