ABSTRACT
A natural disaster, such as an earthquake or hurricane, can be the occasion for an outpouring of international aid, but one must distinguish between Band-Aid relief and long-term eradication of chronic poverty and hunger. Garrett Hardin's metaphor proved to be an extraordinarily powerful one, capturing the public's attention and convincing many people that the solution to the problem of world hunger was simply to ignore the problem. The growing reluctance to spend money on reducing world hunger is associated with the increasingly popular idea that this goal is best achieved through investment rather than aid. Hunger will be erased through globalization and free markets. Much of the world's poverty and many of the attendant disasters of poverty are caused by predatory rulers, corrupt oligarchs, and brutal warlords. And yet, the vast inequalities of wealth and power in the world today, and the accompanying poverty, malnutrition, and illness, cry out for a globally applicable critique.
