----- Original Message ----- From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
><http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031027&s=henwood> > >Collapse in Cancün >by DOUG HENWOOD > >[posted online on October 10, 2003] <snip> >Which raises a question: What is progressive about using public >resources to support farming on cold, snowy, mountainous land? Isn't >the benefit of trade exactly to address something like this? South >Korea isn't an impoverished country whose population is dominated by >a peasantry that would be ruined by opening up to food imports--it >makes cars and cell phones. Why shouldn't South Korea import food? Because food is a matter of national security in this cruel world? For instance, a nation that is totally or even largely dependent upon imported food or imported inputs (e.g., fuels, fertilizers, pesticides, etc.) for food production and distribution is vulnerable to foreign powers' use of economic warfare (like trade embargoes) on it. -- Yoshie ===================== Precisely the argument the citizens of Norway use to defend subsidies after they were nearly starved to death by the Nazis. Ian
