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i take the point concerning inorganic fertilizers, host...i left it to the side of the discussion for the time being mostly because i wanted to focus attention on the effects of state action, in defiance of neoliberal conventional wisdom, in jumpstarting malawian agricultural production---and in particular i wanted to emphasize the tack adopted both in malawi and the nyt piece that what m is doing is what the americans DO not what they SAY.
it's hard to tell, based on the nyt piece (and the short bit that you posted as well) what type of production is being underwritten--whether it is monocropping, for example, or more locally oriented, diversified types of production, what mixture of the two, and how state funding is being directed exactly. the downside of the information above is the emphasis on corn alone, which makes me wonder if malawi is imitating exactly the american monocrop-dominant model and subsidy underpinnings. if that is the case, then it is not sustainable, really---but that said, it is still what i said it was vis-a-vis neoliberal ideology--a clear, obvious, straightforward rejection of a way of orienting policy that simply does not work outside the space of modelling exercises and cherry-picked economic data.
the us mortage bailout plan is interesting---and to the extent that it points to a parallel gap separating the rhetoric of free markets and the use of state subsidies to address the consequences of policy implemented based on the assumption that this rhetoric is more than just that--- but for purposes here. i would personally prefer to keep it to the side, or explore it in another thread (i know you've tried, sir...): i'd prefer it if the focus here was mostly on southern hemisphere countries, simply because they are the most direct victims of this religious faith in neoliberalism particular to the imf/worldbank nexus, and so are spaces where the failure of policies based on neoliberalism are most obvious (and devastating materially, at least so far)---and data about this is much less present within the media bubble than are problems around american consumer debt levels.
also, maintaining the separation of topics directs attention more easily to american agricultural subsidies as a self-evident example of another gap--the one that separates the rhetoric of "the level playing field" and the reality of dumping (with all the attending destruction of food self-sufficiency, which flies in the face of imf/world bank talk talk talk about their "concern for poverty and ending hunger")....it's hard to avoid the conclusion that this "level playing field" means nothing, that it is a thin veneer behind which american economic domination is justified...and that, knowing something of the realities behind these word word words, points to yet another curious gap, the one that separates the articles of faith particular to domestic populist conservatism in the states and the policies undertaken by the political class which claims to represent these articles of faith.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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