As we all know, Doha collapsed yet again in Geneva end of July. This comes as no surprise. It has become “a ritual”, as the FT highlighted in its editorial comment (subscription required) on the matter. It adds: now the WTO needs to be saved from Doha:

“Doha’s stasis is already eroding the WTO’s credibility, and partial deals are already proliferating. It is no longer a question of getting Doha done to save the WTO; it is, regrettably, now largely a question of saving the WTO from Doha.”

The main stumbling block this time was a relatively minor issue related to special safeguards against import surges in sensitive agricultural products in some developing countries. To follow the whole saga of the latest negotiation push, do have a look at the ICTSD’s Bridges newsletter, which is available online for free. Motivation to have a deal done is not very widespread. The “iron triangle” that blocks Doha – US agricultural subsidies, EU agricultural tariffs and emerging market industrial tariffs (see this post) - is as hard to break as ever. Inferring from Katinka Barysch’s recent post, European motivation weakened by a coalition of countries led by France which oppose further liberalisation in agriculture. Philip Stephens from the FT (walled for nonsubscribers - courtesy of Philippe Legrain) discussed the unwillingness of the old and new powers of this world to take responsibility:

“The collapse of Doha, (…) speaks to the failure of both sides to own up to the world as it is. On the side of the rich countries, particularly the US but no less many European nations, there is a refusal to acknowledge that globalisation no longer belongs to the west. In previous trade rounds, the rich nations set the rules and the rest could take it or leave it. No longer.

Equally, the new powers now give the impression – and you see this as much in India as China – that they want to be free riders. They are happy to profit from the rules, but unwilling to support the architecture of the system. Doha, in this respect, saw both sides in blindfolds.

But now: What next? With this failure, the WTO continues losing its credibility and standing. Doha is undermining the WTO.

One of the Doha Round’s problems is expectations (Fredrik Erixon, Director of ECIPE, has some interesting comments to make on the matter): dubbed the Doha Development Round in 2001, it promised the impossible: namely that it would solve the developing country’s woes. It further opened the door for politicisation of the multilateral negotiations, demands for carve-outs, special treatment, etc. The crisis in the WTO has lead to interminable soul-searching on how to reform the system. The Warwick Commission on the Future of the Multilateral System set up a couple of years ago is one such example, but its final report, so focused on the lowest-common-denominator scholarly consensus (despite brilliant individual Commission members), does not bode well for any change in the system: fundamental disagreements run too deep.

However, a new consensus seems to be emerging on where to move negotiations forward. Big multilateral rounds based on the so-called Single Undertaking (everybody has to sign up to everything) are generally no longer considered feasable. Many scholars, and not least Patrick Low, the WTO’s head of Research himself (see an ECIPE conference write-up), advocate targeted sectoral agreements based on a “critical mass” of countries that form the bulk of trade. Since the most important trading nations would form part of the agreement, the benefits can be granted to all other WTO members (i.e. on a so-called Most-Favoured-Nation basis) without severe free-rider problems, i.e. countries unduly benefiting from the tariff cuts without conceding any themseleves. Other countries can join later voluntarily. Given the unwieldiness of a global multilateral round that deals with a long list of topics and involves 150+ countries with the most diverging interests, this sounds like a very interesting solution.

So far, only one WTO agreement clearly follows that specific model: the Information Technology Agreement, which came into force in 1997. It has now 70 members, and covers more than 90% of trade in IT goods. The Financial Times in the editorial comment already mentioned, explicitly invokes the ITA as a model:

The WTO ”could start by gathering together the few countries that dominate world trade in services and hammering out a standalone deal in sectors where it can find convergence. Last weekend’s fruitful services talks were an encouraging sign, especially now that developing countries such as India are powerful service exporters as well as importers. The benefits, on the model of the successful Information Technology Agreement of 1996, would then be extended to all WTO members. Several parts of the Doha deal such as export subsidies and “trade facilitation” (getting goods easily across borders) might also be agreed separately.”

