No. On the contrary, economic theory leads us to believe that developing economies ought to grow faster than developed ones. This is because it is profitable for foreigners to invest in them, and because they allow us to put existing knowhow into newly productive use. International surveys support this theory, too: developing countries with an open economy have sustained approximately twice the growth of the developed ones, while those with a closed economy have seen practically no growth whatsoever. Economists in the developing world (e.g. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen) agree, and emphasize the difference as well.
It is clear, then, that poverty in developing countries is caused by limited market economy. After all, many Asian countries were even poorer than African ones just a few decades ago, but now, after adopting a market economy, some of them are far ahead. The effect is not simply a higher GNP, but also improved standards of living, increased health and longevity. These are the very reasons why UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, too, supports the idea that free trade is a better help to the developing countries than foreign aid.
As for "freedom", our own Finnish regulatory jungle is nothing compared to what, for example, India has. In many of the less developed countries it can take years to start a business. Fresh competition is generally frowned upon, as it upsets the status quo. This leads to inefficiency and corruption, and a limited political elite growing wealthy at the expense of ordinary people.
In trade, all the participants win; otherwise they would not trade! North Korea is an example of a country which the industrialized nations have never "exploited", while South Korea was once a market economy among developing countries, open to global investments. As a result, wages have risen almost to a European level in the latter. When capital and technological innovations are allowed to diffuse to where they are most needed, the greatest possible amount of profit is generated. After all, honest business always profits all those who participate.
The above discussion already shows why they should do precisely the opposite if they want to improve the standard of living of their citizens.
Child labor is an extremely serious problem. However, it usually stems from poverty, which means that "child unemployment" would be even worse. The fact is that even in Finland, children in entrepreneurial families (not just in the agricultural sector) may well have to work. This is not a problem, if the child is still left with enough time to go to school, to rest, and to play. Unfortunately this is often not the case in the developing countries. The problem is, limiting the use of child labor has often led to children ending up working on the street, or even crime and prostitution, while those who work for trans-national corporations are usually in a happy situation by comparison. This is mostly the result of global corporations trying to preserve their reputation abroad, an incentive which does not apply to local businesses. All this certainly doesn't mean that there are no exceptions, or that child labor is a good thing, but really just that strict bans on the use of child labor would likely degrade the situation even further. In our view we should aim at abolishing the root cause of child labor, poverty, and the best way to accomplish this is via free trade and the institution of a market economy. We should not try to ban child labor outright, but instead to weed out the more harmful forms it can take. Otherwise the cure may be worse than the disease.
Private property is the very foundation of economic activity. If we do not protect it, only those who wield public power through bribery and connections, or work with the Mob, can do well. A shoddy property framework can even unfairly benefit the local industrial tycoon, since it cuts down on competition. This way we may end up placing consumers and employees at the mercy of some semi-monopolistic company, even when free competition would necessarily have caused prices, wages and working conditions to balance reasonably. Arbitrary regulation causes inefficiency, smothers entrepreneurial activity and stifles innovation, making ordinary people worse off in the end.
Furthermore, it is almost impossible to land foreign investments in a country with a weak property institution, or endemic disregard for the rules of a market economy—the exception being a few companies making a buck on a governmentally protected monopoly. The rules of an open economy forbid governmental officials and politicians from favoring companies, and so negate the evils of corruption. As economic regulation combined with bribery for special permits, or nepotism, is usually what affords dictators their tremendous wealth, so an open economy is hardly compatible with dictatorships either.
By studying the example set by one former nation, we see that the right to private property of property is also inextricably linked to freedom of speech. We see that economic freedom is quite difficult to separate from other human rights—can human rights really exist of one cannot freely choose the career one embarks upon, the books and magazines one reads, writes or prints, the nature and origin of the culture one is interested in, where one lives, what sort of food, produced by whom, one eats, and so on? These are precisely the kind of rights ATTAC, Front National, Pro Koskenkorva, socialists, nationalists, national socialists, critics of free trade and many others oppose, thinking they are working for the good of all humanity, or their nation. But at the same time they end up hindering development in the third world, and more. This goes to show that no one should have the right to dictate to others what is best for them.
