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| Source: www.theguardian.com |
By Larry Elder, Apr. 14, 2014
Last Sunday on “60 Minutes”
President Obama explained why he and Pope Francis have so much in common: "President Obama shares what it was like to meet with Pope Francis"
Both, said Obama, fight to
arrest growing worldwide “inequality.” About Obama’s then-upcoming visit to
Vatican City, White House press secretary Jay Carney said, “The president looks
forward to discussing with Pope Francis their shared commitment to fighting
poverty and growing inequality.” Obama calls inequality “the defining challenge
of our time.”
But global inequality is
declining, not increasing, declining.
The reason is obvious. China
and India account for more then one-third of the world’s population. While the
Chinese government avoids the “c” word -- capitalism -- its embrace of free-market
reforms has lifted millions out of poverty. Similarly, in India freer markets
spark a growth rate that now exceeds that of many countries in the West.
The Atlantic magazine, no
right-wing rag, cites researchers who confirm the shrinking global inequality
gap: “First, consider inequality. Academic researchers -- from Xavier Sala-i-Martin of Columbia University, to Surjit Bhalla, formerly of the
Brookings Institution and Rand Corporation, to Paolo Liberati of the
University of Rome -- all agree that global inequality is declining. That is
because 2.6 billion people in China and India are richer than they used to be.
Their economies are growing much faster than those of their Western
counterparts, thus shrinking the income gap that opened at the dawn of
industrialization in the 19th century, when the West took off and left much of
the rest of the world behind.
“Paradoxically, the
shrinking of the global inequality gap was only possible after India and China
abandoned their attempts to create equality through central planning. By
allowing people to keep more of the money they earned, the Chinese and Indian
governments incentivized people to create more wealth. Allowing inequality to
increase at home, in other words, diminished inequality globally. And global
inequality, surely, is the statistic that should most concern the leader of a
global religion.”
Rocker/philanthropist Bono also
sees a decline in global income inequality. He attributes that growth not to
foreign aid but to “entrepreneurial capitalism.” Indeed, he calls foreign aid “just a stop-gap.”
“Rock star preaches capitalism,”
Bono said, almost apologetically, about his un-rock-star-like embrace of free
markets.
Preach, brother, preach!
Preach, brother, preach!
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