Wed Jul 26 00:36:47 CEST 2006

The Communist States of America

Funny that, the latest World Trade Organisation summit ends up in a failure, with 'rich' countries apparently bringing an end to the whole negotiation on opening the food markets. The idea was to ask developed countries to reduce (or, better, stop) subsidising of their farming industry to give developing countries a chance to sell to those markets fairly.

Why is it funny? It's funny because what the WTO wanted is basically to apply the rules of free market to farming, and it's the United States that refused to stop subsidising their farming. So the message is: we'll support free market when it's good for us, but we'll be damned if we let others compete in our country.

To be fair, I personally think opening farming markets is a bad idea. There are a few things in which I think the state needs to intrude, namely defense, education, healthcare and... food supply. Keeping your population fed does sound like something that the government must do, lest you see your populace beheading people asking for bread when you have nothing but brioche to give them.