MORE PROOF THAT PROSPERITY IS A BY-PRODUCT OF LIBERTY

Brussels Journal:

Suppose you were appointed global economic czar, and your task was to bring the world’s per capita income up to the level of Ireland’s (almost that of the U.S.). Would you:

(A) Insist the world’s rich nations transfer substantial wealth though massive foreign aid to the poor nations?

(B) Insist all nations adopt policies that would make them as economically free as the top 10 freest economies today?

If you answered “A,” welcome to the Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder school of willful economic ignorance. Graduates of this school are well represented among international institutions, such as the World Bank, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; the political left; and the media elites in such places as the New York Times editorial pages, the BBC and National Public Radio.

Fortunately, in their effort to roll back economic ignorance, the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal produce an annual “Index of Economic Freedom.” Their 2006 Index, the 12th edition, has just been released, and again it shows in stark and unambiguous terms that income, economic growth and opportunity are highly correlated with economic freedom.

The economically freest societies are the most prosperous, and the most economically repressive societies are the poorest.

... the biggest recipients of development aid over the last quarter-century, for the most part, have gone nowhere economically. Egypt (No. 129), the biggest recipient of development aid in the last quarter-century, is a prime example, with a per capita income about 5 percent of Ireland’s.

The lesson is clear for all who will remove their ideological blinders that the road to prosperity is economic freedom, not development aid. International institutions and major donor countries should stop handouts and pressure laggard countries to make free market reforms.

Like I said: 'Prosperity is the by-product of liberty."

Many on the Left like to see themselves as the symaptheitc and idealistic and unselfish defenders of the poor, and the see conservatives as heartless selfish people who don't care if people stay in poverty. IN FACT, the policies which the Left advocates keep people in poverty - or dependent on government handouts, while policies of ther Right actually lift poor people out of poverty and allows them to become richer and financially independent.

NEED MORE PROOF?! Deng Xiao Ping proved it in China when he inroduced a free markets in agriculture in 1979 and transformed China from a poor starving nation into a richer food exporting nation; in so doing, he lifted 350 MILLION people out of poverty in ten years - perhaps the greatest uplifting of humanity of ALL TIME.

Er um....he didn't do it with Maoism or Marxism or any other form of socialism. He did it by getting socialism OUT of the way, and by implementing conservative, right-wing free market policies and allowing and expanding capitalism and globalism. YUP: The two things the Left hates the most saved the poor people of China - arguably the poorrest nation on Earth at the time.

If we REALLY want to "MAKE POVERTY HISTORY" then - as the Brussels Journals says - we should demand that "International institutions and major donor countries should stop handouts, and pressure laggard countries to make free market reforms.