The Two Face of the Developing World
Ξ July 10th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Op-Ed, links |
I just read another great article on creative capitalism over at Creative Capitalism: A Conversation. It touches on something that I’ve thought about a lot recently: the perception of capitalism as a solution for poverty. Despite the fact that capitalism is by definition an economic system, I think for many people it is a gut reaction to instinctively judge it as though it were an ideology. Proponents of capitalism point to the incredible wealth created and the growth of the middle class in the countries that have benefited from it, while opponents highlight the sweatshops, the environmental disasters and the endless pursuit of cheap labor that has devastated small town America. When you get right down to it, capitalism is capable of producing both incredibly good and incredibly bad results. You can build a house with a hammer or bludgeon someone to death with it, but this does not make the hammer good or bad. I don’t think capitalism is any different.
In the past century capitalism has done an even mix of good and bad, but individuals tend to focus on only one or the other. If capitalism is truly to be used as a tool for eliminating poverty we must treat it just like the hammer - with respect and with an understanding that it’s our responsibility to ensure it produces positive results. As Kyle Chauvin points out in his essay, we have already seen that the benefits of capitalism have already begun to creep beyond the borders of western nations into places like South Korea, Isreal and Peru. So, we have good reason to believe that it is a sound strategy to continue to promote the growth of this economic system in the developing world, which has borne the brunt of the negative side effects of capitalism in the past century. But, we cannot forget that simply spreading capitalism isn’t enough. We must spread ethically and environmentally responsible capitalism. The choice between global prosperity and poverty lies in the way we approach this issue.
