[lbo-talk] The Cancun Delusion

[Devine, James]

>The Cancun negotiations seem to offer a pretty stark refutation of the
idea of the productivity of high-tech agriculture.  If it's so productive,
why do American cotton farmers -- the most highly technologized in the
world -- need massive subsidies to keep dirt poor Malian peasants on small
plots from eating their lunch?<

it's a standard tragedy of capitalism: US farmers have the ability to produce so much
resulting price would be too low to allow them to survive as businesses -- until the 
farmers formed a cartel (rather having the gov't do it).
Jim