Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Clinton Apologizes For Imposing "Free Markets"

A somewhat surprising admission from Bill Clinton on the effects of his NAFTA like policies on Haiti. Here's the key quote:

Since 1981, the United States has followed a policy, until the last year or so when we started rethinking it, that we rich countries that produce a lot of food should sell it to poor countries and relieve them of the burden of producing their own food, so, thank goodness, they can leap directly into the industrial era. It has not worked. It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake. It was a mistake that I was a party to. I am not pointing the finger at anybody. I did that. I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did. Nobody else.

I also highly recommend the documentary Life and Debt, which covers the effects of IMF and World Bank policies on Jamaica.

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