Porky

J. Bradford Delong’s Semi-Daily Journal (yes, quite the name) has a note about the Economist and its coverage of the Doha round of WTO talks: are they doing more of that British humor that sells so well among the elites here in the US.

Dozens of comments follow accusing the magazine of fawning over Bush’s current policies, which I found somewhat surprising. After all, every time I’ve seen the Economist mention recent US agricultural policy, it’s with adjectives like “scandalous,” “regressive” or “absurd.”

It seems to me that there are two points that the Economist has sought to make about agricultural policy in the US and Europe, and about the Doha round generally: First, despite the most recent farm bill, US subsidies are still lower than those in Europe. Second, the US (like other countries) has a hard time reconciling the populism of its representatives with the wonkery of its envoys.

Now, I’m not sure about the whole “free trade” thing. Globalization, as I must have said before, seems to be one of those words that means everything and nothing. But I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on ambivalence.

Many of our leaders are in favor of tarrif reductions, especially in the abstract. On the other hand, it’s not the most important issue for them, especially when it gets to specific industries in their specific districts. And that’s where the back-scratching, log-rolling, and pork-barrelling beings.

When your job is to represent your nation’s trade policy, you’re a free-trader. If your job is representing the textile workers of South Carolina, you’re a protectionist, or you’ll get laid off with the rest of your district. It’s the job of negotiators and legislators and envoys to resolve the conflicts between wonky abstractions and populist demands. The fact that they all have perfectly good arguments makes the process so complicated, so tedious, and so prone to polemic on all sides.