We entrepreneurs have a vested interest in global free trade: being honest to the point of brutality, it is more likely to make us wealthy.

However, we are not in fact the biggest beneficiaries of free trade. 

Consider this: it was announced this week that global food imports have now topped $1,000,000,000,000 annually.

There are several reasons for the magnitude of this sum. On the demand side, increasing world population is bound to have an increasing effect on world food prices. At the same time, on the supply side, there have been poor harvests in many places, possibly due, at least in part, to environmental changes.

These trends are likely to continue, and they are aggravated by government action: most states, especially in the West, engage in some form of price fixing in foodstuffs, the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy being the most notorious example.

Since it is the very poorest who spend the greatest proportion of their income on basic foodstuffs, they are the biggest victims of government actions which raise prices even higher than market trends demand.

The aid industry, and the self-appointed guardians of the Third World, like to go on about “fair trade” – which is itself a euphemism for state intervention in trade policy. If they really want to make the lives of the poorest better, they should be campaigning for cheaper food – which means joining us in campaigning not for “fair trade” but for free trade.