But can this work? There are grounds to believe that this approach, also called “critical mass” approach, has its problems. This is why:

Firstly, what made the ITA work and does not apply as strongly to other sectors and not at all in Doha. Namely:
- Strong business input and initiative. If you believe Friess and Sauve, the ITA was a business-driven inititive. Where is business in Doha?
- A particularly rapidly evolving industry that allowed for strong price drops and productivity gains (see Mann and Liu) – can we say this of the car parts industry, cotton, or even many services?
- Two strong leaders: the US and the EU (see Fliess and Sauve)– where are they today? They are on the side of generlized liberalisation reluctance these days.

Secondly, the ITA has many exceptions and excludes entire parts of the IT sector, not least consumer electronics. It does not tackle non-tariff barriers, it only eliminated tariffs. It is therefore limited in scope. Negotiations to broaden the coverage and include NTBs were built into the agreement. They collapsed, however, in 2001. Since then nothing has moved forward seriously, and ITA negotiations have drowned, along with Doha.

Thirdly, the ITA has a very inflexible “positive list” approach. It specifies individual item per individual item what will be allowed to enter a country duty-free. But technology evolves, and importing countries can play around with the classification of goods at customs to levy tariffs and pursue protectionist policies. This can create significant problems. The US has just launched a legal case against the EU in the WTO, accusing it of violating the ITA by imposing duties on some LCD monitors, set-top-boxes and multifunction printers.

All this to say what…? A “critical mass” approach to move negotiations forward can be interesting to get around insurmountable obstacles in Doha. But you need a few crucial ingredients: support from the relevant constituencies and business, political will and leadership from key countries, and enough generality to avoid agreements to be too narrow. All this is lacking generally in Doha, the WTO, and globally. Furthermore, liberalization tends to be a curse word these days. So, be it Doha or something smaller, it’s going to be tough.

En période de vide pré-estival et de débâcles euro-institutionnelles, euro-footballesques, elyséenno-intellectuelles, et nationalo-immigratoires, voici un peu d’ambiance:

Carla Bruni, nouvel album prêt à sortir, en exclusive dans Libé aujourd’hui, sur Ségolène Royal.

- Dans un journal américain, vous aviez dit que vous n’aimiez pas beaucoup Ségolène Royal. Que lui reprochez-vous ?
_ Sa voix.
- Pourquoi sa voix ?
- Elle ne me dit rien.

Seul vrai contenu dans Libé aujourd’hui : la chronique de Mathieu Lindon sur L’Europe du foot :

“Le foot, c’est comme la vie, toujours les meilleurs qui partent les premiers. On n’a pas dit non à l’Europe, cette fois-ci, c’est l’Euro qui nous a dit ouste. Un Euro sans la France, c’est comme une Europe sans Irlande. On aurait dû confier l’organisation de ce championnat à l’Union européenne, on pourrait revoter - euh, rejouer.

(…)

Notre élimination, ce n’est pas la faute à la hausse du pétrole ou à la baisse du dollar, c’est la faute aux étrangers. Désormais, ils ne viennent pas nous voler le pain dans la bouche, ils arrivent pour nous chiper le ballon dans les pieds. On est tellement bons - on est des Français - que c’est toujours suspect quand on ne gagne pas. Et nous voici expulsés de Suisse comme une vulgaire pied-de-veau non qualifiée. Il y avait plus à craindre du footballeur roumain ou néerlandais que du plombier polonais. Humiliation supplémentaire : l’arbitrage n’est pas trop responsable. On n’a même pas été victime d’une main de Dieu à la Maradona, on a reçu un bon pied de nez de Dieu aux fesses, oui.”

Well, looks like the EU Constitution, watered down to an incomprehensibly complex Lisbon Treaty is now definitively dead. The Dutch said no, the French said no, and now the Irish say no.

Let me just bring in two quotes by Oxford’s Jan Zielonka:

It has been evident from the very beginning of European integration that ambitious and straightforward cooperative projects have a fairly good chance of being shot down.

European policy-makers [are] faced with a choice: integration in disguise or no integration.

