Global Fortune

GLOBAL FORTUNE IS A BRUISING INTELLECTUAL response to the international tide against economic liberalism, lately culming in events like the Seattle protests and in the appearance of public relations guerrillas, specifically those in Chiapas. The anthology of essays by liberal thinkers, compiled by Ian Vasquez and published by the Cato Institute, reflects the Institute's political sympathies. After all, it was founded in 1977 to advance traditional U.S. ideals: limited government and individual freedom, that is, a libertarian forum. With that in mind, you might expect this book to be a series of boring sermons. But that's not the case. The caliber of writers and the intelligence with which they argue their cases make this book a great read.

The book's implicit thesis is that the world's woes are not due to capitalism, but rather to a lack of it.

This point of view leads to some surprising conclusions. Of particular interest is the criticism leveled at the International Monetary Fund, traditionally a target for attacks from the left. This time, the IMF receives a severe lashing from the other side. The book argues that IMF loans have, in many cases, served to rescue inoperative institutions and delayed the implementation of economic reforms.

Martin Krause's essay "Latin America's Unfinished Revolution" asserts that decades of state-supported experiments provided fertile ground for a continent-wide surge against populism. Nevertheless, he recognizes that the long history of public paternalism and the Latin American tradition of strongman politics, or caudillismo, makes advancing the liberal doctrine in Latin America a difficult task.

Some of the region's greatest thinkers have questioned the transition to free markets. In 1997, Mexican writer Octavio Paz wrote that "our [20th] century ends in an immense question mark." He was referring to the choice between free-market and statist policies. The market, he pointed out, is efficient but blind: "It ignores fraternity, destroys social ties, imposes uniformity in the collective conscience and commercializes art and literature," in addition to polluting the planet. At the same time, however, he recognized that the state does not create wealth. In The Philanthropic Ogre, and in other works, he exposes the social ills caused by a paternalistic and controlling State. So what is the answer? Or, in other words: Is there a third way?

For the authors represented in Global Fortune, the answer is no! They insist that liberal capitalism is the system that has most advanced economic, social--even moral--order throughout the world. Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa points out in his essay "Liberalism in the New Millennium" that the liberal doctrine has demonstrated its superiority in a century of confrontations with totalitarian regimes such as Nazism and Communism. But those advantages aren't reasons for liberalism to rest on its laurels. According to Vargas Llosa, there's a new battle to fight that's perhaps less obvious but poses grave peril nonetheless. This time, the enemies are the stereotypes and caricatures that attempt to put the liberal democratic order in doubt, and the apocalyptic prophets who foretell of a the new totalitarianism, that of big multinational corporations. For Vargas Llosa, these global companies must be held to the fire of competition to prevent them from becoming monopolies.

Deepak Lal, author and professor of international development at The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), claims that there is not a third path to take between the free market and socialism. He warns, however, that economic freedom is not necessarily linked to democracy. The current global crusade to instill Western ethical values along with open markets threatens to repeat the errors of the imperialists of the late 19th century, when this kind of imposition unleashed a backlash against globalization at that time.

If the ethical crusade is abandoned, however, Won't the path to economic development without individual freedom--that is, prosperous tyrannies--be wide open? Is that the path we want? The brilliant essays in this book add a strong intellectual ingredient to the great debate of our time. Socialism failed, but the liberal doctrine of Global Fortune is still unproven theory.

Excerpt from Global Fortune

"But although popular disobedience and dissent have been the driving forces behind the changes we now see in Latin America, they are grounded on weak foundations. Latin Americans have rejected government because of the harsh economic consequences of its unbounded growth, not out of an ideological conviction about the need to respect individual rights, the rule of law, private property, and market economics."

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