It depends at what level you mean ‘could.’ Yes, agro-technically we can produce enough food to feed everyone. The issue with world hunger is mostly due to non democratic governments preferring power over feeding their people. At that level, the ‘could’ becomes difficult and maybe impossible.
I think the real answer is that human nature has a dark side that, unless kept in balance by a culture of accountability, will cause harm to others.
A related realization is that, I think, cultures of accountability can be traced back to just luck and a small number of enlightened people that set things up in the past at the right time in the right place. So let’s not pretend things will always get better automatically, and, for those who enjoy freedom under a democratic government, let’s make an effort to cherish and invest in our culture, starting with educating our kids how special this really is.
All you need to do is tax the rent seeking and it goes away. The reason why that hasn't been done is that those who would be impacted have good connections with elected politicians. The most humble example is a homeowner who is involved in local politics at the expense of the renter.
I agree with your sentiment but I have to disagree with that phrase. The vast majority* of people of people pay quite a lot of money in taxes, which ostensibly** only exist to help others.
(*) I know the billionaires have their wealth as unrealized gains; I chose my words carefully
(**) I know we all disagree on how that revenue should be spent, but the purpose of taxation is all the same
The purpose of income tax is to avoid taxing land. You're basically paying taxes twice. Once to the government and again to the owner of the land who is making a profit off the services your government has provided via income taxes.
Also, almost all welfare systems are designed to make poverty sustainable, which is why simply getting rid of them solves nothing, they are just a symptom of an unequal society that wants to keep it that way. Getting people back to work is a more effective way to reduce welfare than cutting welfare spending.
E.g. farmers get paid by welfare recipients, cutting welfare may end up costing farmers a job that is absolutely necessary to society so farm subsidies are increased to maintain food security. If people get a job they still need to eat, so getting rid of the farmer and all the other people that are getting paid via the welfare recipient is nonsense.
That they use as collateral to get loans from banks that actually have that money. "Billionaires don't actually have that money" is peak bootlicker logic.
A house mortgage with 20% down is designed to be undercollateralized.
When the regulators and debt rating agencies don't do their jobs, it is easily apparent those loans were not fully collateralized. Therefore, the loans created money out of thin air. The banks are licensed to print money.
It doesn't matter if what your bank gives you isn't paper money. That's not the point. The point is, you go to the bank, you can buy absolutely anything you want with your loaned money, even if it's just a line in a database called fake_money_literally_just_printed.
If government was moderately okay at setting prices and production, there would not have been starvation of tens of millions under Mao's rule. If government manipulation of production worked, today North Korea would be the bread basket of the world.
It's the same issue we're now running into with renewable electricity production: You either need lots of storage, and for what you cannot store you need to significantly overbuild your production capacity.
The original question was why can’t we just feed everyone.
I wouldn’t say it’s “the answer” but it is “a candidate answer”
There's a video on this subject - Can YOU Fix Climate Change? https://youtu.be/yiw6_JakZFc
You may also like A Selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place – Egoistic Altruism https://youtu.be/rvskMHn0sqQ
source: a person raised in the fictional "we" whose neighbors were not
We recently had a conversation discussing the fact that we could eradicate hunger and the need for clean water globally, but for a whole host of reasons we have not yet done it.
He continues to probe “why“ and all I can say is, essentially, because people are greedy and unmotivated generally, and unwilling to sacrifice a modicum for others (not to mention corruption and other collective action problems).
I don’t think there is an answer.