I have been thinking: can Europe be popular? And is there a Europe of “the people”? Quick Friday-afternoon brainstorm: there is a nationalist-competitive and an integrative Europe at play. What do I mean?

- The nationalist-competitive: concluding from the status updates one gets to read on Facebook, for sure, there is one single thing that focuses minds in Europe: Euro 2008 (definitely not the Irish referendum)!

- The integrative: concluding from my recent cheap and quick flight from Belgium to Southern France: low-cost airlines! And not least the mythical, and very Irish, Ryanair!

Getting rid of the Three Scourges of humanity lamented in our past Dark Ages- Strife, Famine and Pestilence – is a lengthy and messy process. Big parts of humanity have done important strides on this front and are going further on the rocky road towards what in the West is termed Development. Let’s call it Peace, Prosperity and Freedom. This progress has been strong in Asia. So far, Africa has been considered a hopeless case. Afropessimism is still pervasive. And the news are full of horror stories in Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe, to name the worst.

Ideological battles on what has to be done are raging. Here an old overview. Proponents of unleashing the forces of markets and of unfolding of what Keynes coined people’s “animal spirits” blame government intervention and predation, as well as protectionism. Openness and good governance is what you need. William Easterly has recently yet again indulged in an exercise of “epater le bourgeois” by slaying the last World Bank Growth Commission Report and saying that the development experts are the (almost) 7 billion inhabitants of this planet. In order not to have only White males in American universities involved in the talks, let me introduce you to the Imani Centre in Ghana and their views along the lines of Easterly. There is also AfricanLiberty.Org (OK, supported by The Cato Institute, Washington), a website bringing together the opinion of African “libertarians”. Very vocal Rejoice Ngwenya, from Zimbabwe, and regular contributor to the website, apart from being an excellent read, has a few things to say. For example:

“What we need is democratic space, real space, to exercise our collective creative genius to produce even without Brettonwoods institutional support. We want more freedom, not hand outs. These so-called revolutionary liberators are suffocating us with their pro-poor crap.”

Others, like Jeffrey Sachs, are still on the old-fashioned “Big Push” aid line. Martin Wolf discusses his last book, Common Wealth. Economics for a Crowded Planet in his latest column and touches explicitly on that issue.

In terms of policy coming from the rich West, a synthesis emerged in the 1990s, made of old-fashioned aid policies, but linked with promotion of markets and governance via conditionality. This has not worked very well.

Yet suddenly Africa is on a growth path again. Hedge Fund manager Francis Beddington in the FT today informs us:

“Unnoticed by the media and much of the investment community has been a step-change in Africa’s economic performance in the past five years. Real growth in gross domestic product in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) averaged 4.1 per cent in 1997-2002; by 2007 it had risen to 6.6 per cent. More importantly, real incomes are rising and Africans are getting richer at an unprecedented rate. In 1997-2002, real GDP per capita rose at a rate of 1.8 per cent per annum. This was up to 4.6 per cent in 2007. At 1.8 per cent per annum, it takes 39 years for real incomes to double, but at 4.6 per cent per annum real incomes double within 15 years.”

Who is right on why this is happening? Proponents of markets or proponents of aid? In fact, it seems that there is both, with an important role of business, i.e. markets, even if often distorted. What do I mean?

• China entered the fray. Here a first systematic economic NBER study by Besada, Wang and Whalley on China’s involvement in Africa. It’s a mix of active business such as no Westerner would ever dare to do, government corruption and lavish aid. I.e.: The Chinese are not running away from the Heart of Darkness cyring “the horror!”. An it seems to be working to some extent: “China is (…) seemingly a highly positive story for Africa” conclude the authors of this study. But China is not the only emerging market becoming actively involved in Africa: India and Brazil, Russia, are active there as well. These countries aren’t afraid of the Darkness either.
• But Darkness itself is receding. Politics, Governance are improving and economic reform is bearing fruit in some places. This is what Beddington tells us today in the FT as well:

“At the heart of the economic performance is a better policy environ-ment. Governments have ceased financing themselves by printing money and have -privatised many state enterprises. Most central banks target inflation. As a result, inflation has fallen to global norms and exchange rates are more stable.

