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An
essay by Johan Norberg
The current debate about globalisation presupposes that
the world is rapidly going to the dogs. In particular, the world is said to have
become increasingly unfair. The chorus of the debate on the market economy runs:
"The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer". If
anything, this is regarded as a dictate of natural law, not a thesis to be
argued. Yes, the first half is
true: the rich - not all of them everywhere, but generally speaking - have
indeed become richer. But the second half is, quite simply, wrong. The poor have
not, generally speaking, come to be worse off in recent decades. On the
contrary, extreme poverty has diminished, and where it was quantitatively
greatest – in Asia many
hundreds of millions of people have begun to achieve a secure existence and even
a modest degree of affluence Between 1965 and 1998, the average world citizen's income
almost doubled, from $2,497 to $4,839.
For the poorest one fifth of the world's population, the increase has
been faster still, with average income more than doubling during the same period
from $551 to $1,137 In China, the World Bank has spoken of "the biggest and
fastest poverty reduction in history". By the 1990s, when the Swedish author Lasse Berg and the
film-maker Stig Karlsson returned to Asian countries in which they had travelled
thirty years earlier, they could not believe how wrong they had been to view
socialist revolution as the only way out of the misery they had seen on their
earlier visit. In India and China, more and more people were extricating
themselves from poverty, hunger, and insanitary conditions. The biggest change of all is in
people's thoughts and dreams television and newspapers bring ideas and
impressions from the other side of the globe, widening people's notions of what
is possible. This development has resulted not from socialist revolution but, on
the contrary, from a move in the past few decades towards greater individual
liberty. International exchange and the freedom to choose have grown;
investments and development assistance have transmitted ideas and resources.
Benefit has been derived from the knowledge, wealth, and inventions of
other countries. Imports of medicines and new health care systems have
improved living conditions. Modern technology and new methods of
production have boosted productivity and improved the food supply. Individuals
have become freer to choose their own occupations and to sell their products.
Discrimination has been reduced, since global capitalism doesn't care whether
the best producer is a man or a woman Discrimination is expensive, implying as
it does the rejection of certain people’s goods and labour. We can tell from
the statistics how these developments have enhanced national prosperity and
reduced poverty. But the most important thing of all is liberty itself, the
independence and dignity which autonomy confers on people who have been living
under oppression. Lasse Berg sums up the phenomenon thus. "It is not
only inside China that a Chinese wall is now being torn down. Something similar
is happening all over the world, in Bihar, in East Timor, Ovamboland. Human
beings are discovering that the individual is entitled to be his own. This has
by no means been self-evident before. The discovery engenders a longing, not
only for freedom but also for the good things in life, for prosperity" It is this mentality which must inspire optimism. We have
not travelled the full distance; coercion and poverty still cover large areas of
our globe. Great setbacks can and will occur. But people who know that living in
a state of ignorance and oppression is not a natural necessity will no longer
accept this as the only conceivable state of affairs. They will demand freedom
and democracy. The aim of our political and economic systems should be to give
them that freedom. This article was originally published as a Pfizer forum paper. Click here to read more.
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