[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

Starvation exists in the modern world because of local shortages and poor and unequal food distribution rather than because of a global shortage.

The law of demand and offer seems to contradict your statement, as prices for food have been increasing and will continue to increase in the near future as the amount of food production continues to be outpaced by the speed at which the human race keeps increasing in number.

Real humans have never experienced a global shortage (except maybe the ice ages), especially not continual ones, because those are extinction-level events.

or a little ice age

Your points don't address this at all because they are all local events and they are resolved over time. The example of the Chinese famine seems to support my points more: it was localised to China, it had a limited timeframe, and it was largely caused by unequal distribution. Demon King's explanation of the human world says that none of these are true, if only in the case of the southern countries.

China has a very vast territory, so using the world "localized" is a bit misleading, if a famine that killed millions happened in 20th century Europe it would have decimated several countries. It is the same in Yuusha's world, the whole southern part of the continent has been for several years on the verge of starvation. they cannot produce enough food and lack the money to buy it. <jojo>now you are going to say "That is a problem of food distribution, there is no real food crisis</jojo>, but you seem to forget one basic fact, the food the central goverment produces is already being consumed, there is no mention at all of food going to waste, so if by some magic spell the people in the south had money to buy food from the north, it would increase in price due to the increased demand and now many people in the central nations will not have enough food on the table everyday.

Is that feed the Roman Empire or Italy or Rome the city? My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I seem to recall it only applying to the city. Given that Medieval populations are vastly non-urban, what works for Rome the city (namely centralization, ease of transportation and distribution) aren't going to work for entire countries.

No doubt up to the industrial revolution most of the world population was concentrated in rural areas, but to think that the only city in all of the Roman empire was Rome is preposterous to say the least.