Robert A. Lawson and I just published our paper “Human Rights and Economic Liberalization” in Business and Politics. The paper can be downloaded here. Here’s the abstract:
Using several case studies and data from the Economic Freedom of the World annual report and from the CIRI Human Rights Data Project, we estimate the effect of human rights abuses on economic liberalization. The data suggest that human rights abuses reduce rather than accelerate the pace of economic liberalization.
The paper was inspired by my reading of Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine and a critical essay by Johan Norberg. I wrote a review essay on The Shock Doctrine for the Journal of Lutheran Ethics last year. Klein’s discussions of human rights abuses carried out by US-backed regimes are gripping and saddening, but her thesis that torture and human rights abuses are “silent partner[s] in the global free-market crusade” is undermined by the data. People who really want to understand the interplay between crises and institutional change would be much better served by reading Robert Higgs’s Crisis and Leviathan (the link is to the Mises.org bookstore, but Amazon.com has a used paperback for $7.20 + shipping as of right now). For data-driven approaches to liberalization over the last thirty years, here’s Andrei Shleifer’s paper “The Age of Milton Friedman,” and here’s Peter Leeson’s “Two Cheers for Capitalism.”
Cross-posted at The Beacon.
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So when people are left alone, not beaten or robbed, or even just beaten and robbed less, they do better.
This needed statistical verification?
Congrats on your paper!
Curt:
You would not believe how may people calling themselves econonmists come to the conclusion that people being mistreated by their leaders will/could experience economic development.
My feeling is that this Human Rights stuff is the most important part of private property rights. People own themselves and are entitled to act in ways to maintain that ownership. So societies where people allow more property rights will see more economic activity.
Sorry, Bogart, I forgot the {extreme_sarcasm}{/extreme_sarcasm} tags.
Of course people do better, and yet there are Krugmans and Galbraiths and other “Golly, 500,000 people died but it will lead to economic stimulation from the rebuilding” types who would actually consider such a conclusion “utopian” or “anarchist sophistry”.
We’re doomed.
The Shock Doctrine is such an important book and Naomi Klein goes very far in her analysis.
What’s very frightening is indeed the “simplicity” of that logic.
If economic development and expanding wealth are incompatible with a lack of political freedom, how does one explain China?
Maybe economic liberalization is not a prerequisite for wealth creation. Maybe all you need is a market to be exploited.
It’s explained when one is not a (possibly feigned) ignoramus and simpleton with a particular ideology, like you.
Do you have any concept of how much time is wasted, including your own, when you reveal that you don’t know the answer?
For god’s sake, come up with an actual comment once in a while. If you don’t know, just say so by staying silent. I asked the question in the hope someone might offer an answer.
You’re talking about wasted time?! The anti-barometer strikes again! A couple things about internet chatting, it is not a formal debate, no one owes you scholarly answers (especially a lying ideologue like you) , and this is not courtesy class (especially for a snide, insulting prat like you). In short, I don’t think I could make my jokes much more economical than I usually do, thank you very much.
I suggest you are feigning ignorance, you double down! Your “question” *is* idiotic. Do you think the average Chinese businessman and his environment today can be compared to 1970….wait a second…Chinese businessman in 1970….what am I talking about? Prat.
Libertarians argue about politics not getting in the way of economic activity too much is what Singapore has been pretty much doing. This is different from many personal freedoms people desire since many of the said desires are “positive rights”.
shleifer might be brilliant, but i don’t know how linking his name to liberalization can do anything but harm the brand.
http://janinewedel.info/harvardinvestigative_InstInvestorMag.pdf
note also how gingerly the mainstream press trod around this shleifer ” liberalization” story, until they were embarrassed into covering.
http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/2006.01.29/185.html
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