That said, I’m happy to buy Fair Trade bananas, coffee and chocolate when I can get them - seven million third world farmers now grow for Fair Trade and are able to support their families and their communities because of it.

I disagree that New Zealand’s climate or size prevents us from growing a diverse range of food. It think it would be fairer to argue that we are wrapped up in culture and economy that favours imported processed food of local seasonal food.

it’s definitely to do witih seasonality. it seems we insist on eating fresh summer vegetables all year - (and some winter items in summer).
i put this down to the dietary & lifestyle revolution which has occurred within our lifetime in this country away from the traditional roast towards the mediterranean diet & quick-to-prepare meals

“Free trade should mean just that: free trade, with all goods admitted without duties, quotas, or restrictions. That was not British policy. They removed most tariffs but mostly on items in which they had a comparative advantage.”
http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2003/Nyefreetrade.html

Perhaps you’re right in that the landlords did not wish their labourers walking off the land to work elsewhere, because their remaining workers would be in a better position to demand higher pay. Although I think most would have prefered to stay and work the village commons rather than work in the “Satanic Mills” or the workhouse at least whilst they had a choice. That is before the Enclosure movement when the landlords made sure they didn’t.

“a body of men who earn their subsistence by working for others.” There would, “perhaps, be more labour, because there will be more compulsion to it.” Sir Richard Price

because they are well aware of the (growing) swell of anger out here..

..at/over that (unswallowable) ‘dead rat’ of the ag sector being subsidised by the rest of us..

..to poison our land..

..untill 2013..

(”our rivers are brown..

but out hearts are green’..

d’ya know what i mean..?..)

phil(whoar.co.nz)

“But we cannot just hark back o the “old daysâ€?.”

Thats the thing. We can. Government’s are sovereign entities so they can rescind the undeserved privileges of “personhood” and limited liability that corporations were illigitimately given in the late 19th Century and thats the only thing that can do what you desire.

Governments NEED crony capitalists. Do you think that the United States would be able to fund the budget deficit in order to pay for their invasion of Iraq? Whats in effect kept the U.S. economy afloat is recycling of capital from American consumer’s pockets to Gulf State owned oil companies back to the Federal Reserve and United States Financial System to be loaned at interest to the American taxpayer.

“Bush needs the Saudis to charge us big bucks for oil. The Saudis can’t lend the US Treasury and Citibank hundreds of billions of US dollars unless they first get these US dollars from the US. The high price of oil is, in effect, a tax levied by Bush but collected by the oil industry and the Gulf kingdoms to fund our multi-trillion dollar governmental and private debt-load.”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0801/S00144.htm

Why are the Gulf States willing to recycle money back into the black hole of the United States economy? Well they can’t eat oil can they?

“In Saudi Arabia, a country of 28 million people, water depletion is a serious problem. Estimated recoverable water reserves are now less than 10 years and falling rapidly. For that reason, the Saudis have decided to wind down their domestic agricultural industry. Historically, the Saudis have been self sufficient on food. They now say that they will import 100% of their food requirements by 2016.”
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article4711.html
http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com/weekly01.asp?id=3858

Now we have monopolies, duopolies & cartels that are ripping off our people and degrading the environment.

And I can’t see anything other than Government and internationally agreed action that can stop that.

You’ve quoted Adam Smith - I’ll quote Karl Marx: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs…”. And monopolies, duopolies, and catels will never deliver that.

Now I’m no Marxist (any more, I once was), but I think we need to let go of doctrine and start to develop a new economic theory based on the finite nature of natural resources.

The thing neither Smith or Marx understood was that the planet’s resources are finite. Oil, which has dominated the last century’s economic development, is suddenly a scarce and expensive resource, and no-one in business or government anywhere has managed to address that issue, other than to profiteer from that fact.

Yes it was before the modern government subsidised transport infrastructure, corporate personhood, limited liability, government trade subsidies, international capital markets infrastructure, government underwriting of “development� (development of flood and fire prone areas, utilities, mining, logging) etc etc. Precious little to do with free markets there. All due to the actions of the visible hand clenching a gloved fist (government).

Adam Smith was only too aware of the reprecussions of cartels and monopolies and vigouriously denounced them and the governments they were dependant upon for legitamacy and existence.

“Smith believed that the primary purpose of the corporation was to secure special privileges. “The policy of Europe occasions a very important inequality . . . by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into them.”
http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_499.shtml

Without government intervention monopolies (Fonterra/Dairy Board) and cartels (Standard Oil) it can be argued wouldn’t have formed in the first place.

Why do social democrats insist that only governments can solve problems?

I’m afraid that Gerrit is right that the Welfare State has resulted in a population that is completely and utterly dependant on government to meet their needs. What would our forebears who lived through the Great Depression and World War II think of us?