Tyler Cowen notes a remarkable story. A lobbying group is pressuring academics not to provide their expertise in WTO court cases when their consistent free market ideology stands in the way of US agricultural protectionism. Daniel Sumner, a Bush 41 administration member, is turning into a living demonstration of the proposition that the current worst enemies of capitalism are capitalists.
The truth is that 1st world agricultural market barriers (which raise food prices domestically) are a huge impediment for the 3rd world. The 90%+ of the population outside the farming industry benefit every time that subsidies are cut and quotas are lifted. Yet the agricultural lobbyists cry treason when a free market economist goes out and speaks the truth because his academic position is with a public university.
It's very simply unamerican, what the lobbyists are doing. Shame on them.
Posted by TMLutas at May 15, 2004 10:41 AM