Do we believe yet that Capitalism has failed?

Why are world food prices so suddenly on the rise? I mean, I know it can't be so suddenly as it seems, but it is suddenish. Is this rise unusual? I mean as I understand it, prices should rise, that mean the capitalist economy is working...doesn't it. Of course they shouldn't raise too quickly. That's like dropping a frog into boiling water. But slowly slowly, the value of symbols should decline, as thus we should require more of these valueless things in exchange for goods. Of course it is an exponential rise, isn't it. Things move like the Yeatsian gyre, slow at first from side to side extreme through extreme turning over, each time a little fast, a little further. Maybe I am only just noticing the gyre for the first.

But are things, like the increase in agricultural space being used for biofuels, really a cause? What about the rapid deforestation leading to the desertification of much of the globe? And why is deforestation happening? To make room for people, and for homes, and to make wood for pencils and chopsticks...of course there are just more people. We are, like the deforstation, like the desertification, like population growth, like the capitalist economy, all growing exponentially in our different directions. Maybe we just need a good alpha predator to come and make living more difficult for us.

I think it is interesting to think that any alpha predator to attack humans would have to be invisible to human sight. If we can see the source we seem pretty good at doing something about it. Spontaneous combustion might work. It's these things we can't see. Like what is causing the appaerntly sudden upward spiral in the price of food.

And at the same time it seems easy. Our own hubris led to this.