Dear Log,
«Official aid is increasingly being used to drive African countries towards trade liberalisation. [...] The paradox, however, is that the US and EU, the world's two largest trading blocks, are not implementing at home the free trade policies that they insist that African countries take. This was starkly seen last month when the US announced its new farm bill which will increase US farm subsidies by $35bn, or more than $20,000 to each farmer.European subsidies are only slightly lower, the effect is that rich countries can continue to flood African markets with artificially cheap food and products, and that African producers who get minimal help from their cash-strapped governments find it ever harder to export. The Ghanaian rice industry, Bono and O'Neill saw for themselves, has collapsed in recent years as heavily subsidised US (and Thai) imports have flooded in. From being an exporter, Ghana now imports $100m of rice a year. »
--"Trade not aid: The west demands that African countries adopt free-trade policies, then it floods the continent with subsidised goods which destroy their markets"
This is distressing, but not particularly surprising. It brings me back to a dilemma faced by all Americans, but one that few will admit.
Why do we have an embargo against Cuba? Ostensibly, it's because of human rights abuses (this, from the country that, amongst other thing, is one of only two countries that won't ratify the international treating guaranteeing the rights of children) and a failure to adopt democracy. This begs the question "why don't we have embargoes against China?"
A lot of people (in the US, at least) seem to confuse capitalism with democracy and totalitarianism with socialism. Capitalism and socialism are economic systems. Democracy and totalitarianism are political systems (yes, I know there's overlap). Frankly, if people have the right to choose, I don't care if they choose capitalism, socialism, communism, or whatever. What I think is important is that they have a right to vote. While we allegedly espouse democracy in the USA, we really don't care too much about other countries so long as their markets are open to us (and the brother of the President isn't governor of a state that's strongly affected by the politics).
Personally, I support the right of a people to choose their own fate at the ballot box. If their economic systems don't agree with mine, so be it. That's not my choice to make. Unfortunately, the right to vote (and have that vote count) is the one thing I really want and it's the one thing that's denied to me in the US. Forget about voting for a non-Republicrat. Even if a third party wins 49% of the vote, there's still a good chance that they'll get 0% representation. Big business has been buying our politicians for so long that it doesn't really matter any more and the politicians seem inclined to allow big business just as much free access to the politicians as to foreign markets.
Re:Par for the course
jordan on 2002-06-20T01:46:04
- Why do we have an embargo against Cuba?
One reason and one reason only. Cuba nationalized all industry, which US interests held a considerable stake, in 1959.
The US has made and continues to make a long object lesson out of a country so close that dares to ignore sacred property rights.
The fear was that if the US didn't hold out against this, that other nations would follow suit and make the world, or at least this hemisphere, unsafe for International ownership.
- Personally, I support the right of a people to choose their own fate at the ballot box. If their economic systems don't agree with mine, so be it.
I disagree. Democracy is overrated. Someone said "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner." What we need is a Republic where the powers of Government are checked by a Constitution, so that it can't be used as a tool to separate men from their "inalienable rights". I consider property rights among those inalienable rights. If the mob votes away my right to private property, as is common under Socialism, then I'm being dealt with unjustly.
Economic systems are about Freedom, also. Men should be allowed to choose their economic system as long as it's not a veiled attempt to take from one group to give to another.
Of course, wicked men can take control over a Constitutional Government. We need to be vigilant against that and work to keep Government our servant and not our master.
Re:Par for the course
jdavidb on 2002-06-20T16:00:18
and the brother of the President isn't governor of a state that's strongly affected by the politics
While one could make a case that George Bush should now consider lifting the embargo and isn't because of this kind of influence, one should also bear in mind that Bush did not establish the embargo in the first place.
