In the grand, tragicomic theater of global commodities, few acts are as pathetic as a nation trying to outsmart the very market that has spent centuries cannibalizing it. The Ivory Coast, a country whose primary utility to the so-called 'civilized' world is the provision of raw materials for heart disease and Valentine’s Day regret, has decided to intervene in the holy sanctuary of the free market. With cocoa prices plunging like a lead weight in a vacuum, the world’s top producer has announced plans to buy up unsold stocks to 'support' its farmers. It is a classic move from the playbook of desperate governance: when the world decides your life’s work is worthless, simply pretend you are your own best customer.

Let’s be clear about the 'market' we are discussing. The global supply chain is a Rube Goldberg machine designed by sociopaths to extract maximum labor for minimum payout. When the machine inevitably hiccups due to its own inherent instability, the state is forced to play the role of the benevolent, albeit broke, janitor. The Ivory Coast is stepping in to purchase the surplus, a gesture that is noble in the same way that putting a Band-Aid on a severed limb is noble. This is not a solution; it is a temporary delay of the inevitable bankruptcy that awaits those who dare to feed the West’s insatiable and fickle sweet tooth. We love a good 'Fair Trade' sticker on our packaging; it’s the secular equivalent of a medieval indulgence, allowing the guilt-ridden urbanite to consume their 70% dark chocolate without thinking too hard about the systemic poverty required to get it to the shelf.

On the Right, the free-market fetishists will decry this as 'market distortion' from their air-conditioned offices in London or New York. They will argue, with a straight face, that the price signal is sacred. If the price of cocoa drops, the farmers should simply 'pivot.' To what? Coding? Investing in speculative digital nonsense? The sheer idiocy of expecting a subsistence farmer in West Africa to respond to 'market signals' manipulated by algorithms and bored traders in fleece vests is the peak of modern arrogance. Meanwhile, on the Left, there will be the usual performative hand-wringing about the 'plight of the global south,' followed immediately by a six-dollar latte order. Neither side actually cares that the fundamental economics of the cocoa trade are built on the shifting sands of speculative greed and a consumer base with the attention span of a fruit fly.

The Ivory Coast is the world’s top producer, which, in the twisted logic of global capitalism, makes it the most vulnerable to the world’s whims. When you provide the world with its addiction, you are forever at the mercy of the addict’s wallet. The decision to buy up unsold stock is a frantic effort to stabilize a floor that has already rotted away. What happens to this cocoa once the government acquires it? It sits. It ages. It becomes a physical manifestation of wasted potential. The government is essentially turning tax revenue—what little there is—into a pile of slowly degrading beans, praying that the capricious gods of the commodity exchanges will eventually look down with favor and raise the price per ton. This isn't economics; it’s a seance. They are summoning the ghost of a dead market, hoping it will possess the current one and drive the numbers back into the black.

This is the cycle of human stupidity in its purest, most concentrated form. We take a natural resource, exploit a population to harvest it under conditions that would make a Victorian chimney sweep shudder, turn it into a luxury good for the bored and the bloated, and then act surprised when the delicate house of cards collapses. The Ivory Coast’s intervention is not a victory for the people; it is a desperate attempt to keep a broken system from disintegrating entirely. It is a testament to the fact that we have built a global civilization where the most basic goods—the things that actually come out of the earth—are treated with less respect than the 'value' of a tech company that loses a billion dollars a year.

In the end, we are left with a mountain of cocoa and a valley of intellect. The Ivory Coast will spend money it doesn’t have to buy a product no one is buying, all to maintain the illusion that the cocoa industry is a sustainable endeavor rather than a colonial relic dressed up in the tattered finery of sovereign independence. We are a species that would rather subsidize a surplus of candy than address the underlying rot of our economic structures. So, enjoy your next chocolate bar. Just remember that it is seasoned with the salt of a government’s desperation and the bitter aftertaste of a market that finally realized it doesn't actually need to pay for the things it consumes. It is not just chocolate; it is a lesson in entropy. The Ivory Coast is doing what any cornered animal does: it’s biting its own tail to convince itself it still has a mouth.