Bush's War on Poverty
Ending tyranny is the best way to spread wealth.
BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Wednesday, January 26, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
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.
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