Economic stability has seen a resurgence of private-sector investment, both domestic and foreign. In the late 1990s, investment as a proportion of GDP had fallen significantly below 20 per cent almost everywhere on the continent. Since then, investment has risen sharply and is approaching 30 per cent of GDP in most countries. In some, such as Ghana, Madagascar, it has passed into the mid-30s.

A new feature of this has been the involvement of other emerging markets as sources of FDI. China, India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa have been investors in sectors as diverse as mining and telecoms.”

We will have to wait and see how matters evolve in the next years. But things are stirring. And this is good news.

This book is the result of a fatherly injunction to “write a definite book on India”. Prof Arvind Panagariya’s “India, the Emerging Giant”, definitely is such a book. It will probably be an authoritative reference book for the next few years to come on India’s economy. The talk is of a giant, but India still only represents 1% of world merchandise trade, and 2.7% of its services trade. Yet the book is a very important contribution to the understanding of economic development and the policies that can lead to it – or not. The book traces India’s economic history since its independence and in particular links its growth performance with the policies undertaken by its successive governments. The author identifies four main phases:

1951-1965 – “Takeoff under a liberal regime” – Despite Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s socialist ideology centered on import-substitution, trade and investment policy was relatively pragmatic and open, especially to foreign investment and technology. The economy took off progressively, not least as a result of its simple liberation from stifling British rule.

1965-1981 – “Socialism strikes with a vengeance”. In that period, against a backdrop of external shocks (war with Pakistan, among others) and a macroeconomic crisis, the country was closed to foreign trade and investment. Tight controls and restrictions on foreign investment were introduced. Controls on foreign exchange and trade were systematized. The government nationalized banks, put restrictions on the expansion of big companies and introduced a “scheduling” of “small-scale-industries”. The green revolution was pushed forward, and attempts at agrarian reform continued. In all these policies the focus was on equity and reduction of inequality. In fact it stifled growth, with no effect on reducing poverty. There are arduous pages in this chapter describing the mind-boggling and legendary “license-raj” .

1981-1988 – “Liberalization by stealth” – The governments lift progressively various restriction on business expansion and trade. Growth starts more to pick up more seriously.

1988-2006 – “Triumph of liberalization”. The macroeconomic crisis of 1991 was the trigger for a systematic approach to economic reform. “Phase IV began with an unprecedented growth spurt that ended in a balance of payment crisis. The response to the crisis was a major liberalisation on both the domestic and external fromnts. The economy was successfully stabilized, and growth at the higher rate resumed within a short period (..). Though the necessity to borrow from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank has subjected the initial liberalization package to the conditionality of these institutions, the proposed reforms were essentially domestic in origin (…)” . India has done away with the infamous “license raj” and opened up its economy. Panagariya says that formally, India’s economy is now as open China’s.

So, is there still anything wrong with India? Panagariya’s main message is that India has missed the transition to manufacturing. It should “walk on two legs” - continue developing services, but not neglect the factories. Despite its successes in services and IT, India must put its rural paupers to work in factories that will process light manufactures, electronics, toys asf - India should fully embrace its comparative advantage in low-skilled labour. The problem is that India has maintained a highly restrictive labour legislation that has stifled investment into large-scale manufacturing.

Despite this fact, India’s growth has already lifted millions out of poverty. According to official poverty estimates, the proportion of Indians living under the poverty line has declined from 38.2% in 1988 to 26.1% in 2000 (latest available figures in the book). He dismisses many claims made that liberalizing reforms have not reduced poverty, and that such assertions, reflected in the 2004 vote reinstating Congress in government, rather reflect rising expectations. Has inequality risen? Panagariya: “According to the available evidence, rural inequality has remainded unchanged and has declined marginally while urban inequality has at worst increased by 10 to 12 percent. Evidence on the rise in the urban-rural inequality and regional equality is more compelling”.

