Battle for Food

Adolf Hitler, as quoted in an article by Edward Heath, former UK Prime Minister,

“ To organise on a large scale the whole world so that each country produces what it can best produce while the white race, the Nordic race, undertakes the organisation of this gigantic plan. Believe me, National Socialism as a whole would be worth nothing if it were restricted merely to Germany and didn’t seek the supremacy of the superior race over the entire world for at least a thousand to two thousand years. “

These are the words of a Christian man in a Christian country. Hitler’s words might as well go unnoticed for they echo throughout history. The time-space reference is an eye opener. The larger the social groups the greater their unquenchable thirst for time (‘a thousand to two thousand years’) and space (‘the whole world’). They love to measure things in centuries and millennia. They want something to show for it. They respond to targets and adulation. Hitler had then a remarkably neat vision. Not necessarily an original one though but one none the less with the potential to project itself well into the future (always) – wars and conflicts grounded firmly on one destiny and one dominant race. The coveted prize is more and more territories. Justice became a matter of asking whether a country was worth colonising. Conquer time (past, present and future) to conquer space, and vice versa.

Adolf Hitler, quotation from Lizzie Collingham in The Taste of War,

“ It is a battle for food, a battle for the basis for life, for the raw materials the earth offers, the natural resources that lie under the soil and the fruits that it offers to the one who cultivates it. “

We must not overstate the case but food is big. Another problem for us. To solve the food conundrum we need to be very smart.