NPR's article entitled "Can Riots Be Predicted? Experts Watch Food Prices" (María Godoy, October 2, 2012, www.npr.org), focuses on a mathematical model developed by scientists from the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), in Cambridge. This model has the potential to predict social unrest by monitoring the price of basic food staples such as corn.
The article establishes a direct correlation between the increasing price of food and some of the most important social revolts of the last few centuries. The French Revolution, the Red October in Russia and the Arab Spring were, in different degrees, driven by desperate people who could no longer feed their families properly, while a few members of the elite got richer and fatter.
I find this topic quite interesting because in Argentina, where I was raised, the government manipulates statistics to hide an alarming inflation rate, which averages 25-30% a year. The INDEC (the national entity monitoring prices), who should be objective and deliver matter-of-fact data the government apparatus can act upon, is audited by the authorities. Absurd numbers are released in the form of professional reports that contradict what people see on the street everyday, and by a large margin. Can this permanent lack of transparency generate more anger than hunger itself?
Link to article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/09/20/161501075/high-food-prices-forcast-more-global-riots-ahead-researchers-say
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