Ratio Juris: The Moral & Political Economy of Poverty, Hunger, and Famine

“In his famous treatise on politics, diplomacy, and political economy called Arthaśāstra (roughly translated as ‘instructions on material prosperity,’ in contemporary terms, perhaps best translated as ‘political economy’), Kautilya, the ancient Indian political theorist and economist … included among his famine relief policies the possibility of raiding the provisions of the rich. In fact, he wrote with some eloquence on ‘the policy of thinning the rich by exacting excess revenue [karśanam], or causing them to vomit their accumulated wealth [vamanam].’”—Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford University Press, 1989): 4.

The Moral & Political Economy of Poverty, Hunger, and Famine: Suggested Reading

Anrée, Peter, et al. Globalization and Food Sovereignty: Global and Local Change in the New Politics of Food. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.
Aoki, Keith. Seed Wars: Controversies and Cases on Plant Genetic Resources and Intellectual Property. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2008.
Bardhan, Pranab. Scarcity, Conflicts, and Cooperation: Essays in the Political and Institutional Economics of Development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004.
Bardhan, Pranab. Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay: Assessing the Economic Rise of China and India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013 (with new afterword).
Bardhan, Pranab, Samuel Bowles and Michael Wallerstein, eds. Globalization and Egalitarian Distribution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press/New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006.
Barry, Christian and Thomas W. Pogge, eds. Global Institutions and Responsibilities: Achieving Social Justice. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005.
Bennett, Jon (with Susan George). The Hunger Machine. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1987.
Bernstein, Henry. Class Dynamics of Agrarian Change. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 2010.
Bernstein, Henry, et al., eds. The Food Question: Profits versus People. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990.
Brighouse, Harry and Ingrid Robeson, eds. Measuring Justice: Primary Goods and Capabilities. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Burbach, Roger and Patricia Flynn. Agribusiness in the Americas: The Political Economy of Corporate Agriculture. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980.
Chang, Ha-Joon. Reclaiming Development: An Alternative Economic Policy Manual. London: Zed Books, 2004.
Chang, Ha-Joon. Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008.
Charles, Daniel. Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food. New York; Basic Books, 2002.
Chatterjee, Deen K., ed. The Ethics of Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Clapp, Jennifer. Hunger in the Balance: The New Politics of International Food Aid. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012.
Clapp, Jennifer and Doris Fuchs, eds. Corporate Power in Global Agrifood Governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009.
Cotula, Lorenzo. The Great African Land Grab? Agricultural Investments and the Global Food System. London: Zed Books (in association with the International African Institute, the Royal African Society and the World Peace Foundation), 2013.
Crocker, David A. Ethics of Global Development: Agency, Capability, and Deliberative Democracy. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Cullity, Garrett. The Moral Demands of Affluence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Dasgupta, Partha. An Inquiry into Well-Being and Destitution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
De Greiff, Pablo and Ciaran Cronin, eds. Global Justice and Transnational Politics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.
Devereux, Stephen, ed. The New Famines: Why Famines Persist in an Era of Globalization. New York: Routledge, 2007.
Drèze, Jean and Amartya Sen. Hunger and Public Action. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1989.
Drèze, Jean and Amartya Sen. An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.
Drèze, Jean, Amartya Sen and Athar Hussain, eds. The Political Economy of Hunger. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1995.
Farmer, Paul. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003.
Farmer, Paul, Jim Yong Kim, Arthur Kleinman, and Matthew Basilico, eds. Reimagining Global Health: An Introduction. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013.
Frankel, Francine R. India’s Green Revolution: Economic Gains and Political Costs. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971.
Frankel, Francine R. India’s Political Economy: 1947-2004. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2005.
Godoy, Angelina Snodgrass. Of Medicines and Markets: Intellectual Property and Human Rights in the Free Trade Era. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.
Goodin, Robert E. Protecting the Vulnerable: A Reanalysis of Our Social Responsibilities. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
Gosseries, Axel, Alain Marciano, and Alain Strowel, eds. Intellectual Property and Theories of Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Griffin, Keith. The Political Economy of Agrarian Change: An Essay on the Green Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974.
Houtart, Franҫois. Agrofuels: Big Profits, Ruined Lives and Agricultural Destruction. London: Pluto Press, 2010.
Kloppenburg, Jack Ralph. First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2nd ed., 2004.
Kugelman, Michael and Susan L. Levenstein, eds. The Global Farms Race: Land Grabs, Agricultural Investment, and the Scramble for Food Security. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2013.
Magdoff, Fred, John Bellamy Foster, and Frederick H. Buttel, eds. Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000.
Magdoff, Fred and Brian Tokar, eds. Agriculture and Food in Crisis: Conflict, Resistance, and Renewal. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010.
Mayerfield, Jamie. Suffering and Moral Responsibility. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Meyers, Diana Tietjens, ed. Poverty, Agency, and Human Rights. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Mgbeoji, Ikechi. Global Biopiracy: Patents, Plants, and Indigenous Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006.
Miller, Richard W. Globalizing Justice: The Ethics of Poverty and Power. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Mintz, Sidney W. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.
Mooney, Pat R. Seeds of the Earth: A Private or Public Resource? Ottawa, Ontario: Inter Pares, 1979.
Murdoch, William W. The Poverty of Nations: The Political Economy of Hunger and Population. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.
Nazarea, Virginia D., Robert E. Rhoades, and Jenna Andrews-Swann, eds. Seeds of Resistance, Seeds of Hope: Place and Agency in the Conservation of Biodiversity. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2013.
Nussbaum, Martha C. Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Paige, Jeffrey M. Agrarian Revolution. New York: The Free Press, 1975.
Paige, Jeffrey M. Coffee and Power: Revolution and the Rise of Democracy in Central America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Patel, Raj. Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2008.
Pearse, Andrew. Seeds of Plenty, Seeds of Want. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Perkins, John H. Geopolitics and the Green Revolution: Wheat, Genes, and the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Pogge, Thomas W., ed. Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right: Who Owe’s What to the Very Poor. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Roseberry, William, Lowell Gudmundson, and Mario Samper Kutschbach, eds. Coffee, Society, and Power in Latin America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Ryan, Órla. Chocolate Nations: Living and Dying for Cocoa in West Africa. London: Zed Books, 2011.
Santilli, Juliana. Agrobiodiversity and the Law: Regulating Genetic Resources, Food Security, and Cultural Diversity. New York: Earthscan, 2012.

