Economic Freedom:
The 'Haves' and the 'Have Nots'
Wolfgang Kasper, Manuel Ayau, Barun Mitra and James Shikwati
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The Centre for Independent Studies had a recent visit from three leading liberals: Manuel Ayau, the President emeritus of the private Universidad Francisco Marroqu’n and an experienced business leader from Guatemala; Barun Mitra, the founding Director of the Liberty Institute, a free-market think tank in New Delhi; and James Shikwati, the founder and Director of KenyaÕs Inter-Region Economic Network in Nairobi. They spoke with Wolfgang Kasper, Senior Fellow at the Centre, about aid, poverty, the law and trade.

WOLFGANG KASPER: Welcome to Australia. We are most fortunate to have three prominent liberal thinkers here from those major regions of the world that are outside the increasingly integrated and affluent core of the world economy, namely Europe, North America and the ascending Far East. In a way, you represent those poorer two-thirds of humanity who are sometimes called the Ôhave notsÕ: Latin America, South Asia and Africa. This is a great opportunity to discuss the roots of mass poverty in the third world and to explore whether the ÔhavesÕ can do something to help.

Maybe, we could begin by asking you, Don Manuel, why Latin America, once the most affluent part of what we now call the third world, aborted several promising starts into economic reform and growth. Why did Latin American countries (except Chile) never manage to sustain liberalisation and economic growth?

MANUEL AYAU: First of all, this is entirely our own fault. We cannot blame anyone.

Of course, world politics had some effect, and this convinces many of our politicians that the outside world is to blame for our failures. US foreign aid has been tremendously impoverishing because it has maintained many bad politicians in power. In effect, transfers from poor taxpayers in the rich countries to the rich elites in poor countriesÑas Lord Peter Bauer used to call foreign aidÑhas enabled Latin American leaders to implement social welfare policies which poor countries cannot afford. Money-dispensing aid organisations have also been responsible for inspiring much harmful intervention in industry and commerce.

KASPER: Judging from an African and South Asian angle, would you, James and Barun, agree?

JAMES SHIKWATI: In Africa, capitalism and economic freedom have been widely perceived as part of the colonial conspiracy. African independence was supported by the socialists. Therefore, African elites have long felt and acted anti-capitalist and anti-free market. During the Cold War, East and West channelled much aid to Africa, trying to buy friends. Our leaders focused on the interests of the donors to obtain even more aid. Because of the easy option of aid, government officials did not have to get involved in the difficult business of improving productivity. Many got addicted to aid and became mere aid administrators, who did not take the interests of the people into account.

BARUN MITRA: In India, aid has not helped either, given the huge size of India. As elsewhere, it has led to ideological corruption and has institutionalised and subsidised corrupt political practices.

KASPER: Do you refer to Soviet central planning and NehruÕs build-up of state-owned industries?

MITRA: That is part of it. However, Western aid has helped to sustain that costly, hurtful socialism. Aid locks in vested interests and establishes a cycle of growing aid dependency. The so-called ÔGood SamaritansÕ create a caste of professional aid seekers, offer spoils to corrupt politicians and promote the paternalistic, top-down collectivism that destroys economic freedom and stifles individual initiative. We get a class of official mendicants who specialise in writing grants proposals. These have no relevance to the recipients. Nor do they address the realities on the ground. After all, the grant proposals have to satisfy only the donors.

SHIKWATI: Because of past abuses, much foreign aid for Africa was frozen in the 1990s, including by the World Bank. Fortunately for the ordinary people, politicians now depend more on raising taxes and therefore have to listen to taxpayers. This makes them think more about cultivating genuine development.

More people in Africa now query whether aid is the path out of poverty, and private citizens demand more freedom and better control of corruption. Businesses, who pay 80% of the taxes in East Africa, now have more influence with governments thanks to the drop in aid. Business leaders call for legal and judiciary reforms, free trade and free movement among neighbouring countries. They see freedom as something positive. Of course officials and politicians resist and still seek more aid to bankroll their old ways. But matters are changing, because they have to.

