Disputes over farm trade have bedevilled the current round of GATT talks from the start. That is unsurprising. For decades governments everywhere have suppressed market forces in agriculture with subsidies,tariffs,quotas,monopoly purchasing boards and all the other paraphernalia of mule-headed intervention. No industry in the world has been pushed further,or so needlessly,from the liberal ideal of guiding resources to their best use by means of prices set in markets. On one plausible estimate,consumers in industrial countries pay $300 billion a year in taxes and higher prices to support farming.Even allowing for the income transferred to farmers,the net welfare loss caused by the industrial countries farm policies is $100 billion a year. Distortions on such a scale have given a comparative handful of people every reason to fight to the bitter end for economic lunacy. On October 14th French farmers held another "day of action"——blocking roads,planting wheat in awkward places and so forth-in protest at the planned reforms.
What is the means to guide resources to their best use according to the liberal ideal?