"War is the health of the State," Randolph Bourne wrote at the time of the First World War during which governments assumed bloated power, though sometimes at the expense of their own existence. But if war gives the state a boost, it's usually civilians who suffer the most as their prosperity and lives wither away. We're reminded of that awful dynamic right now as Russia's invasion of Ukraine exacerbates hunger in a world in which supply chains had already been disrupted by pandemic policies. It's a shock coming as it does just a few years after people celebrated the global growth of plenty.
"Information from the latest month between October 2022 and January 2023 for which food price inflation data are available shows high inflation in almost all low- and middle-income countries, with inflation levels above 5% in 83.3% of low-income countries, 90.2% of lower-middle-income countries, and 91% of upper-middle-income countries and many experiencing double-digit inflation," the World Bank warned February 13. "The countries affected most are in Africa, North America, Latin America, South Asia, Europe, and Central Asia."
