Johan Norberg Is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a Writer Who Focuses on Globalization, Entrepreneurship, and Individual Liberty
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Johan Norberg is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a writer who focuses on globalization, entrepreneurship, and individual liberty. Norberg is the author and editor of several books exploring liberal themes, including a history of liberal pioneers in Sweden. His book In Defense of Global Capitalism, originally published in Swedish in 2001, has since been published in over twenty different countries. He is also the author of När människan skapade världen, 2006 (When Mankind Created the World), the coauthor of Ett annat Sverige är möjligt, 2006 (Another Sweden is Possible), and the coeditor of Frihetens klassiker, 2003 (The Classics of Freedom), all of which are available only in Swedish at this time. His personal website is http://www.johannorberg.net/. Norberg's articles and opinion pieces appear regularly in both Swedish and international newspapers, and he is a regular commentator and contributor on television and radio around the world discussing globalization and free trade. Prior to joining Cato, Norberg was head of political ideas at Timbro, a Swedish free-market think tank, from 2003 to 2005. He then served as a senior fellow for the Brussels-based Centre for a New Europe during 2006. Norberg received his master's degree from Stockholm University in the history of ideas. June Arunga is the founder and president of Open Quest Media LLC, a film and television production company in New York City. She is a Law graduate from the University of Buckingham in England. She has written and hosted several television documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4, UK, exploring the impact of economic policy on wealth creation in various industries in Africa. Her work includes: “The Devil's Footpath” about her 5,000 mile journey from Cairo to Cape Town through six conflict afflicted countries; “Africa: Who is to Blame?” which she co-hosted with the former president of Ghana, Jerry Rawlings; and “Africa's Ultimate Resource”, profiling African immigrant entrepreneurs, why they leave and what happens to their ventures when transplanted to different political and economic regimes. She also worked with Johan Norberg on “Globalization is Good”, based on his award winning book In Defense of Global Capitalism. Her documentaries have been aired by: the BBC; Australian Broadcasting Network; Channel 4, UK; SABC, South Africa and numerous other broadcasters around the globe. She is regularly featured in television interviews and conferences around the world, and has always used these platforms to advocate for international and national economic policies that would open up Africa for vibrant trade. In February 2007, Arunga co-authored a study on “The Cell Phone Revolution in Kenya”, published by Instituto Bruno Leoni, a Milan-based public policy think tank, and the International Policy Network, a London-based public policy organization. The study was the subject of a BBC “Newsnight” mini-documentary by the same title. Arunga is a member of the Board of Advisors for Global Envision in the United States, The Inter-Region Economic Network, an economics think tank in Kenya, Grassroot Free Markets, a public policy nonprofit in Hawaii, The Bastiat Society in Charleston, South Carolina, and is on the Creative Council of the Moving Pictures Institute in New York. She is a H.B. Earhart Graduate Fellow of Law, a Fellow at IMANI Center for Policy and Education in Ghana, a fellow at the International Policy Network, a Senior Fellow with the Instituto Bruno Leoni, and an Associate Editor of Africanliberty.org. African Liberty.org 135, Oshodi Road, Orile-Oshodi, Lagos State, Nigeria. Tel: +234-1-8532867, 08022239554, JOHAN NORBERG African Liberty.org IN DEFENSE OF i ii 2008 Published in Nigeria by AfricanLiberty.org IN DEFENSE OF ISBN: 978-978-087-010-2 Copyright © 2003 by the Cato Institute. All rights reserved. Originally published in Sweden as Till VarldsKapitalismens Forsvar (Stockholm: Timbro, 2001). Translated and revised edition published by the Cato Institute, 2003. Translation by Roger Tanner with Julian Sanchez. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data JOHAN NORBERG Norberg, Johan, 1973- [Till va¨rldskapitalismens fo¯rsvar. English 1] In defense of global capitalism / Johan Norberg. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-930865-46-5 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 1-930865-47-3 (paper : alk. paper) 1. Capitalism. 2. Free enterprise. 3. Free trade--Social aspects. 4. Globalization--Economic aspects. 5. Globalization--Social aspects. 6. Poverty--Developing countries. I. Cato Institute. II. Title. HB501.N6713 2003 330.122--dc22 2003055487 Cover design by Dat&Partners. Printed in Nigeria, Africa. First printing: September 2008 African Liberty.org African Liberty.org 135, Oshodi Road, Orile-Oshodi, Lagos State, Nigeria. Tel: +234-1-8532867, 08022239554, iii iv Contents V. Race to the top 139 Preface vii I’m all for free trade, but . 