AYAU: Another part of the ÔGood Samaritan problemÕ is that aid-giving Western governments delegate the task to inexperienced officials who are economically illiterate and donÕt know the countries they work in. Frequently, the aid bureaucrats are career officials who dislike Western values and the enterprise culture, which has enriched their own countries. Harvard or Georgetown University graduates then try to create a world of their dreams in third world countries. Yet, ministers and taxpayers in donor countries rely on these so-called experts. They would be scandalised if they saw how their funds are spent.

MITRA: You just mentioned ÔWestern valuesÕ. Individualism, material aspirations and the spirit of enterprise are not exclusively Western characteristics. They are universal. Likewise, the collectivist enemies of the free, open society come from the East and the West.

I agree with Manuel that Western taxpayers have no idea how their funds are spent. The World Bank and others have begun to acknowledge that much has gone wrong with aid giving. They now involve non-government organisations in implementing aid programs. So the aid industry is also corrupting civil society! [laughter]

KASPER: President Bush, at a recent summit in Monterrey, promised a big increase in foreign aid, but coupled with a Ônew conditionalityÕ, namely that aid will be given to those poor countries that liberalise their economies and make progress towards genuine democracy. The US proposes to stop aid to countries that fail to enforce private property rights, free markets and the rule of law. This is based on Ôinstitutional growth theoryÕ, that is the empirically well-founded insight that economic freedom, more than anything else, promotes economic growth.1 Can conditionality work?

MITRA: Conditionality would be resented in recipient countries. Besides, it is in the interest of our countries to enhance our own standards of economic freedom. The impression should not be created that we liberalise to please the US State Department.

SHIKWATI: I agree. Conditionality smacks of neo-colonialism. Free institutions have to be home-grown! After a long history of bad governance and repression, Africans are finding out about the consequences of bad governance. They have begun to realise that assured freedom is important for getting out of poverty. It would be tragic if the external imposition of conditionality gave bad politicians an excuse to garner sympathy votes and again play the nationalist card. AYAU: I am also sceptical. The US President gets his information through the aid agencies. Would they ever tell him to discontinue a project which gives them work? Would they not conspire with the local aid beneficiaries to make Washington believe that conditions are fulfilled, or will soon be?

The powers in the foreign aid business donÕt understand the importance of economic freedom, because they do not understand the power of spontaneous development. By this, I mean that free people help themselves intelligently and resourcefully if the rules of law apply. If it is not prevented, development will happen. But governments, in their ignorance, try to impose development schemes from the top down, typically hampering this process. They design plans that inevitably stifle private experiments, innovation and the initiatives of industry and commerce.

KASPER: The problem normally is that the planners and aid officials pretend to have the solutions and then impose them, whereas liberals say: ÔTrust the people to discover what is good for them. Only foster simple rules that protect private property, free contracts and equality before the law.Õ However, the planners act on false pretences; they are ignorant of the side effects. Thus, the planners promoted conspicuous projects such as the Assuan High Dam in Egypt, ChinaÕs farm collectivisation and the Great Leap Forward, amongst others, to overtake Britain in iron production.

The side effects were discovered later: Lake Nasser upstream from Assuan silted up; downstream valuable farm assets were lost, as people built houses on fertile riverside land, the Nile silt no longer fertilised the land and salinity rose dangerously. In China, the farmers melted down farm implements and iron bedsteads with local wood to meet plan targets, in order to produce iron that was reworked . . . into farm implements and bedsteads. The ÔGreat Leap BackwardsÕ produced deforestation and land erosion.

AYAU: One could add to these examples endlessly. Only self-reliance and turning your back on these grand plans will produce development of what the people want. Development is far too important to be left to government!

Let me ask: Why donÕt governments unilaterally cut high tariffs, which hurt us in Latin America? Instead, we are waiting for longwinded WTO negotiations which are premised on the principle that we keep hurting ourselves as long as you hurt yourselves! This mutual masochism of trade negotiations can only be explained by the wrong-headed collectivist approach to developmentÑand perhaps the enjoyment of conference facilities and career opportunities for trade negotiators.

MITRA: The delays in liberalising trade and capital flows in big countries like India have been bad enough. In addition, this has gone along with much foot-dragging in reforming domestic markets. The poorest are disadvantaged most by government controls. They may be illiterate and hungry, but they are surprisingly enterprising and resourceful in producing a little wealth, and trading to mutual advantage. The poor of India have to be; otherwise, their families starve. The poor people are least capable of dealing with bureaucratic controls or obtaining licenses. Of course, they manage to circumvent regulatory obstacles, though this is not cost-free. Where but amongst the poor of India can you see mechanics assembling computers or motor cars under a tree, simply because the costs of running formal factories are artificially inflated by regulation? People assemble secondhand engines and new components to build farm machinery and cars.