The book ends with chapters on where India still has work to do from further liberalizing trade to reforming education, health and agriculture. On health and education he starkly underlines the states’ failure to provide those services. The sectos should therefore be opened to private providers. When it comes to pro-poor policies and especially to rendering both health and education affordable to the poor he prososes, in health, direct transfers to female household leaders, and, in education, vouchers. All these should be targeted at the lower 30% of the income-bracket. Agriculture also needs to be deeply reformed, made more competitive, opened up and liberated from subsidies, the public grain procurement and storage system, and tenancy and property rights reformed such as to create the right incentives to produce more and better.

In the financial and macroeconomic sphere Panagariya calls for privatization of the big banks that are still under government control. But he says that on the international front, capital account liberalization should move slowly (but not be ruled out). He defends the general consensus reached after the Asian crisis of 1997 that too speedy capital account liberalization can wreak havoc on domestic economies. Despite a few crises, India has benefited from remarkably stable macroeconomic conditions, and he partly attributes it to its shielding it from faced-paced speculative international flows.

This book is sober, factual, clear and very didactic. Even a non-economist can read it – although with a lot of concentration. Most of the analysis is compelling and hard to dismiss. It is full of detailed and well-summarized analysis of almost every aspect of Indian economic life. At the same time it probably is only a beginning. Panagariya himself stresses that he looks at policies at the central level. In fact many changes occur at the federal state level. And many blocages occur there as well. That story needs to be told in-depth. His proposal to simply move to direct cash transfers to the poor to help them directly without distorting the machine that spurs growth and prosperity is very seductive. The issue is the one of political, and sometimes technical feasability. Caste can complicate matters as well.

Generally, this books feeds into the current positive and optimistic mood surrounding India:

“India grew 6.3 percent per annum during 1988-2006. During 2003-2007, the annual growth rate was 8.6 percent”. [According to the IMF, in 2006 it was 9.7, in 2007, 9.2%.] The possibility that the long-run growth rate of India may have shifted to the levels achieved by the East Asian tigers in the 1960s and 1970s can no longer be ruled out”.

But it does send a very strong warning:

“Yet, even as the economy picks up pace and poverty continued to decrease, there remain doubts about the transformation of India from a primarily agricultural and rural economy to a modern one in the foreseeable future.” Bottom line,again: “unskilled-labor-intensive manufacturing has done poorly in India”; “future reform must focus on removing impediments facing its rapid growth”.

Bravo à l’équipe de Cécile Philippe, Directrice de l’Institut Economique Molinari (IEM), petit think tank français qui fait son petit bonhomme de chemin et qui promeut de bonnes idées économiques. La popularisation de ces idées va certainement franchir un seuil important avec leur attribution d’un blog au Journal du Dimanche et à La Provence.

Cécile Philippe est auteur d’un livre sur comment protéger l’environnement par le marché, « C’est trop tard pour la terre », édité chez Lattès.

Suite à mon précédent billet, je tenais à faire deux précisions.

- Mon introduction au sujet par l’idée de l’économie de guerre et de l’autarcie /autosuffisance agricole pour parler de la Politique Agricole Commune avait pour objectif d’illustrer ce que peut signifier, et où se trouvent les filiations historiques, de la PAC lorsque ses principes sont poussés à l’ extrême : étatisme extrêmement coûteux et nostalgie romantique pour un passé agraire qui en réalité veut dire misère. Les lois de l’économie s’appliquent aussi en agriculture. Une plus grande division du travail et une extension du marché permet à chacun de produire ce qu’il sait faire mieux et se procurer ce que les autres font mieux… et ainsi d’accroître notre diète. Rien de mieux pour notre santé et nos palais. Des transferts « technologiques » sont aussi rendus possibles par l’accroissement des échanges, par exemple l’introduction de nouvelles plantes qui répondent à de nouveaux besoins.
- J’ai été rapide dans une phrase. Non la PAC n’est pas la cause de la hausse des prix agricoles. Mais, en stimulant un système agricole rigide qui ne sait pas répondre à l’augmentation de la demande, il contribue au renforcement de la rareté qui se fait sentir actuellement. Celle-ci est due à une combinaison de plusieurs facteurs : demande croissante de produits alimentaires et notamment de viande en Chine et en Inde, ce qui augmente la demande de grains pour nourrir le bétail ; quelques mauvaises récoltes que l’on peut attribuer ou non au changement climatique ; la promotion notamment aux Etats-Unis et au Brésil de carburants biologiques, notamment par le biais de subventions et de mesures protectionnistes, ce qui augmente la pression sur l’utilisation de terres arables et contribue à une diversion de production qui accroît la rareté de biens comestibles produits.

