Liberty milked dry

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Philadelphia has topped himself. Arguing for renewal of the Northeast dairy cartel and expansion of government-sponsored milk price fixing into other regions, the Republican in name only nuked the law of supply and demand in one fell swoop.

'The dairy farmer is at the mercy of irrational market forces,' Mr. Specter exclaimed.

Jumping Jehoshaphat! The market is irrational when it demands efficiency, but is peaches and cream when it holds harmless small dairy farmers (let's shed a torrent of tears for the bucolic days of yesteryear) who cannot meet the prices of their competitors.

What is the effect of this excruciating sentimentality• Farmers protected by 'walled off' markets in the Northeast Diary Compact, which dies on Sept. 30 if it is not renewed, receive as much as 50 percent more for their milk than do farmers in Minnesota, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports.

Legislation already introduced would drag Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New York and New Jersey into the Northeast compact. Additional measures would set up a cartel in the South and West.

Of course, once just about everyone has a cartel, watch the anti-competitive frictions set region against region, interfering with the free flow of the least-expensive product to market. Somebody, ultimately the consumer, will pay the price of economic balkanization.

Supporters of agricultural subsidy and cartels say the small farm is a cultural treasure, a way of life, and that every producer and consumer of milk must be drafted into defense of its survival.

The notion is economic nonsense.