April 24, 2006

THE NGO AT THE END OF HISTORY:

A Million Paths to Peace (Michael Strong, 24 Apr 2006, Tech Central Station)

Something extraordinary is happening in global development circles. For the first time since the 19th century, progressive activists are embracing trade as positive tool for change. The global NGO Oxfam is the latest progressive interest group to change its tune. It has launched a campaign to end agricultural subsidies in the developed world.

This could represent a fundamental turning of the tide from a world based on nationalism and violence to a world based on commerce and peace.

Oxfam has a new section on its website devoted to "the private sector's role in development," where they acknowledge that "Oxfam GB believes that the private sector plays a central role in development, impacting on or contributing to poverty reduction in many different ways." The awkward "impacting on," rather than simply "contributing to," poverty reduction rings of compromise language, perhaps included to satisfy lingering "old Left" market resentments among certain Oxfam stakeholders, but we should be strictly grateful for the core thesis: "The private sector plays a central role in development."

In a recent paper, Columbia University political science professor Erik Gartzke shows that economic freedom (as measured by the Fraser Economic Freedom Index) is about fifty times more effective than democracy in diminishing violent conflict. Although it is not literally true that two nations with McDonald's do not go to war with each other, nations with high levels of economic freedom are far less likely to be engaged in violent conflict than are nations without economic freedom. The democratic peace turns out to be the free market peace.


Evangelizing for democracy and capitalism is the transnationalism of the Right.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 24, 2006 12:21 PM
Comments

... nations with high levels of economic freedom are far less likely to be engaged in violent conflict than are nations without economic freedom ... which is why I predict there will be no war with China and China will not invade Taiwan nor permit NK to disrupt their mad dash toward prosperity. Democracy will be the effect, not the cause of their free market economy aka capitalism.

Posted by: erp at April 24, 2006 3:19 PM

Why? China doesn't have economic freedom.

Posted by: oj at April 24, 2006 3:29 PM

It's moving in that direction and fast.

Posted by: erp at April 24, 2006 5:33 PM

All the Pollyannaish thinking is quite touching. Weapons make it possible.

Posted by: Lou Gots at April 24, 2006 5:43 PM

Lou. Do you think there will be war with China?

Posted by: erp at April 24, 2006 7:01 PM

No, I don't.

Anything is possible, but war with China is unlikely. The squabbling over Taiwan can be managed and China will change.

Just as THE FORMER SOVIET UNION came crashing down when enough of the old-time. first and second generation gangsters had gone to judgement, so we can look forward to China evolving as cultural penetration progresses, and new generations come to power.

Look at the sequence followed by the Red buchers in Russia. We can't deal with the Americans because we can't afford their kind of military, the head gangsters decided. To afford their kind of military, we must have restructuring. To have restructuring (perestroika), we must have openness (glasnost).

Then openness kicks in the front door, and the whole rotten edifice comes crashing down. *

*This allusion is chosen to deliberately deride the gangsters of the FORMER SOVIET UNION. Of course we all know where it comes from.

Posted by: Lou Gots at April 24, 2006 8:20 PM

Lou, that's what I thought was your position vis a vis China. What then do you mean by this comment: All the Pollyannaish thinking is quite touching. Weapons make it possible.

Posted by: erp at April 24, 2006 11:06 PM

Perhaps he means that this line from the article, The democratic peace turns out to be the free market peace, is a surface analysis.

Free markets require stable conditions and contract enforcers.
Superior firepower breeds peace, which allows markets to flourish; the rule of law, enforced in the end by arms, regulates markets.

Which is another problem that China has: Until Chinese contracts are enforceable in China by foreign companies, there will be a cap on Chinese growth potential.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2006 5:14 AM
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