Historiquement, l’autarcie économique est associée aux régimes totalitaires et à la guerre totale. Le tout accompagné d’expansionnisme militaire et territorial, ou du moins de subjugation de pays satellites aux volontés de l’Etat surpuissant. Inutile de faire référence à l’Allemagne nazie ou à l’Union Soviétique du temps to COMECON.

L’autarcie, c’est l’économie de guerre avec un Etat hyper-puissant mobilisant par coercition l’ensemble de la société. Mais on peut aussi considérer l’autarcie ou l’auto-suffisance dans l’agriculture comme reflétant une arriération pré-industrielle. Les paysans d’Ancien Regime étaient certainement plus ou moins autarciques. Mais on vivait dans la misère, et le régime alimentaire était extrêmement limité. Fort heureusement, même sous l’Ancien Régime, nous ne vivions pas en complète autarcie ! Les pommes de terre, partie désormais du folklore germanique entre autres, ou les tomates, sans lesquelles la cuisine méditerranéenne est impensable, nous viennent originairement de Nouveau Monde, la découverte duquel marque plus ou moins les débuts de la « mondialisation ». Tout cela pour dire que, même en agriculture : il est nécessaire d’avoir une division du travail rendue possible par un marché le plus vaste possible pour pouvoir produire et se procurer des produits à meilleur coût, de meilleure qualité et, bien sûr, pour simplement avoir le choix.*

En ces mois de crise alimentaire, c’est non seulement la guerre des prix, et la guerre des modèles économiques. Mais c’est surtout, la gue-guerre des conflits d’intérêt. Les riches agriculteurs s’accrochent à leurs privilèges coûte que coûte. D’aucuns sont sans voix face à la véhémence de la résistance politique des intérêts constitués à coup de subsides, à l’heure ou leur légitimité ne cesse de décroître. J’en viens donc à la chose suivante :

Je crois qu’à part un certain Nicolas S., ma nouvelle préoccupation politique est bien notre cher ministre de l’agriculture et de la pêche, Michel Barnier. A une période où la Politique Agricole Commune est soumise à révision à mi-chemin du budget de l’Union Europenne, le gouvernement français, ici à Bruxelles, fait encore entendre sa voix. Il le fait, comme d’habitude en tant que porte-voix d’autres Etats et intérêts particuliers en Europe ayant des problèmes d’addiction aux subventions. Toutefois, chacun le sait, la France est le principal bénéficiaire de la PAC. En fait, la PAC se réforme pas à pas. Mais notre gouvernement n’aime pas ça.

Juste quelques rappels, de la contre-productivité économique, politique et sociale de ce « machin »** appelé la PAC***:

• Les raisons pourquoi la PAC devrait abolie sont clairement exposées ici, et ici.

• Ici un article illustrateur sur l’exemple des quotas laitiers et ses implications ici.

• Le protectionnisme agricole européen, directement lié à l’existence de la PAC est clairement reconnu comme un problème majeur pour l’économie mondiale : il empêche les pays pauvres et les pays plus efficaces d’exporter vers l’Europe. Les produits européens subventionnés sont une concurrence déloyale dans les pays en voie de développement qui peinent à faire fonctionner leurs systèmes agricoles.

• Pour qui croirait encore que la PAC aide les agriculteurs pauvres, ici une bonne petite cure de réalisme. Pour être brève: la PAC subventionne les « mornes plaines »**** de Beauce plutôt que la pauvre mémé paysanne du coin qui vend ses artichauts sur les marchés des petites villes de la France profonde.

