The newest "hot topic" among the European Left now is the European Union's support to agriculture in Europe. The Left, rightly, says that the support to European agriculture undermines agriculture in the developing countries - it gives European farmers and unfair advantage over the poor peasants in Africa and South-America and maintains poverty where poverty is the most. All of this is true and everyone, including the Left, should join in fighting State-supported agriculture. This has been a battle which the Right has had to fight alone for decades but now the Left joins in and that can only be positive.
The EU's agricultural program is being used by the Left to fight against the new European constitution. Now comes a strange part: Another issue being used to fight the constitution is it's emphasis on increased liberalization and privitization in the EU member states. This makes no sense. Removing State-support to agriculture and thereby giving farmers of the developing countries a better chance to enter European markets is a clear case of liberalization - it liberates farmers from the State and replaces support, regulations and tariffs with market-laws and competition on level grounds. The Left must realize this. Still it fights the constitution based on its emphasis on liberalization!
This makes no sense.
2 comments:
Geir,
I love your stuff. Encountering a European Libertarian is a bit like finding a unicorn. It gladdens my heart.
pwyll
Nonsense - there are hoards of European libertarians around! However, most of them choose to write in their own language so the English-reading internet-world has limited access to their thoughts.
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