Fortunately, India has always had such bazaar-level enterprise. This was lacking in the Soviet Union, and this explains the USSRÕs demise. By contrast, IndiaÑdespite emulating the Soviet model after independenceÑsurvived the ordeal since we could fall back on the longstanding culture of small entrepreneurs in the informal private sector.

Good Samaritans from the outside, who have never lived among poor people, simply cannot understand this. How can people who look so helpless begin to help themselves? I tell you: You give them their freedom and they will create wealth! No aid agency can imagine this or indeed imagine spontaneous growth can happen without their intervention and assistance.

SHIKWATI: I can see numerous examples of poor Africans helping themselves, as long as they are free to exchange goods. We have a lot of spontaneous enterprise and trade in Africa, for example in reselling second-hand clothes. When people learn to rely on governments, they become lazy, unimaginative and poor. When you open up, they solve problems. Let me give you just one example: During the recent drought in Kenya, many predicted a national disaster and anticipated calls for international food aid. Fortunately for the poor, the borders with neighbouring countries had been opened to trade, so that traders were able to bring in maize and other foodstuffs from Uganda and Tanzania. The business solution quickly solved the worst of the crisis. Governments and international organisations tend to move slowly and only after a famine has begun.

KASPER: Why do your governments not throw out the false foreign prophets that advocate aid dependency?

AYAU: Because of the universal nature of government. Politicians everywhere are easily bribed by handouts and access to instruments of control. Rent-seeking is part of human nature. If the rich countries gave no aid, there would be more pressure on our politicians to get things right. Aid offers an easy bail-out. Wrong-headed, economically illiterate policies are continued. Without aid, there would be more freedom, cleaner government and therefore more wealth creation.

SHIKWATI: Foreigners offering aid pretend that there is an easy option. Politicians will always go for that! But foreign aid is not a free lunch. Much of what came into Africa before 1990 was not a gift, but a loan. As a result, every Kenyan born today is saddled with a stifling liability of US $216, and that in a country where per-capita income is US $377. The Ôdo-goodersÕ may come with good intentions, but their advice and their actions have led to bad consequences. As a result, many Africans are now alienated and suffer a drop in living standards.

Nonetheless, I also want to add a word of caution here. Grandstanding, nationalist leaders in Africa have called for the World Bank and others to go home, but they stopped with the rhetoric. What African countries need most is an improvement in the basic institutionsÑgood and enforced laws, genuine democracy, and clean governance. Over the past decade, Kenyans have experienced economic decline. This will not change without improvements in the rule of law and law enforcement. Crime rates are high and there is a lot of corruption. A recent report on corruption in Kenya showed that the worst areas are the judiciary and the police. It will therefore be very difficult to weed out corruption with the help of judges and policemen.

Unless these fundamental conditions are improved, economic growth will remain elusive. Foreign prophets who offer a bit of aid or simply dramatise our shortcomings only divert us from this key task. It is now increasingly clear that weak institutions are the fundamental cause of poverty. There is an initiative in Kenya for a constitutional review to address the root causes: Governance is not balanced by a division of powers; the executive often arbitrarily over-rules the judiciary and parliament. Executive interventions plague private business. Who invests when arbitrary decrees come from the presidential palace? To give but one example: Our coffee growers have been subjected to the rulings of a government board, and the coffee trade is licensed. The farmers have been pushed around by the authorities to such an extent that they have uprooted their own coffee trees in protest. There is no parliament and no free press to look into the causes of this type of interventionism. Things have become freer than they were before 1991-92, partlyÑas I saidÑbecause aid no longer funds government so generously and the rulers therefore have to pay some attention to the people.

AYAU: No country in the history of humankind has ever developed though foreign aid! A key component in successful development is capital. If you tax it heavily, or discourage saving by inflationary policies, you get less of it and you attract less capital. High taxation of capital is based on these false egalitarian, redistributive philosophies which foreign aid has promoted and entrenched.

