Why Do People Starve in a World of Plenty?
Every day, people die of hunger—not because there isn’t enough food, but because the market doesn’t find it profitable to feed them. In Why Hunger? Arguments Against the Market, Hermann Lueer exposes the brutal reality: capitalism isn’t designed to meet human needs; it exists solely to maximize profit.
While supermarkets throw away perfectly good food because it won’t sell, while millions of tons of surplus food are dumped into the ocean to protect prices, billions struggle just to survive. The dogma of the free market dictates that production isn’t based on what people need, but on who can afford to pay. If you’re poor, your hunger is irrelevant—because need alone isn’t a marketable demand.
Lueer takes on the myth of the “social market economy,” arguing that even welfare policies exist only as long as they don’t threaten corporate competitiveness. Aid doesn’t solve poverty—it forces people back into the same economic system that made them poor in the first place, pushing them to compete in a rigged game.
This book is a direct challenge to the idea that the market can fix social problems. With bold and well-researched arguments, Lueer makes it clear: if you really want to end hunger, you have to confront capitalism itself.