Liberty Alone

I remember an Oxfam advert which went along the lines of ‘Give a man a fish and he can feed himself for a day. Teach a man to fish and he can feed himself for life’.

That obviously makes sense, so long as fish stocks hold up of course.

But lets take it a bit further. Why should we be teaching everyone to fish? Why not let a man work in a Nike (or whoever) ’sweat shop’. Then he can earn money which he can use to buy fish, or meat, or vegetables, or clothing, all produced by people far more skilled than he in producing such things.
Of course, as the man works, he learns more skills, he becomes more valuable, he will get paid more, or a competing ’sweat shop’ hires him for a better paid job. He will have disposable income, he won’t need his children to work to make a living, instead they can go to school, they can then in turn earn even higher wages.

For women, the situation is even better. They can be hired to work now, they can earn their own wages. This gives them more financial freedom and makes them less dependent upon a husband or family. If they’re abused they can more easily leave and survive, they will become more educated over time, through work and school, leading to greater demand for equality - and that equality being given.

Higher income means even more diversification, mobile phones can become common, the Internet may arrive. More knowledge about the rest of the world and more ideas. Its a virtuous circle.

Of course, none of this will happen without property rights and the rule of law. Why risk investing in a country if the government might turn around and confiscate your assets on a whim? How are ordinary people expected to make investments in their own life if those investments may be confiscated or take years of paperwork and bribes to secure?

So lets not teach a man to fish, lets let a man choose where to work and give him opportunities. Self sufficiency means poverty, its through trade and the division of labour that we get rich.

Many people claim this, but I think it is completely wrong.
Firstly, cultures are not static and unchanging, they are fluid and accept some influences and reject others, not through some grand plan (as much as the French Government and other statist culture organisers would like to think) but through the interactions of the individuals who make up society.
This makes talk of losing a culture nonsense, culture changes, if people think something worth preserving they will do so themselves.

Secondly, lets look at an example of some countries which have different cultures but have been unified politically - The United Kingdom. Scotland and Wales have their own cultures - arguably they have different cultures within themselves, this is certainly the case with England where there are differences in culture between cities and rural areas, between east and west and north and south, even in today’s hyper-connected world.
Even in Brittany, despite the attempts of central government to impose ‘French Culture’ upon the Bretons they have a distinct culture.

It is true that English culture has changed, for example the curry is arguably central to our culture, but we still have elements of an older culture and a distinct culture. We still interact with the rest of the world, we have not lost our culture and never will, it will simply change, but remain distinct.

The 2007 Index has been published and it is generally good news.
Economic freedom has fallen slightly, but is still the second highest ever, but a new system is being used to measure which include labour freedom for the first time which may affect the results.
The UK comes in at number 6 and Ireland at number 7 at the tail end of the ‘free’ countries and the highest ranked in Europe (Hong Kong keeps the top spot again with its near neighbours Australia, Singapore and New Zealand all doing very well).

Over the world, the general trend is still towards greater freedom and the regions are increasing at about the same rate. There is increased wealth and a decrease in poverty and inequality across the globe. This is the achievement of poverty reduction ever,

There is more evidence that increased economic freedom increases wealth whatever your starting point, and that globalisation is not harming the world’s poor as many claim.

There is a need to be cautious - the new US congress is much more protectionist and illiberal on economic terms and the Doha round is deadlocked over the CAP and other farm subsidies. There is still a possibility of a reversal in the trend towards freedom, but overall I am cautiously optimistic.