MITRA: Ironically, high taxes also prevent the employment of bountiful labour in the third world. In many countries with abundant labour, taxes and regulations of labour markets make job creation virtually impossible. Labour regulations in the organised sector in India raise the costs of employing people by a factor of two or three, if not more. So industrialists reduce employment and use excessive amounts of capital. Most Indians therefore have only a chance of finding a job in the unorganised and underground parts of the economy.

AYAU: Inflated labour costs are to a great extent due to the UNÕs International Labour Organisation (ILO). They have always represented union and anti-capitalist interests, beginning with the Soviet influence in the 1950s. The ILO has been responsible for much third world unemployment.

MITRA: You can see this in India, where 85% of the workforce are now outside the organised sector; 50% of all jobs are in the underground economy. Most big employers cannot meet the internationally imposed regulations. Many regulations are unethical and most are unfair to the vast majority of mankind. Poor people lose out on jobs that put them in a position to learn better skills, compete in world markets, raise their productivity, and earn more.

One also has to realise that employment in the unorganised sector, to which ILO regulations relegate so many, is insecure and often outside the protection of the law. The underground economy is racked with violence and strong-arm tactics.

KASPER: India belatedly implemented a number of good economic reforms. These have paid a worthwhile growth dividend in the 1990s. Will these reforms be upheld and reinforced?

MITRA: While we can argue with the timing and pace of reform, liberalisation has now created an important constituency for a free economy. In our democracy, no party and no provincial government could return to collectivism. The provinces now compete in our federal system, which is a great advantage for big countries like India.

As we said, markets, to be efficient and to produce development, require basic ground rules. Internal, customary institutions are important here, but they often go along with much aggression and strong-arm tactics. Therefore, there is a need for external protectionÑthat is by governmentsÑof lawful conduct and the fulfilment of contracts. Government agents, who are given the monopoly of exercising violence, have to be strictly controlled. Only then will they enforce the rules in just ways. Without the rule of law, the poor cannot help themselves all that effectively. External government law must respect the customary norms that have evolved in society. Otherwise, it cannot be effective. If the government law bypasses the people, the people will bypass the law.

AYAU: Good law is essential. Unfortunately, we now have a lot of legislation and regulation which is based on fairness and redistribution. This undermines the law. The philosophy of fairness and equality leads to an excess of prescriptive legislation and interventions. In addition, legislation and regulations are imposed after having been drafted by amateurs in the US, who are ignorant of our realities and cultural traditions.

This undermines the respect for the simple, expedient laws that help people to help themselves. Excessive legislation often makes law-abiding behaviour impossible. In Latin America, law enforcement has been neglected. Besides, law and order have often been imposed by the Right and the dictatorial military. This discourages good people from joining the police, the military and the judiciary.

KASPER: Can we talk about trade and investment flows between the Ôhave notsÕ in the South and the ÔhavesÕ in the North? The closed economy hurts the poor in the third world. What should be done?

MITRA: As India is still largely rural, we would benefit from free market access for all our agricultural products. This would help promote openness and technical innovation in this key part of our economy. It is no accident that poverty is endemic in the countryside, which is the key to poverty eradication. If the EU, Japan and the US really care about the poor, they should abandon their selfish protectionism and the subsidies that featherbed their own farmers. Maintaining two EU farmers at their present living standards on the land costs maybe 400 Indian farmers their life opportunities.

SHIKWATI: Australia is helping third world countries by showing us how to negotiate in international forums. We do not have the negotiating skills and get easily pushed around by rich country trading interests. We want trade, not aid! I would only plead that the rich countries give Africans a chance to export all their products freely. We also want to attract foreign investment, but blatant corruption, outright expropriation and bad institutions are obstacles. Why invest when officials demand kick-backs from foreign investors?

AYAU: Whatever happens in agriculture, our countries have to industrialise to wipe out poverty.

MITRA: Indeed. This is why I am deeply troubled by many of the NGOs who now advocate idyllic rural ways that are bound to perpetuate poverty.

In the last ten years, we have had a 15% drop in the rural population because the economy has been opened up and new opportunities arose outside agriculture. This has been crucial to reducing the poverty problem in India.

KASPER: The shift from the land into industry happened in East Asia from the 1950s. Many East Asians are now coming close to rich country living standards. Why has there not been more such mobility in Africa or Latin America?