Mais voici qu’on entend Michel Barnier nous dire que non seulement il faut maintenir la PAC, mais encore favoriser l’autosuffisance alimentaire , voire même “exporter” la PAC vers les pays en voie de développement, notamment, ironiquement, pour gérer les crises…(ici et ici).

La PAC est le produit d’une vision très particulière du monde d’un certain héros national nommé Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle voulait promouvoir la production européenne et s’assurer de son autosuffisance alimentaire, ce qui est dû aux mauvais souvenirs de famines, liées non pas au commerce libre, mais à la guerre. Par son caractère militaire et son expérience des guerres mondiales « totales » I et II, notre cher héros défunt d’une autre époque avait une vision administrative et dirigiste de la gestion de économie, et une vision mercantiliste ***** du commerce. Toutefois, bien au fait de ses coûts pour les caisses de l’Etat d’une politique agricole aussi volontariste, il en a fait porter le poids financier à l’ensemble des Communautés Européennes. De Gaulle est un cas de conservatisme pur et dur tel que dénoncé par F. A. Hayek : mis a part la “lack of understanding of economic forces” (absence de compréhension des forces économiques), que dénonçait ce penseur libéral se démarquant du conservatisme, il nous rappelait la chose suivante : « Conservatives usually oppose collectivist and directivist measures in the industrial field (…) But at the same time conservatives are usually protectionists and have frequently supported socialist measures in agriculture ». … Nous voici donc munis du portrait-robot de: Michel Barnier !

Barnier veut donc exporter ce modèle dans les pays en voie de développement. Premièrement, l’arrogance d’une telle vision est choquante. On peut, si l’on y tient vraiment, argumenter que la PAC est ou a été bonne pour l’Europe. Mais prétendre qu’elle est bonne pour les autres est éminemment ignorant et présomptueux. Leurs conditions de départ sont simplement différentes. De plus une telle exportation est impossible. On peut, peut-être l’imposer à un faible pays africain dans le cadre d’un accord commercial bilatéral, mais la se révèle ce qu’est vraiment une telle idée « exportatrice »: une sorte d’impérialisme. Par ailleurs, un pauvre pays Africain ne peut certainement pas se permettre une PAC. Il n’en a ni les moyens financiers ni les capacités administratives. Tout au plus, cela générerait plus de corruption.

Il existe déjà des équivalents de PAC dans le monde. Notamment en Inde. L’Inde a une agriculture extrêmement protégée et un « marché » agricole presque entièrement administré par l’Etat.****** Avec les effets que l’on sait : misère rurale des plus choquantes, malnutrition généralisée, et inégalités sociales criantes. Je suis en train de finir le dernier livre de l’économiste de l’Universite de Columbia Arvind Panagariya « India, The Emerging Giant » (qui est superbe). Dans ses chapitres consacrés à l’agriculture il propose des réformes drastiques : abolition des subventions aux intrants, abolition du système de monopole public d’achat des biens agricoles, abolition, ou limitation à un strict minimum, du système de stockage public des produits agricoles, abolition des restrictions sur la taille des propriétés, renforcement des droits légaux des tenanciers, et bien sûr, ouverture aux marchés internationaux. Tous ces mécanismes, qui, malgré certaines réformes, restent encore en place, restreignent la production et maintiennent les prix artificiellement élevés, au détriment notamment des plus pauvres en Inde. Ces derniers sont : les paysans, et surtout les paysans sans terre, que l’on compte par centaines de millions.

