THE REAL WORLDBY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Wednesday, January 26, 2005 12:01 a.m.
Amid the hubbub that followed President Bush's inaugural address--including the debate over his metaphors, the scope of his vision and the practicality of ejecting tyranny from the planet--something big has gone largely unremarked. That would be the value of Mr. Bush's vision in ending not only tyranny, but the world's worst poverty.Poverty? How's that? When Mr. Bush opened his second term last week with a call for global freedom, he made no particular mention of poverty. His main message was that both on principle and in the interests of its own security, America must work toward "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." In laying out the foreign-policy agenda that dominated his speech, Mr. Bush spoke not of economics but of politics. He told the democratic dissidents of the unfree nations of the world: "Where you stand for liberty, we will stand with you." He made no mention of global economic growth, development goals or international financial aid.
Yet to whatever extent Mr. Bush's agenda plays out in practice, one of the main results would be a richer world for all--with the most dramatic benefits reaching those who are now among the poorest. One of the truths wrested at great cost from the grand social experiments of the 20th century was that the prerequisite for prosperity--if we are speaking of wealth for the many, not just for a ruling few--is freedom. It is not only by smothering free speech or jailing loyal opposition that dictators keep control. It is also by decreeing--in ways that suit the pleasures of the ruler, not the ruled--the rules and conditions under which people may seek work, earn money, own property and buy what they need to feed their families and otherwise pursue happiness. With every reasonable choice that gets cut off by dictatorial rule, with every payoff that must be made to authorities who exist for no other purpose than to please themselves and collect tolls, more human energy and talent and knowledge goes to waste.
To whatever extent Mr. Bush's vision of ending tyranny is realized, it will do more to end poverty than any amount of aid, including the $195 billion the United Nations now proposes to pour into development over the next decade, following the advice of a 3,000-word study put together by 265 experts (which works out to about 11 words, or $730 million in recommended spending, per expert). Donations, state plans and even the best-intentioned aid schemes cannot make up for the ability of individuals, in free societies, to choose most profitably how to wield their own knowledge and energy to support themselves.
Even when dictators offer a dole, as in, say, Saudi Arabia, the results turn sour fast. The challenge this sets for ordinary citizens is not to use their abilities in ways valued by others and rewarded in the marketplace; instead, huge energy and ingenuity goes into working the system, petitioning and pleasing officials, and bribing parties who block the way for no other purpose than to receive payoffs, hoard power and too often inflict humiliation. The difference between freely earning a living and existing on rations, or at the pleasure of corrupt officials, is that the former offers dignity; the latter, all too often, resentment.
The real answer to poverty is the creation of systems of government that let ordinary citizens help themselves, and require them to take responsibility for what they then do--rather than hoping for handouts and blaming their troubles on forces beyond their control, whether by way of quietly hating the local despot, or loudly and more safely denouncing such stand-in targets as the U.S. It is no accident that among the tyrannies most vociferously protesting Mr. Bush's speech were some of the poorest countries on earth. These included Zimbabwe, once breadbasket of Africa, now a country where the thuggish and increasingly lawless rule of Robert Mugabe has left millions on the edge of famine. Or North Korea, whose Stalinist dictatorship holds the world record for starving people to death over the past decade--an estimated two million.
Were Mugabe's despotic regime replaced with democracy, we would in all likelihood see Zimbabwe--already rich in human capital--thrive again. Were the totalitarian rule of Kim Jong Il in North Korea replaced with anything even semihuman, there can be little doubt that North Koreans would quickly devise ways to feed themselves. And were the people of Middle East free of despots who choke off not only free discourse, but free markets, we would very likely see that fabled "Arab street" less devoted to getting angry than to becoming comfortably--and peaceably--middle class.
In the debates to come, as we hash out just how Mr. Bush's second inaugural address might translate into practice, we can expect plenty of disagreement over the need to ignore, evict or tolerate assorted dictators, from Kim to Gadhafi, from the Saudi royals to the Iranian clerics, from the thugs who serve as U.S. allies in Central Asia, to such U.S.-despising despots as Fidel Castro. But even among the world's worst dictators, it is hard to find ardent defenders of poverty, at least in public. In that sense, Mr. Bush's speech last week was a landmark address not only in political terms, but also economic. To talk about ending tyranny is not only to reach out to democratic dissidents worldwide. In the strange event that any further selling point is needed, it is also to promote the single most effective remedy for poverty.
Ms. Rosett is a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Her column appears here and in The Wall Street Journal Europe on alternate Wednesdays.
Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Reply 1 - Posted by: luckydog, 1/26/2005 1:11:24 AM
I nominate this woman for Bush's new National Security advisor. She is brilliant and should at least be his spokesperson. I can just see her going at it with the press corps. Now, that would be fun to watch. She is dead on in the reasons and the solutions for world poverty. Some small areas will still need to be helped because of natural disasters such as tsunami and famine. However, show me some poor people and I'll show you someone controlling their very existence, with the intent on keeping the poor down and themselves in powerful luxury. After all the libs and some Conservatives, Peggy are you listening as Claudia takes over where you have left off, clamor about and try to make sense of Bush's speech; Claudia spells it out for them.
Reply 2 - Posted by: saryden, 1/26/2005 6:17:24 AM
This great analysis will not be welcome news to the Democratic Socialists of America (who have usurped the Democratic Party).
They especially do not want us to understand this, as they use any and all means to undermine the Bush Administration and turn America "socialist on the road to communist", which is simply more totalitarianism.
Reply 3 - Posted by: VRWconspiracy, 1/26/2005 7:10:26 AM
She gets it.
Reply 4 - Posted by: congar, 1/26/2005 8:21:48 AM
Wow! This gal writes a must read explanation of the deeper meaning of Bush’s proposals in a manner that you can not escape her very valid and very inspiring conclusions.
Reply 5 - Posted by: zarin, 1/26/2005 8:34:35 AM
Wowsers! FTA:"One of the truths wrested at great cost from the grand social experiments of the 20th century was that the prerequisite for prosperity--if we are speaking of wealth for the many, not just for a ruling few--is freedom. ... It is also by decreeing--in ways that suit the pleasures of the ruler, not the ruled--the rules and conditions under which people may seek work, earn money, own property and buy what they need to feed their families and otherwise pursue happiness. With every reasonable choice that gets cut off by dictatorial rule, with every payoff that must be made to authorities who exist for no other purpose than to please themselves and collect tolls, more human energy and talent and knowledge goes to waste."
Thank Hayek & Thomas Sowell& the Author of the Declaration!
Reply 6 - Posted by: chatham, 1/26/2005 9:02:40 AM
Thank God for Claudia Rosett.
What a beautiful Mind.
Reply 7 - Posted by: pomom, 1/26/2005 9:18:47 AM
Claudia sees the inaugural speech as the beautiful, awe-inspiring message that it was. Not lofty, pipedream rhetoric full of too much Godspeak, patriotism and global warnings to be picked apart by pundit speechwriters. Thank you, Ms Rosett.
Reply 8 - Posted by: valleystorm, 1/26/2005 9:43:32 AM
Forget the nitpicking of everyone about Bush's speech -- Rosett's take is the most important. I hope everyone will repeat her analysis unendingly and silence those who either stupidly or evilly reject the God-given right of all mankind to freedom from tyranny.
Reply 9 - Posted by: TheDukeOfEarl, 1/26/2005 10:19:57 AM
Rosett gets it.
Reply 10 - Posted by: Ardys Parrish, 1/26/2005 11:07:45 AM
The good news about Claudia Rosett is that she speaks and thinks on her feet as well as she writes which is not true of all the national writers-she knows about what she writes about and it goes deep.
Reply 11 - Posted by: janylou, 1/26/2005 11:23:05 AM
It is too bad she couldn't give this as a speech to the UNothings. "The real answer to poverty is the creation of systems of government that let ordinary citizens help themselves, and require them to take responsibility for what they then do--rather than hoping for handouts and blaming their troubles on forces beyond their control, whether by way of quietly hating the local despot, or loudly and more safely denouncing such stand-in targets as the U.S." AMEN!!!
Reply 12 - Posted by: daphne, 1/26/2005 11:24:23 AM
Claudia Rosett is simply the best. The Pulitzer will mean nothing until she is given one.
Reply 13 - Posted by: fwipper, 1/26/2005 11:38:43 AM
wow
Reply 14 - Posted by: amereagle, 1/26/2005 2:42:18 PM
Go, go, go!
Reply 15 - Posted by: gop juggernaut redux, 1/26/2005 2:52:41 PM
Government meddling in people's lives can really screw them up, as we all well know.
My wife's niece in Russia is 24 and she still lives at home with her father? Why? Because she is lazy, steals money from him, and here's the best part, his apartment is written in her passport as her residence so he CANNOT THROW HER OUT! Have you got that? The government dictates what he can and cannot do with his own family. This, in turn, makes the girl extremely lazy and wasteful. Wonderous government at work.
Reply 16 - Posted by: donna quixote, 1/26/2005 8:35:57 PM
If this administration gave her a job she and they would be accused of all kinds of hooha!
Reply 17 - Posted by: TLAFER, 1/26/2005 11:36:23 PM
Yes, the great George W. Bush will bring freedom and prosperity to the world, no question about it. We'll just invade all the countries where there is no freedom, and then nation build one country after another, and soon everybody will be free and prosperous. Everybody except us, of course. We'll be dead broke.
Reply 18 - Posted by: public skooled, 1/27/2005 1:24:07 AM
Have another drink, T.
