The rich First World rejoices in the achievements of capitalism and the successes of the free market economy. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the high priests of this apparently fundamental philosophy, spend much time and ink producing detailed reports criticizing emerging economies for their state aid, lack of transparency and free trade.

Much of this is baloney. The dominant economies of North America, Europe and Asia are all of them riddled with subsidies, both hidden and overt, which give their own producers support and protection from damage in the free markets. Their reasons may be good, but they cannot then criticize struggling Third World countries for trying to redress the balance by instituting their own protective fixes. An attempt to end this double standard is likely to be a key issue at the latest round of World Trade Organization talks which start today in Cancun, Mexico. Third World countries struggling to get on their feet economically are suffering serious losses because of First World trade barriers built out of subsidies, especially for agricultural production. Research just published in Washington calculates that the world’s poorer countries lose a staggering $24 billion a year because of protectionist subsidies in the world’s rich nations. In terms of the opportunity cost to countries whose entire national product may be less than a billion a year, this money represents the difference between continued abject economic failure and modest success.

The pivotal area is agriculture, where given a level playing field the Third World can in many areas be internationally competitive. Some delegates will argue that there is method in the First World’s double-dealing. Poor countries forced to open their doors to international capital are seeing multinationals move into their fishing grounds and farmland. The suspicion is that once these companies have established a strong enough ownership position, the subsidy rules will be changed to protect these extensions of their agro-business empires. But by then most of the people of these exploited countries will be out of the economic loop. Thanks to free trade rules, profits will go to New York or London, and the best that the local economies can expect is a mass of low-paid employment. Run from the corporate boardroom rather than the Cabinet room, it will be colonialism nonetheless.

So when the arguments start in Cancun, observers need to look beyond the wealthy nations’ reasoning. Will it become clear that subsidies are not simply about protecting efficient but high-cost agro-industries, which in emergencies can provide life-saving surpluses? Will it emerge that they are more about keeping emerging market farming weak so that the sector can be bought up cheaply by international-agro business, under free-trade rules of course?