Randy Paul over at Beautiful Horizons nods to this somewhat condescending editorial from the New York Times on Bolivia and globalization. While I agree with the assertion that the poor in a place like Bolivia are working against their own long term interests when they engage in "counterproductive populism", I find the whole line of argument misleading.
It's important to recognize that on the scale of industries within a single country, trade liberalization has big winners and losers, especially in the short term. In the US for instance, getting rid of agricultural subsidies would be a terrible thing for American farmers in the near term, even though the conventional economic thinking says the country as a whole would benefit. The same is true for some groups Bolivia, so it's no surprise that some Bolivians are mobilizing against the liberalization - they may well be working in their own interests, in the short term.
The American capacity for novelty and propensity towards change is too often underestimated. Getting rid of agricultural subsidies in the US might also turn out to be a good thing for American farmers - and sooner than most predict.
A good friend of mine grew up on a farm in Michigan. His parents finally went bankrupt in the early nineties, losing the farm, and then had to figure out what to do next. Long and briefly painful story short, they've never been happier (they are now an international economic development consultant and a local non-profit administrator).
Granted this is anecdotal from one data point, but I understand that the rest of the town is also undergoing something of a renaissance as the other bankrupt farmers find other work too. The wiring of the US has allowed them to remain in a rural area - in their hometown - rather than forcing them "off the land" completely and into cities.
Not perfectly peachy, but not the predicted tragedy either.
Here is the recipe for a A**-Op:
1. Take a little information (not the whole story but just a snippet!)
2. A dash of your 2 cents finely minced.
3. Sauté over a sweet vintage of ignorance and misinformation
3. Steam well with hot air
4. Serve to the masses.
I posted about the same op page!
Randy beat me to Guatemala's op page entry, lol
Martial - I think there's a lot out there for former farmers once these agricultural subsidies have been taken out of the picture, but there could be more. What I'd like to see is educational subsidies for former farmers, along with some serious investment in relevant alternative technologies (wind farms?). You could justify the payouts from general revenue in light of the projected gains from trade you'd get because of the freer markets.
I couldn't agree with you more, Paul. I think there are vast opportunities in adult education and training - and not just for farmers.
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