Trade-Offs

[thessalian]

I'm very confused...

I've been trying to get my head around the G8 summit stuff, and the history behind it is really depressing, as far as I'm concerned. So you have this bunch of countries that produce a whole lot of exportable goods -- India, various African countries etc. And then you get First World countries whose governments subsidise farms so that they can produce an obscene surplus of goods and sell it at a loss in the Third World countries that are producing the same damn product, so that it's cheaper for those Third World countries to buy foreign products than their own. Meanwhile, it's also cheaper for the First World countries to buy those goods, and a lot of people think about their wallets first. So despite the whole "free trade" thing, it boils down to the following: "We don't want your crap, but we want to flood your market with ours".

So the First World cripples Third World economies. And then it turns around and says, "Oh, poor countries! Here, have some money!" Not mentioning that it put the countries in this untenable economic position to begin with. And then, in the same breath as they're lamenting the economic state of the Third World, they're trying to get further trade liberalisation so that they can cripple those economies even more, and cripple more countries' economies.

Does this actually make sense to anyone else? I mean, yes, on a capitalistic, greedy-greedy me-me-me scale, it makes perfect sense. Because then, when the country's economy is utterly screwed, you can go in, buy the land, move your company into it, and then jack up the price of your own goods. But why the hell say you want to help these countries when all you really want to do is make them dependent?

dodgyhoodoo said something about "economic colonialism". Didn't we grow out of this shit? At least they're talking about reducing or abolishing the farm subsidies, but it's kind of a "too little, too late" situation as far as I'm concerned. Surely the way to help people is to help them -- hell, actually let them -- rebuild their own damn economy rather than throwing money at the problem. There's a saying: "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime." In this case, it's more the Pratchett version -- "Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life".

Comments

[fearmeforiampink]

The part of the problem is that the first world countries subsidise their own food production in case of war, cutting off of food supplies, etc. But the way it is done leads to vast quantities of unwanted produce, which they then unload like this.

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

It's not often I agree with our Prime Minister, but I certainly hope he can shoot the Common Agricultural Policy. Also the more I see of history, the more I see protectionism by the weaker (but not the stronger) in a trading agreement having been neccessarry (see China, Japan and America for details).

And giving Milton Friedman the Nobel Prize for Economics makes Kissenger's Nobel Peace Prize look sensible.

...and that's not all

[grimmy.livejournal.com]

the IMF has forced countries into cutting subsidies to their own farmers and remove import taxes as a requirement for getting a loan, in addition to privatizing services and let western companies buy their way into the country for cheap. those things are something nobody in the first world countries would ever agree to let happen to their own country.

so, yes, it IS basically a let's-get-stinking-rich-at-the-expense-of-others type thing for first world countries/companies.

i think 'Globalization and Its Discontents' by Joseph E. Stiglitz is a good book on the subject, and a friend recommended 'The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization' by Thomas L. Friedman as an easier read.