Via Econlog, a truly excellent piece about trade talks and the Doha Round by Clive Crook.
Just powering up this free-lunch machine, they say, is going to lift
maybe half a billion people out of poverty over the next 15 years. It
is going to increase incomes in the world’s poorest countries by around
$200 billion a year, or roughly four times what rich countries jointly
give them in aid. And it doesn’t cost anybody a cent. Just the
opposite, because the rich countries benefit big-time as well. This box
is the best thing ever, they say. It’s worth trillions, for heaven’s sake — and the inventors are proposing to give it to humankind free.
But hang on. The world’s governments decide they had better have a
meeting about this. They are going to need to talk it all over, for
about five years. Let’s not rush into anything, they say. Can we be
sure this box is really such a good idea? There is a lot to discuss.
How are the gains to be shared among countries, for instance? That will
need some tough negotiating. And, country by country, what if some
people gain more than others? That would be awkward. Come to think of
it, if the world is suddenly going to be more efficient at making,
well, everything, then perhaps we won’t need as many farmers, say, or
textile workers, as we used to. There might be some temporary
unemployment. That would be bad.
So the governments have their five-year meeting. They pledge
now and then that the machine will be connected up shortly, once all
the issues have been resolved. They reaffirm again and again their
commitment to confront the scourge of global poverty (as they call it),
and say they understand that switching on the machine is the best and
biggest thing they can do for the poor. And then one day they up and
announce that, on reflection, they don’t want the machine at all.
In breaking news from Brussels, Peter Mandelson is still a complete tit.
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