I agree with about 90% of what you said. A few points of divergence:
Anyone who has traveled here over the last two decades would confirm, I am sure, that Asia has had a transformation.
It has, but this transformation has been largely limited to urban areas. One major factor inhibiting the spread of growth to rural areas is, I believe, the relatively greater influence of traditional elites in the countryside. While their influence is frequently not easy for the casual visitor to detect, it is very real.
If GDP increases by 5%, the average worker is better off by... 5%.
Not necessarily. The Philippines has experienced considerable economic growth since 1986, but real incomes of both farmers and workers have declined. Prices, at the same time, have soared, largely due to the removal of the Marcos-era subsidies and the absence of real competition. The average worker, even one with considerable skills, still earns a sub-poverty wage.
I would say that feudal influences have a great deal more to do with these phenomena - which, as I said before, probably have more in common with Latin America than with the rest of Asia - than the corporations that the old socialists loved to demonize. It needs to be said, though, that in many areas the US has actively subsidized and contributed to the power of these feudal influences, seeing them as necessary allies against socialism. It is also important to note that with socialism effectively on the run, the situation has changed, and our old allies the feudalists have become the most critical obstacles to the development of a true free market economy capable of sustained growth.
liberal guilt does not give one a free pass to ignore economic data or rational analysis.
True. But altogether too much economic analysis takes place without adequate study of political and historical context, and this is also dangerous.
The power of traditional elites in many developing countries depends entirely on political influence and control of the judicial systems. In a truly competitive free market they will vanish in a generation; they know this, and will do anything possible to derail the free market system, though they will often adopt its rhetoric. Watch it happen in Brazil, when the talk is over and it's time to walk.
This is why continued stress on non-economic factors like human rights and political liberalization is so important: it targets the non-economic means by which the old elites maintain their economic dominance. |
