sexta-feira, junho 11, 2004
Globalização
No Daily Telegraph, Niall Fergurson analisa o livro "Why Globalization Works" de Martin Wolf.
A staunch defender of the increased economic freedom that has swept the world since the 1980s, Wolf was clearly raised to believe that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. While it might seem dazzlingly obvious to most FT readers that globalisation is A Good Thing, Wolf fears that it is vulnerable to a new generation of critics - "millennium collectivists", whose siren voices are luring more and more people to illiberal perdition.
The people he has in mind are most frequently to be found in the pages of the Guardian - the likes of George Monbiot and Naomi Klein - but there are Tory critics of globalisation too (the Prince of Wales may be their spiritual leader). All share a revulsion for the side-effects of a global free market without, Wolf argues, grasping its overwhelming net benefits.
No one has summarised more coherently the recent, voluminous research by economists and economic historians on the big economic questions at the heart of the globalisation debate. One after the other, the errors of the anti-globalisers are exposed. Elegantly and persuasively, Wolf marshals the facts to show that globalisation is reducing poverty, not least by generating rapid growth in the two most populous countries in the world, China and India.
(...)
Martin Wolf recognises that the biggest defect of globalisation is that it is not truly global at all. So long as millions of people are trapped in failed states and rogue regimes whose rulers pursue illiberal economic policies, there will be large parts of the world that will simply be excluded from international markets. This, as he rightly says, is "far and away the most important source of inequality and persistent poverty".
But what is to be done about it? Wolf concurs with the late Lord Bauer that aid, no matter how bountiful, cannot solve the problem. But he stops short of endorsing the argument advanced by myself, Michael Ignatieff and others that sometimes only military intervention can address the fundamental problem of bad governance - just as he shies away from acknowledging the vital role that must be played by the United States in the fight against globalisation's most dangerous enemies.
posted by Miguel Noronha 10:13 da manhã
Comments:
Enviar um comentário