SHIKWATI: In Africa, many people are tied to the land. A small plot that they own is their only material security. Life in city slums is miserable and most insecure. In the past, governments have also coerced people to return to the land. Yet, inherited plots of land are getting divided among more and more sons, so that they get locked into poverty.

AYAU: The main reason for rigid employment structures is the tariff that prevents efficient, innovative industrialisation. Customs houses are very expensive; they force producers to hold large inventories, cost huge bribes and induce industrialists to turn from producing to lobbying and corrupting politicians. Tariffs invariably smother the enterprise culture and destroy competition. Yet, the biggest obstacles to opening the economy are local business lobbies, who like protected profits and comfortable markets. MITRA: Ironically, this also applies to foreign-owned companies. Ford has now joined domestic car producers to lobby hard against car imports into India. In the 1980s, Pepsi spent millions of dollars to keep Coca Cola out of the Indian market, and they succeeded for a few more years.

AYAU: Most businessmen are short-sighted. They do not understand that a freer, open economy increases the size of their own market. Prospering exporters create income growth that benefits local producers, too. Few businessmen understand comparative advantage . . .

KASPER: . . . which is based on the notion that one can obtain many things either by the direct method of producing these oneself, or the indirect method of specialising on what one is particularly good at and trading these products for all the other things one wants. The latter method is invariably much more conducive to high living standards. For example, a surgeon may also be very good at cutting hair. However, if he specialises in cutting open patients and sends the family to the hairdresser, they enjoy a higher living standard. Australians would be better off if they concentrated on mass-producing aluminium engine blocks which they can make comparatively well, that is, comparative to other products, and then traded the engine blocks for assembled cars from other countries. AustraliaÕs trade liberalisation has demonstrated how much cheaper and better cars and garments become when tariffs and quotas are cut. Specialisation lifts overall growth. It is a win-win game.

AYAU: The universities have failed to explain comparative advantage. Most business people, officials and academic economists, let alone journalists, do not understand the merits of specialisation and exchange, that is comparative advantage.

MITRA: This sort of economic illiteracy makes it easy for the demonstrators against free trade to win allies. Foreign do-gooders now try to push up wage levels in the third world artificially, enforcing a kind of extended EU social charter. They destroy the very basis on which poor, low-wage earners in India can gain from trade. This is why the advocacy groups do not attract much support in the third world where people want development and prosperity.

KASPER: ÔFriends of the EarthÕ and similar groups are now discussing with EU governments how to penalise energy-rich countries, like Australia, for exploiting an Ôunfair energy advantageÕ and emitting gases into the atmosphere. The NGOs argue for fair trade, but fairness and just prices are undefinable concepts. A fair world trade order leads to politicised conflicts. On the other hand, we understand clearly what free trade and market prices mean. This makes for good world citizenship.

The street protesters, who oppose ÔglobalisationÕ, seem to think that more open trade and capital flows destroy the chances of the third world poor of working and learning their way out of poverty. If you met these street protesters, what would you say to them?

SHIKWATI: Yesterday, I met a Kenyan street trader in Sydney. He observed that the street protesters against the recent Ômini-WTO meetingÕ here were spoilt, idle middle-class kids who gratify themselves. They do not care for the third world poor. On the other hand, African officials at the meeting saw the NGO protesters in a different light. They thought that agitation for free medicine and debt forgiveness would strengthen the hand of negotiators from poor countries. I think the advocacy groups are counterproductive. They only mount their campaigns to raise money for themselves in the West. Their campaigns always amount to ensuring that Africans remain beggars. If Africans are given cheap AIDS medicine, that will at best be a temporary benefit. They will not be able to buy the next, improved generation of drugs. And even if the drugs reach our countries, that does not ensure that they will be distributed and administered. We want trade to empower ourselves to buy the best drugs with what we earn. The NGO protesters would do a lot of good for the poor, if they marched against corruption in third world governments.

MITRA: NGOs always demand fair trade. But in reality, free trade is fair trade. If you do not exploit comparative advantage, there is nothing to trade.

