Patrick Wintour and Patrick Barkham draw attention to the fact that the G8 leaders, at the summit in Japan, enjoyed an 'eight-course, 19-dish dinner prepared by 25 chefs' after discussing the world food shortage. The contrast they sketch is indeed striking and should give all of us pause. And yet... Whether from a sociological and political or from a moral point view, every serious question is left untouched. This is not, after all, about the G8 leaders and some special iniquity attaching to them. It is the structure of the social and economic world, no more and no less. Karl Marx doesn't get a universally admiring press these days, but there's still a point in observing that if some people eat too well while others are hungry, it's not only because of callousness and hypocrisy.
Then, so far as the morality of individual behaviour goes, in a world where there is dire need one may ask how well-placed the Guardian and its journalists are to comment acidly on the comforts and luxuries of others. Some people there may be who think that, the world being how it is, we should all reduce our enjoyments to the level of those in great need - who think this and act accordingly. But most fortunate people do not either think or act so, and they don't with good reason. It is a cramped and life-denying philosophy. The contrast which Wintour and Barham focus upon is a gross one - one of those permanent accusations against a world in which we stand by to what is morally intolerable. But so would the contrast, lesser though it would be, between the world's hungry and the meals enjoyed in good restaurants by the metropolitan well-off, to say nothing of their other comforts and advantages. If there is hypocrisy and lack of moral attention, it is very widely shared.
One serious question is what well-off individuals owe by way of effort and resources to others worse-placed than they are. Another serious question is how to achieve a world in which everyone gets to eat well enough.
