Globalisation is good!

After a reading a post over at the conservative Dick Erixon's blog, I watched Johan Norberg's documentary on global capitalism, Globalisation is good at Google Video.

This interesting piece is what can be called a beginner's guide to the virtues of capitalism and free trade. It pedagogically outlines the differences between the asian tiger economies (with the prime example Taiwan) and the chaotic Africa (exemplified by Kenya in the film).

While Taiwan and other south east Asian countries have embraced capitalism and risen from a poverty that was on par with Africa's 50-60 years ago, African countries are stuck with local elites who aren't interested in development, massively unequal income distribution, lack of property rights, etc. Read more about that here.

But the major obstacle of development is of course the protectionism of the developed world that prevents local farmers in the South from competing on the market with their likes in the North. Norberg exemplifies well in the film and argues that "the problem is not that we impose global capitalism on the poor - the problem is that we shut them out from it".

Do watch it, I recommend it wholeheartedly!

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Intressant. Andra bloggar om: utvecklingspolitik,
globalisering,
kapitalism, protektionism, Afrika