La PAC est clairement une des causes de la hausse des prix des produits alimentaires. Certes, les subventions maintiennent un prix artificiellement bas des produits alimentaires. Mais ce sont les contribuables qui paient ; donc, in fine, c’est coûteux. Le système des quotas, les tarifs douaniers élevés, etc., ont par ailleurs un problème majeur : ils donnent de mauvaises incitations. Rien de mieux qu’un signal de prix pour dire aux agriculteurs : produis davantage de ceci, arrête de produire cela ! Une protection ou une subvention tendent à faire persister un producteur dans l’ « erreur ». Il est nécessaire d’avoir un régime agricole flexible qui sache répondre aux besoins réels qui émergent et sont souvent imprévus, telle que la faim des Chinois et Indiens en voie d’enrichissement et les sécheresses en Australie. Un tel ajustement se fait au mieux par les mécanismes de marché, fondés sur les lois de l’offre de la demande, qu’il convient de ne pas perturber par de nuisibles distorsions de type quota, subvention ou droit de douane. Ce ne sont pas, en effet, les bureaucrates de la lointaine Commission Européenne, que nos agriculteurs aiment pourtant tant fustiger pour leur ardeur réglementaire, qui sont en mesure de dire aux agriculteurs ce qu’ils doivent faire !

La PAC est un système désuet qui n’a plus aucune légitimité politique ni économique, si tant est qu’elle n’en ait jamais eu. Sa conception est issue d’une vision dirigiste de l’économie, issue à la fois des méthodes de gestion économique et des traumatismes des guerres mondiales. Mais le monde a changé. La PAC est aujourd’hui une énorme machine à servir des groupes d’intérêt – bénéficiaires de subventions et bureaucrates de ministères de l’agriculture – qui mènent désormais une vraie guerre des tranchées. Malheureusement, on n’est même pas sûr qu’ils vont la perdre.

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* Moi, les galettes de blé du Moyen Age accompagnées de lard les dimanches, je n’en veux pas ! Vous ?

** pour citer Charles de Gaulle

*** non, pas l’ONU!

**** pour citer Victor Hugo, s’exprimant sur le champ de Bataille de Waterloo ou Napoléon fut vaincu définitivement

***** Le mercantilisme, c’est l’idée que les importations c’est mauvais, et les exportations c’est bon. En realité, ce sont les importations qui favorisent les exportations.

****** En réalité, à côté du systeme indien, la PAC apparaît comme de l’ultra-libéralisme!

1) Ce qu’est un homme politique

“… and insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs” (A. Smith)

Traduction libre - “un animal insidieux et retors, appelé vulgairement homme d’Etat ou homme politique, dont les délibérations sont soumises aux fluctuations des affaires du moment” (Adam Smith)

2) Ce qu’est un conservateur, dont F.A. Hayek, pourtant si intimement associé au mouvement conservateur de Thatcher (il fut rudement instrumentalisé!) dressa en 1960, dans la postface son ouvrage “The Constitution of Liberty”, un portrait dévastateur:

“fear of trusting uncontrolled social forces” - peur de faire confiance en des forces sociales non contrôlées

“fondness for authority” - amour de l’autorité

“lack of understanding of economic forces” - absence de compréhension des forces économiques

“distrust of both abstract theories and general principles (…) neither understands those spontaneous forces on which a policy of freedom relies nor possesses a basis for formulating principles of policy” - méfiance a l’égard des théories abstraites et des principes généraux (…) ne comprend ni les forces spontanées sur lesquelles repose une politique de liberté, ni n’est doté d’un fondement pour la formulation de principes de politique

“bound by the stock of ideas inherited at a given time” - limité par les stock d’idées circulant à un moment donné.

“does not really believe in the power of argument” - ne croit pas vraiment dans la force de l’argument

“proneness to a strident nationalism” - tendance au nationalisme strident.

Vous en voulez une photo, de cet homme politique conservateur ? La voici!:

J’ai enfin trouvé la bonne définition du Sarkozysme !

The UK’s Miliband just cautioned the US Democratic candidates against taking a protectionist turn… But the US’s ills do not so much seem to lie in imports from China,  rather in its healthcare system.

Short follow-up, therefore, on my previous post and Krugman’s justified if ill-interpreted obsession with the healthcare system. Clive Crook in the FT has a good piece today on a new book by Ezekiel Emanuel, Healthcare Guaranteed.

Crook’s article starts thus:

“In US public policy, all roads lead to healthcare. Remorseless pressure on public spending? Blame Medicare. Economic insecurity? Fear of losing health benefits is a chief cause. Stagnant wages and worsening inequality? Look to the cost of employer-provided insurance. “