[governance] Clinton Admits: "Free" Trade is Harmful to 3rd

[John Curran]

Interesting article... There are indeed times when a more "efficient" 
distribution of resources via a free market doesn't actually create 
a more desirable outcome.  Economic models can be good in theory, but
also need to be tempered in implementation with consideration of the 
potential impacts in the real world (and particularly with respect to 
discontiguous events).

/John


On Apr 2, 2010, at 11:57 AM, michael gurstein wrote:

> This isn't directly about Internet Governance but rather about overall
> issues underlying "Global Governance" of which Internet Governance is IMHO a
> subset hence I think that the below might be of some interest:
> 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/20/AR2010032001
> 329_pf.html
> 
> Former US president admits trade policies were "a mistake"
> 
> During testimony before a US Senate committee three weeks ago, Clinton
> admitted that requiring Haiti to lower its tariffs on rice imports made it
> impossible for Haitian farmers to compete. The trade policy forced farmers
> off the land and undercut Haiti's ability to feed itself.
> 
> "It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not
> worked. It was a mistake," Clinton - now a UN special envoy to Haiti - told
> the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. "I had to live
> everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice
> crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else."
> 
> Clinton´s apology attracted scant media attention in the US and none in
> Canada. It was included as part of an Associated Press news agency report
> that was published by the Washington Post on March 20. The AP report from
> Haiti´s earthquake-ravaged capital, Port au Prince, suggests world leaders
> are reconsidering trade and aid policies that make poor countries dependent
> on rich ones. It quotes UN aid official John Holmes as saying that poor
> countries, like Haiti, need to become more self-sufficient by rebuilding
> their own food production. "A combination of food aid, but also cheap
> imports have...resulted in a lack of investment in Haitian farming, and that
> has to be reversed," Holmes told AP. "That's a global phenomenon, but
> Haiti´s a prime example. I think this is where we should start."
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