Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

Free World Vignettes
the way of greater profits. The state, controlled by the US-backed
oligarchy, will naturally observe the same priorities. Thus in Guatemala,
87% of all government credit in the decade following the military coup
of 1963 went to finance export production, while rice, corn, and beans
received 3%. 98 Had democratic elections been permitted in 1963, the
story would very likely have been different, but the Kennedy-backed
military coup prevented any such outcome. A similar pattern of
government credit holds in Brazil and elsewhere.
Throughout the Central American dominions of the US, the same has
been true, particularly under the Alliance for Progress, when US aid to
agriculture rapidly increased; not, however, to alleviate hunger but
primarily to “improve the productivity of Central America’s agricultural
exporters and at the same time to advance the sales of American
companies that manufacture pesticides and fertilizer . . . AID accepts as
fundamental doctrine the notion that its funds should not be directed
toward reducing food prices for domestic consumers,” Langley observes,
or for improving domestic food consumption. Quite the contrary: as AID
disbursements show, its concern is the export market dominated by US
agribusiness, expansion of the market for American grain exporters as
domestic production of food for the population declines, and improving
opportunities for the foreign investor. An executive of a US fertilizer firm
observed that “there would be scarcely any [US] investment if it were
not for the infrastructure, the education, the training, and the support
provided by our aid programs . . . very few investors would be in any of
the underdeveloped countries were it not for our effort at economic
assistance”—and, as noted, the investment is not for the benefit of the
population, in fact is harmful to them, despite the statistics concerning
production increase. The Food for Peace program (PL 480), which the
US Department of Agriculture described in 1982 as “one of the United
States’ most successful market development tools,” has opened up new
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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