Question on Marxist Positions on Trade

["D OC" <donaloc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I watched BBC's Newsnight last night and they had an interesting discussion
about the impact of unfair trade on the development of the post-colonial
nations. A number of interesting points were made:

1. That the IMF/World Bank restricts subsidies to colonial sectors - in
particular, their agricultural sector as a term of financial support given
2. That meanwhile the EU and the US are grant-aiding their Agriculture with
a consequent impact on competition within the large markets in Imperialist
nations
3. That in addition to Imperialist nations' agricultural produce having an
unfair advantage in the larger domestic markets, they can dump/flood the
developing nations' markets with produce below cost value.
4. That many post-colonial nations have protected nascient sectors (e.g.
industrial/ manufacturing) through tariffs and that the IMF have often
requested that these be reduced too early with the consequent
de-industrialisation of 'developing countries'. A representative of these
latter noted that in some countries de-industrialisation reduced the
industrial labour force by up to 66%.

There were a few other points made and whilst the entire discussion was
based upon the notion that free markets was the holy grail, it did start me
thinking about what we should suggest.

As a party, we support the retention of grant-aid for our agricultural
sector, a pre-requisite to maintaining our rural heritage and communities -
indeed, I would like something more like a social-wage across the spectrum.
The main problem is that the IMF/World Bank is preventing developing nations
from doing the same and are calling for opening up of markets when the
imperialist countries are not inclined to even do this themselves.

It is clear that the Fair Trade movement will go nowhere because of the
strong vested interests at stake, if Bush threw vast sums at big land-owners
it's because they call the shots in the Mid-West. The EU will not reform CAP
because to do so would impact heavily on the larger and more powerful land
owners - who have benefited disproportionately. They will, of course, hide
behind the poor land-owners to make their defence - with some degree of
truth. In effect, the third world will continue to be shafted. Meanwhile,
the Fair Trade movement will continue to act as a conduit to those who have
a conscience about events but don't want to do anything too radical. Indeed,
I saw both sides of the British Mainstream jump on the bandwagon and start
blaming all around them for the retention of CAP - of course, since
Thatcher, British Agriculture has suffered an unparalleled contraction and
their is very little power behind the pro-CAP lobby.

What is the thinking of others on this list about the Fair Trade movement
and the whole question of trade and development?
Domhnall



~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.