I would only invite the advocacy activists and those who give them money to experience poverty. They may have good intentions, but they have no understanding of poverty and how to overcome it. I saw this recently in Delhi during the UN Conference on Climate Change when some members of the European Parliament and young Canadian students experienced Indian poverty at first hand. They agreed quickly that they couldnÕt argue about potential Greenhouse impacts or agricultural protectionism with villagers who have no electricity. Real life is the best educator on these matters. The activists should always be invited to confront the real world.

Originally, I thought anti-globalisation protesters were simply ill-informed, but having met them during several summits, I now feel that many are the handmaidens of selfish, protectionist interests in the rich countries or do not care about third world misery and how to get rid of it.

KASPER: I am very interested in the underlying cultural and institutional causes of development. I ask myself why people in East Asia did not fall for the blandishments of foreign aid, or listen to the prophets of import substitution and ILO-style labour policies.

In this context, may I ask you, Barun, a question specifically about Indian culture. Sociologists say that the ideal of dharmaÑaccepting your fate, not fighting to better yourself by innovating and competingÑis a great hindrance to modernisation in India.

MITRA: Yes, but there is also karma, the individual responsibility for bettering your destiny. Hinduism does not have a consistent, cohesive philosophy, but we have great religious tolerance that integrates people of great diversity. In the marketplace, diverse people can interact peacefully. Markets make multicultural society possible. Our tolerant spirit and the bazaar have kept India together. Markets are the way to multicultural harmony. This makes me proud to be an Indian. We have had our problems, butÑon the wholeÑthe one billion Indians live together harmoniously because they are able to interact informally in markets and have basic understandings that protect lawful conduct.

AYAU: Let me quote Voltaire who wrote that the stock market was a friendly, sacred place, much more so than any church.

SHIKWATI: Africans have long practised customary laws which facilitate trade and markets. Different tribes have mixed and bartered with each other throughout history. Only relatively recently have legislation and taxes disrupted these exchanges. Now, a lot of trade has gone underground to avoid value-added taxes. Moreover, politicians have sometimes interfered by agitating against traders from outside ethnic groups, telling the people that the outsiders make them poor.

AYAU: The universities also fail to convey the dire reality of third world poverty, which James and Barun have spoken of so passionately. Neither do universities properly teach the essential theories, such as the theory of comparative advantage. Most academics are part of collectivist, rationalist networks. This was the motivation why I, an engineer by profession, studied economics and founded a small, private university in Guatemala, where we teach the principles of a free economy.

MITRA: I would say the same of myself. I, too, was an engineer who began to ask why the poor, who are intelligent and capable of bettering their condition, lived in such dire misery. There was something fundamentally wrong. I began to reflect on the enormous waste of human potential and creativity. This is when I discovered the literature of classical liberalismÑAdam Smith, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Julian Simon. They inspired me to found a free market think tank.

I did not fall into the Marxist-collectivist trap, because I always had a respect for the individual and voluntary exchange, rather than coercion and planning. People are capable of looking intelligently after their interests. They learn. They are able to bargain intelligently. Many members of the eliteÑacademics, NGO activists and planners from rich and poor countriesÑbelieve that the poor are just ignorant and need to be guided. This is condescending and completely wrong. My intent is to enable the poor to use their energies, creativity and knowledge in pursuit of their own purposes.

SHIKWATI: My family were poor small landholders, and I studied to become a teacher. At college, I got interested in philosophy. We tried to find African philosophies to solve African problems. After an American free market organisation gave me a copy of BastiatÕs The Law, I realised that our ideas were hopelessly socialist. The way forward was to adopt free markets and self-reliance within the framework of simple, reliable laws.

I have now become a self-taught Hayekian economist. In May 2001, I founded my think tank; and I can report that I am now in demand to give lectures, write regular op-ed pieces for the papers and contribute to radio programmes. I have met many new friends through workshops that we are organising. The time is ripe for free market ideas, but we will have to be tenacious.

KASPER: I am sure that the readers of Policy will join me in thanking you for inspiring us and sharing your insights.

Endnotes

1 This has been demonstrated yet again by the highly respected survey of Economic Freedom of the World 2002, which the Fraser Institute in Canada publishes (see www.fraserinstitute.ca), as well as the annual assessments by The Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org) and The Wall Street Journal .

Wolfgang Kasper is Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of New South Wales and convenor of The Centre for Independent StudiesÕ Economic Freedom Watch series.

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