Free Markets Promot Unrest, Not Democracy

[vox]

Published on Friday, August 2, 2002 in the Miami Herald

Free Markets Promote Unrest, Not Democracy
by Eduardo Moncada

A recent U.N. report flies in the face of Washington's mantra that free markets are the only path to economic growth and democracy.

The Human Development Report 2002 warns that many countries that took steps toward democracy following the Cold War are either stalling or ''slipping back to authoritarian rule.'' The application of free-market nostrums in the developing world in fact has aggravated poverty. It has led to declining standards of living and widening income disparities. By the end of the 1990s, 52 countries wound up poorer than at the beginning of the decade, according to the report.

Full Story (http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0802-04.htm)

[kidicarus20]

That is a good article, more people should be interesting in this.

[Supermodel]

Excellent article. Funny how smart people canb't understand that democracy and free markets are two separate things.

For sure, the US has many trade restrictions in place yet it bullies poorer and smaller countries into giving the most favorable terms.

If the improvement of mankind and "world peace" were the ultimate goal, poverty alleviation would be a goal placed higher than either democracy or free trade.

[vox]

SM,

What's also interesting to me is that when we look at the development of industrialized nations, there is always a lot of protectionism involved. South Korea is an excellent example of this. In fact, it could very well be that liberalizing the financial markets in South Korea helped to cause the collapse experienced in 1997. (If you're interested, here's a good piece about it (http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Globalism/15hahnel.htm).

The question I've often asked, but never really received an answer for, is where are the "emerging markets" that have emerged? After all this time, shouldn't ONE Latin American country have a stable, free market system and a democratic government? Many talk about the failures of the USSR, including me, but few talk about the failures of the IMF and the WB.

I posted this in the SvC forum as well, if anyone is interested in seeing what the other side had to say.

vox