140 Introduction ..June Arunga xvii Child labor 145 I. Every day in every way . 1 But what about us? 149 The half truth 2 Big is beautiful 155 Poverty reduction 6 ‘‘Gold and green forests’’ 166 Hunger 11 Education 15 VI. Irrational, international capital? 177 Democratization 17 The leaderless collective 178 Oppression of women 21 Regulate more? 185 China 25 Tobin tax 188 India 28 The Asian crisis 192 Global inequality 30 Instead of crisis 196 Reservations 35 The ‘‘dictatorship of the market’’? 199 II. and it’s no coincidence 37 VII. Liberalize, don’t standardize 207 That’s capitalism for you! 38 The right to choose a culture 208 Growth—a blessing 44 The onward march of freedom 214 Freedom or equality? Why choose? 54 Notes 219 Property rights—for the sake of the poor 59 Index 233 The East Asian ‘‘miracle’’ 66 African Liberty 252 The African morass 70 Cato 253 III. Free trade is fair trade 77 Mutual benefit 78 Important imports 83 Free trade brings growth 89 No end of work 96 Freedom of movement—for people as well 103 IV. The development of the developing countries 109 An unequal distribution—of capitalism 110 The white man’s shame 113 The case of Latin America 118 On the trade route 123 ‘‘Let them keep their tariffs’’ 126 The debt trap 129 The right medicine 136 v vi Preface concerning individuals, society, and freedom are more complicated than I then believed. There are too many complexities and problems Our anarchist party won the school election! involved for everything to be settled in one drastic Utopian stroke. I It was the fall semester of 1988 at our school—we were about 16 at have come to realize that we do need some government to protect liberty the time—in a western suburb of Stockholm. As usual in an election and prevent the powerful from oppressing individuals, and I now year, we were staging a ‘‘school election’’ of our own. But my best believe that representative democracy is preferable to all other systems friend Markus and I didn’t believe in the system. Majority elections, to for this very purpose of protecting the rights of the individual. I realize our way of looking at things, were like two wolves and a lamb voting on now that the modern industrial society of which I was so wary has in fact what to have for dinner. The school wanted us to elect someone to rule made possible a fantastic standard of living and widespread freedom. us, but we wanted to rule our own lives. But my fundamental urge for liberty is the same today as in that Partly, I suppose, we did it because we felt different from the others. I wonderful election campaign of 1988. I want people to be free, with no was into listening to electronic music and goth, preferably dressed in one oppressing anyone else, and with governments forbidden to fence black and with my hair combed back. We wanted to play music and read people in or to exclude them with tariffs and borders. books, while others seemed mostly preoccupied with owning the right That is why I love what is rather barrenly termed ‘‘globalization,’’ accessories and fitting in. The right wing, it seemed to us, was upper the process by which people, information, trade, investments, class establishment, dead set against anything different. But we didn’t democracy, and the market economy are tending more and more to cross feel any more at home with the left, which to us meant drab government national borders. This internationalization has made us less constricted bureaucracy and regimentation. Even if we preferred Sisters of Mercy by mapmakers’ boundaries. and the Swedish punk singer Thåstro¨m, it was John Lennon’s ‘‘imagine Political power has always been a creature of geography, based on there’s no countries’’ we believed in. Nation states should be abolished physical control of a certain territory. Globalization is enabling us more and people allowed to move freely, to cooperate of their own free will, and more to override these territories, by traveling in person and by everywhere in the world. We wanted a world without compulsion, trading or investing across national borders. Our options and without rulers. Clearly, then, we were neither right wing nor left wing, opportunities have multiplied as transportation costs have fallen, as we neither Conservatives nor Social Democrats.We were anarchists! have acquired new and more efficient means of communication, and as So we started ‘‘Anarchist Front’’ and put ourselves down as trade and capital movements have been liberalized. candidates in the school election on a radical, humorous ticket. We put We don’t have to shop with the big local company; we can turn to a up handwritten posters on the walls at school, asking things like: foreign competitor. We don’t have to work for the village’s one and only ‘‘Who’s going to run your life—you or 349 MPs?’’ We demanded the employer; we can seek out alternative opportunities.