Santos, Boaventura de Sousa, ed. Another Production is Possible: Beyond the Capitalist Canon. London: Verso, 2007.
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa, ed. Democratizing Democracy: Beyond the Liberal Democratic Canon. London: Verso, 2007.
Schefer, Krista Nadakavukaren, ed. Poverty and the International Legal Economic System: Duties to the World’s Poor. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Sen, Amartya. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Shaikh, Anwar, ed. Globalization and the Myths of Free Trade: History, Theory, and Empirical Evidence. New York: Routledge, 2007.
Therborn, Göran. The Killing Fields of Inequality. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2013.
Unger, Peter. Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Venkatapuram, Sridhar. Health Justice: An Argument from the Capabilities Approach. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2000.
Warman, Arturo. Corn and Capitalism: How a Botanical Bastard Grew to Global Dominance. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
Warren, D. Michael, L. Jan Slikkerveer, and David Brokensha, eds. The Cultural Dimension of Development: Indigenous Knowledge Systems. London: Intermediate Technology Group, 1995.
Watts, Michael J. Silent Violence: Food, Famine, and Peasantry in Norther Nigeria. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2013 ed.
Winders, Bill. The Politics of Food Supply: U.S. Agricultural Policy in the World Economy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.
Wolff, Jonathan and Avner de-Shalit. Disadvantage. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.