The fallacy of “pay Africans not cows”
is the topic of this Blood & Treasure post:
The implication behind the ?pay Africans not cows analogy? is that the CAP diverts money that would otherwise be spent on aid. However, I?ve seen no actual proposal to that effect. Linking the CAP to African poverty has more to do with gaining the moral high ground in the EU?s endless rounds of backbiting than it does with anything going on in Africa. It?s currently the most fashionable pretext for France bashing. And it diverts attention away to the kind of trade rules that allow for the exportation of butter mountains, wine lakes and so on.
Now I?ve no idea of the exact extent and nature of what the CAP subsidises. One of its major faults in the eyes of the commentariat seems to be that it falls on the wrong side of the divide between good and bad subsidies. Good subsidies are hi-tech and knowledge-based. They come with suffixes that follow hyphens. They tend to involve giving money and tax breaks to enterprises and areas of knowledge quite capable of finding private capital on the grounds that these prepare us for the rigours of globalisation. They often involve subsidies for already comparatively wealthy people.
Bad subsidies tend to involve giving money to poorer people. They involve unfashionable sectors like manufacturing, or ? yuck ? agriculture. Like we?re a bunch of peasants or something instead of the izzy-wizzy-let?s-get-busy-internetty media nodes that make little Tommy Friedman come in his pants. They tend, so it is supposed, to shield people from the rigours of globalization.