This was the title of the first essay I was asked to produce for the Social Policy part of my professional social work qualification. I researched diligently and produced a balanced essay concluding that regulated mixed economies were best, avoiding both extremes. It was returned to me by the staunchly Marxist lecturer marked “F – fail This is plagiarism -see me.” It was then made clear to me that if I disagreed with her politics she would ensure I failed the whole course. I feigned ignorance and asked to rewrite and resubmit, which she agreed to. Then I walked straight into the library, took down a Marxist tome from the shelves, copied out 4 pages and submitted that. It came back marked “A+”.
My own views on this subject have not changed from the balanced essay I wrote more than 40 years ago. Markets exist whatever political system is in power, and they are the most efficient way of producing and distributing resources. They can produce a win/win outcome for both parties to every transaction. Complete control of prices and production does not work, as Soviet Russia discovered. On the other hand, unbridled free trade leads to increasing extremes of wealth, poverty and social injustice such as slavery. It requires law and regulation by government to limit those social consequences and moderate the boom and bust cycles that modern capitalism produces.
I write this now because a new consequence of free trade has come to our awareness – that of environmental harm including global warming. The birth of the free trade movement (in Manchester, hence the existence of the Free Trade Hall) centred around the repeal of the Corn Laws, which protected agriculture, landowners and agricultural workers from the effects of cheap wheat imported from America. Opposing this were industrialists and their workers who were struggling to afford bread. The rest is history. Only now are the long term environmental consequences becoming clear. Cheap wheat was produced in the vast fertile grasslands of the Mid West once millions of bison and Native Americans had been removed. It led to industrial scale agriculture using chemicals which has now resulted in the complete degradation and loss of soils across America, and which now continues to pollute and contribute massively to carbon emissions. The cost of that cheap wheat has been paid for over 200 years by exporting the environmental harm to what was a new colony. Some among us also realise that those fertile soils were produced by the grazing of the millions of bison with whom Native Americans learned to live in ecological harmony.
There are advisors in our current government who seek to continue the export of environmental harm elsewhere. The problem with this is that the world has run out of new places to despoil and we are increasingly faced with the worldwide consequences of soil loss, desertification, biodiversity collapse and global warming. Those same advisors have argued that we should model our economy on Singapore, cease to produce food in the UK and rely on unbridled free trade to buy in what we need . In fact, Singapore long ago realised the dangers of this and took steps to increase its home food production. The food security lessons of two world wars have been lost on some people.
There is even worse on the near horizon. Global corporate interests are seeking to establish a firm totalitarian grip on global food production and supply chains. They have gained control of UN committees on food to influence national governments on food, environmental and health policy. It is in global corporate interests to establish vertical hierarchical dominance of food supply chains. The COVID pandemic is being used as an opportunity to achieve their goals. It is no exaggeration to say that they want to determine exactly what you can and cannot eat. Not since WW2 have local food supply chains in the UK been so critical and so vulnerable, yet we have a government whose betrayal of British farming and fishing is becoming clearer by the day. The raising of welfare and environmental standards in the UK, while simultaneously lowering standards for imports in free trade deals will have the inevitable consequence of collapsing our national food production and local supply chains from direct producers. Whether our government is being misled by the ideology of unbridled free trade extremists, or is acting in the interests of global corporations, it’s time to call a halt and bring new leadership to the helm, if necessary by the ballot box.
Chronicles 