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Clarification: They are queuing for cheap rice.
I can go to any supermarket in my city and buy rice. I just have to be willing to pay four times what I’m used to for it. It is getting harder to find supermarkets still selling 10kg bags because those things are approaching ¥10,000.
Japan has had a more severe shortage of potato chips than this.
That’s 22lbs for $69. Yikes
That is wild! In Denmark I buy rice for 15 kr (~2€) / kg. Granted, it’s probably nowhere near the quality of Japanese rice. But still, what a price difference.
for cheap rice
But isn’t this just the definition of a shortage? The thing becomes scarce and so what IS available becomes incredibly expensive? I don’t see the differentiation you are trying to make. Wild price inflation happens when there is in fact not enough of the thing to go around.
Japan’s long-standing efforts to protect domestic farmers from outside competition, including limiting imports of foreign rice
Here’s the why in case anyone is wondering. It’s not a global issue.
Maybe they should have had a plan B for situations like this. It’s great to take care of your own, but this is a perfect example as to why you can’t put all your eggs into one basket.
Japan seems hell bent on not taking any steps to improve things. They have serious issues with population demographics and they are really shit about allowing immigrants in to work in the likes of agriculture.
Hey, it’s that thing that contributed to the French revolution!
Rice shortage?
let them eat rice cakes
Failed wheat harvest which caused a bread shortage.
Bread was a staple food in 18th century France.I’m not quite sure if it is similar to the rice shortage in Japan today however. When the French couldn’t eat bread in the 18th century they went hungry, but when the Japanese today can’t buy rice they can just buy a different carb.
Its the difference between barely scraping by on bread, and being inconvenienced by not being able to buy cheap rice.
Capitalism everywhere is failing
You can’t call it free market capitalism when you’re literally restricting who can and can not import rice and then getting upset at yourself for the self-inflicted starvation. This isn’t capitalism, it’s the very definition of Protectionism, and yes: closed-matket protectionists are failing everywhere, from Brexiteers to MAGA morons, to closed-market rice farmers.
This isn’t to say that unfettered Capitalism is the answer, or that all protectionist policies are bad. Any policy taken to the extreme is guilty of the real sin: not learning from the strengths and weaknesses of the systems they rail against and using them to build a more robust and functional middle ground.
I’m still flabbergasted by everyone still trying to hold onto a economic system designed by elites. Yall would be the 1760s worker arguing for just a few tweeks to a system not ment for the vast majority of people. Or you’re just part of the in group that benefits you more than others. Capitalism has reached its logical conclusion just like every form that came before. The sooner we accept and realize it the better.
Capitalism ≠ Free Market
Capitalism, by definition, is the pursuit and hoarding of wealth at all costs. This is ideologically opposed to the concept of a free market, because it will inevitably lead to captured markets and trusts.
While I agree that this particular scenario is unrelated to Capitalism as it is a matter of national protectionism, I’m simply taking umbrage with using “free market” and “capitalism” in a sentence together. Capitalism will always ultimately kill a free market.
I guess you are right. It is the local farmers who wants to profit from shortage.
