October 28, 2005
Conflicting arguments
Figured out something that's been bugging me for a while. Your standard progressive critique tends to include two critiques of the perceived status quo. One is that the West engages in punitive trade practices with the Third World. I'm going to focus on agricultural subsidies and tarriffs for the purposes of this argument. But on the other hand, the criticism is that small, private farmers in this country are going under.
I figured out why these two interests tend to conflict. And why the end result makes progressive critics look and sound like this.
So on one hand the criticism is that we're exploiting Third World countries by not letting them export their goods. On the other hand, the criticism is that old farming families aren't able to continue their way of life through small-scale farming. The solution to this would seem to be agricultural tariffs and farm subsidies to prop up what is otherwise a non-viable business.
You can't have it both ways. If you drop the farm subsidies and treat everyone justly, small American farmers will go out of business. If you maintain the subsidies and tariffs, you will screw over foreigners. And as the vast majority of people not living in North America or Europe are engaged in agriculture, this seems particularly selfish. But you don't get to pick survivability for individual American farmers and treating the rest of the world justly. Take your pick.
The same applies to every other industry. You get to pick either high wages for American workers or an equitable economic foreign policy, but not both. The fact is that it's only ever been just barely possible to make it by as a laborer or farmer, and the fact that it was possible earlier is a fluke, not a new norm.
And before anyone accuses me of being having a well-educated, well-paid job, I'll have you know my full-time job pays $8.00/hr.
Right on. Further, once we've established free trade, there's no need to assume that the small farmers will go out of business. They just need to focus on niche markets for rich people - like the burgeoning demand for fancily organic food, locally grown stuff, etc. Hey, if people go for that stuff, then grow it for 'em.
Tarriffs simply keep industries from having to adapt. They don't necessarily keep businesses in business that would otherwise go out of business.
Posted by: nick at October 28, 2005 08:22 PM