CAPITALISM HAS BEEN ESSENTIAL IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

CAPITALISM HAS BEEN ESSENTIAL IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

1. INDIVIDUAL CHOICE ALLOWED BY CAPITALISM ENSURES PERSONAL LIBERTY

Johan Norberg, author and political activist, 2001.

IN DEFENCE OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM, p. 23

This development has resulted, not from socialist revolution but, on the contrary, from a move in the past few decades towards greater individual liberty. The freedom to choose and the international exchange have grown, investments and development assistance have transmitted ideas and resources. In this way benefit has been derived from the knowledge, wealth and inventions of other countries. Imports of medicines and new health care systems have improved living conditions. Modern technology and new methods of production have moved production forward and improved the food supply. Individual citizens have become more and more free to choose their own occupations and to sell their products. We can tell from the statistics how this enhances national prosperity and reduces poverty among the population. But the most important thing of all is liberty itself, the independence and dignity which autonomy confers on people who have been living under oppression.
2. CAPITALISM HAS DECREASED GLOBAL POVERTY

Johan Norberg, author and political activist, 2001.

IN DEFENCE OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM, p. 25

Between 1965 and 1998, the average world citizen’s income practically doubled, from 2,497 to 4,839 dollars, corrected for purchasing power and in fixed money terms. This has not come about through the industrialised nations multiplying their incomes. During this period the richest one-fifth of the world’s population increased their average income from 8,315 to 14,623 dollars, i.e. by roughly 75 percent. For the poorest one-fifth of the world’s population, the increase has been faster still, with average income rising during the same period from 551 to 1,137 dollars, i.e. more than doubling. World consumption today is more than twice what it was in 1960. Material developments in the past half-century have resulted in the world having over three billion more people liberated from poverty. This is historically unique. UNDP, the UN Development Programme, has observed that, all in all, world poverty has fallen more during the past 50 years than during the preceding 500. In its 1997 Human development report, the UNDP notes that humanity is in the midst of “the second great ascent”. The first began in the 19th century, with the industrialisation of the USA and Europe and the rapid spread of prosperity. The second began during the post-war era and is now in full swing, with first Asia and then the other developing countries noting ever-greater advances in the war against poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy.

Johan Norberg, author and political activist, 2001.

IN DEFENCE OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM, p. 37-38

At present there are 47 states which are violating basic human rights. Worst among them are Afghanistan, Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Iraq, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Turkmenistan – that is, countries least affected by globalisation and least oriented in favour of the market economy and liberalism. While deploring and combating their oppression, suppression of opinion, government-controlled media and wire-tapping, we should still remember that this was the normal state of affairs for most of the world’s population only a few decades ago. In 1973 only 20 countries with populations of more than a million were democratically governed.

WARD CHURCHILL

AMERICAN INDIAN STUDIES

Life and Work

Ward Churchill is an activist, author and scholar covering many issues important to progressives, but be is most concerned with the fate of Native Americans. Churchill’s political activism, he says, started shortly after he came out of the United States Army in 1969. After being drafted and sent to Vietnam, he became disillusioned and “irritated” about the posture of his government. Not only did he not consider Vietnam a just war, but he began to feel that, as a Native American, he “was sent to Southeast Asia to uphold a treaty which did not require that I be there.”

As he began to research the application of federal law to Native Americans he found that “the United States was in the process of standing in complete violation of 371 odd treaties that were on record with my people or related peoples right here in North America.” Given this fact, Churchill took the stance that “if we’re going to be busy enforcing treaties, it ought to be home, not over there [in Vietnam].”
Though Churchill’s focus is certainly on Native issues, his career as an author and political voice has been characterized by abroad-based, diverse background. He has written and edited books which deal with subjects as far-ranging as crime policy, the FBI’s domestic covert wars, and specifically the way movements like the Black Panthers were treated by both the United States government and law enforcement agencies.
As Churchill became politically active, he moved to Peoria Illinois where he had a roommate by the name of Mark Clark. Clark happened to be a defense captain for the Illinois Black Panther Party. In December of 1969, less than a year after Churchill’s discharge from the army and political awakening, Clark became the first Panther killed in an armed raid by the FBI. The raid, which took place on an apartment on Monroe Street in Chicago, also took the life of Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Illinois Panthers. Churchill, somewhat understatedly, says that this “caught my attention.” Since there was clear evidence from the onset of direct FBI involvement, and since there was a clear attempt made to cover that up, Churchill became involved in the effort to bring out the truth about the assassinations of Hampton and Clark.
From there, “one thing followed another.” After he joined the American Indian Movement, Churchill began working on the famous Leonard Peltier case. Along the way, he began to discover through his investigations what he considered “this pattern of FBI repression. Of covert operations directed against activists in the United States that was so pervasive it had an effect on everything I was trying to do, and everybody I was around.” This included, naturally, the Black Panthers and AIM.
Churchill began to write extensively about his experiences and the research he did about politics. The first book he put out was an edited collection of essays on the applicability of Marxist theory to the circumstances of the American Indians within the United States, Marxism And Native Americans. He established a relationship with the independent collective publishing house South End Ness, and put out books including the Agents Of Regression focusing on FBI misdeeds, primarily against the American Indian Movement in the 1970s, but also on the Black Panther Party. Since then, Churchill has put out several other books, and published regularly in magazines such as Z.
Today, Churchill is professor of American Indian studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. There he is the Associate Director of the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America. Churchill also serves as co-director of the American Indian Movement of Colorado, Vice Chairperson of the American Indian Anti-Defamation Council, and a National Spokesperson for the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee.

Directory: uploads
uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10
uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers
uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It?
uploads -> For want of a nail
uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models
uploads -> Police Militarization
uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016
uploads -> Township of winfield
uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014
uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now!

Download 5.81 Mb.

Share with your friends: