We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Who gets what from the Common Agricultural Policy

The wonderful world of web provides us with a way to check what happens to the CAP aptly described by a European leader:

… a programme which uses inefficient transfers of taxpayers money to bloat rich French landowners and so pump up food prices in Europe, thereby creating poverty in Africa, which we then fail to solve through inefficient but expensive aid programmes. The most stupid, immoral state-subsidised policy in human history, give or take Communism.

via Charles Crawford

9 comments to Who gets what from the Common Agricultural Policy

  • RW

    Does anyone know what, if any, credit the UK gets for ceding most of our fishing stocks under the Common Fisheries Policy?

  • Iain

    Yes, the CAP – just like the US version, the Farm Bill, one of the greatest ever crimes against humanity. But for the UK, the Common Fisheries policies is so massively disastrous as to be be hard to conceive. Heath gave away our waters, creating a commons which then led to the virtual extinction of marine life. And to answer your question, RW, we got bugger all in return. Not that anything could really compensate for that anyway.

  • lukas

    Does the CAP really screw Africans that much? I thought it meant they could import subsidised staples from the EU and concentrate on cash crops that won’t grow in Europe (or, really, on anything but what the EU subsidises)? But then I haven’t spent much time investigating this.

  • Nuke Gray!

    From Communism to Commonism- the Eastern Europeans must feel right at home!

  • James

    Little bit off topic, but readers may be interested in this:

    http://blog.mises.org/archives/009620.asp

  • Stavros

    Crawford is a national treasure 🙂

  • Owinok

    The CAP is a disaster yes, but Africa’s poverty is largely of its own making. Even if the CAP were to be abolished totally today, I am unsure that most of Africa would take that opportunity because agricultural policy in Africa is often as wrong-headed.

  • Owinok

    The CAP is a disaster yes, but Africa’s poverty is largely of its own making. Even if the CAP were to be abolished totally today, I am unsure that most of Africa would take that opportunity because agricultural policy in Africa is often as wrong-headed.

  • Hi everyone. Wow, finally I found a website telling the truth on CAP. I would correct a little bit Mr. Crawford’s words. Not just French farmers steal money from the rest of Europe. Spanish farmers are in relative terms the big winners of this ashaming scheme. I live in the South of Spain. From time to time I like to put my life in danger speaking out in front of a bunch of unproductive farmers.

    Sorry for my English, probably I have punched the dictionary a few times in just one paragraph.