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| Opportunities & Exposures: Politics |
Economic Diplomacy
Edward J. Lincoln
09/01/2005
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If we want to build democracy, it must
come from inside society. Democracy evolved in places like Taiwan and Korea as
economic growth created a middle class that demanded a voice in politics. We
have other reasons to be concerned about the fate of poor countries. They tend
to be wracked with internal conflict—the Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda among them.
They are also breeding grounds for pandemic diseases that have a nasty habit of
expanding globally. While terrorism appears less connected to poverty, the
middle-class 9/11 terrorists were passionately aroused by the plight of
impoverished societies in the Middle East. Poverty matters to our own peace and
prosperity.
Eliminating poverty requires a renewed focus on economic
development and a rethinking of foreign aid. In the Reagan era, we stopped
funding large infrastructure projects, such as power plants and hydroelectric
dams, on the grounds that so many fell into the hands of unfriendly recipient
governments. What we really need to consider is how many conditions it takes to
help build an economy; we can build a hospital, but there may not be enough
local doctors and nurses to staff it. We need to fund transportation, literacy,
health care and more, all at once. Some in the Bush administration understand
this, but tend to be locked in an ideologically rigid pro-market position that
misses the point of how much public spending a struggling country might need
just to make small enterprises possible. Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto was
right in arguing that clearly defined property rights are essential to bring
economic growth in poor countries, but so, too, is infrastructure for newly
motivated property-owning farmers and entrepreneurs to get their goods and
services to market.
We would be better served by a policy focused on
improving the freedom of international trade and investment and sensible aid for
developing countries. Such policies will do more for our goals of peace and
prosperity than our increasingly unproductive military adventure in Iraq. | Edward J. Lincoln is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations. |
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