The problem with the Tobin Tax is that similar taxes have already been tried (e.g. on the stock market), and instead of stability, they seem to breed instability. Furthermore, grossly unrealistic exchange rates caused by financial policy would not be protected by such a tax. Advocates of the tax admit this, and agree that e.g. the speculative attacks which ended up devaluing the Finnish mark and the Swedish crown in years past would not have been stopped by exchange taxation. It is then clear that the tax would be strictly harmful. Some advocate it on the excuse that the potential proceeds could be used for good causes, but you might as well propose a walking or breathing tax on those grounds. Finally, it seems that it is not possible to implement the Tobin Tax in practice. Cf. Raportti Tobinin verosta.
But the same applies to intra-national corporations as well. We could of course order some individuals or companies to employ at a loss, but that would just get us in deeper trouble. The best thing would be to aim at free, competitive markets in employment, where companies have minimal influence over the level of wages. In Europe, such markets exist in the Netherlands, in Great Britain and in Switzerland, and the result has been virtually full employment. If you're laid off, you can be sure that you'll soon find another job. In the late 80's, most sectors of the Finnish economy lacked effective minimum wages, too. (In other words, the minimum was low enough to be insignificant for the vast majority of workers.) Consequently, even chronic alcoholics could be profitably employed, since wages did not need to exceed the resulting productivity.
In part it does, which is why American unions rioted in Seattle, and why extreme rightwingers like Le Pen and Haider (or doomsday prophets of the David C. Korten variety) oppose the right of people in the developing countries to succeed. It is profitable for corporations to employ people in the third world, especially for manufacturing tasks with low skill requirements. This is a boon to the developing world, because at the lower standard of living, the same total productivity provides increased opportunities for a much larger number of people there. But the developed nations hardly land worse off. More demanding job vacancies are best filled with highly educated Western individuals, and there is also a lot of work to be done in the service sector, especially as the population grows older. The fact is, we need the workers who are set free, here, which is why the price of labor in the West remains high.
For those precise reasons, we in the Western countries actually need more immigrants, and should rapidly revise our attitudes towards them. We should aim for tolerance, if only for our own sake. It is only natural that these changes are not all about getting, but also giving. E.g. industrialization forced many of those who previously worked on farms to learn a new trade. Now the same is happening in the low skill level industrial sector. But if we look at our economy now, it's easy to see that it was worth it. The sacrifices were well worth the price, and they will be, once again.
Not really, since there is always more work to be done. Not everything requires talent or a high level of education. However, in Finland such high productivity is attainable compared to that of the developing countries or our own some fifty years ago that few people will bother with low productivity employment if there's a choice. After all, high productivity not only creates great wealth for society, but for the individual as well. Still, everyone is free to make a bargain, and make do with lower productivity in exchange for pleasurable, leisurely or close-by employment, provided minimum wages are not set to limit the choices available. It is evident that the choice should be one's own. Many of us are quite willing to work for less, if they get to stay where they are or are able to secure a more meaningful job; many would instead pick more productive employment in a growth area. Both should clearly be within the rights of the individual.
Both nationalism and socialism have an in-built tendency of forcing people to live according to the way the ideology states, without the freedom to make decisions about their own life, actions or interactions with other people. This is why all the countries where these ideologies have been applied in practice have been thoroughly totalitarian; putting people in an ideological mold always calls for coercion.
Naturally this goes for religious fundamentalism as well, of which Afghanistan is a sad example.
Now, we certainly do not mean to suggest that communities should not be allowed to freely organize around a given ideology. Examples include an anarhist commune, or a syndicalist company. At best we frown upon any denigration of others or hate mongering which might be going on within the group.
However, these ideologies usually direct their participants to try and force everybody to abide by their rules. This is a violation of other people's rights, something which we oppose no matter why it may be done.
As the Index of Economic Freedom and Freedom in the World reports show, Singapore is a good example of a capitalist state in which individual rights are being violated in the name of the common good. We hope that the wealth, education and outside connections brought by capitalism gradually make it difficult to rule the Singaporean people undemocratically, and impossible to keep them in an authoritarian choke-hold.
These indices show, among other interesting things, how Russia, sometimes labelled capitalistic, is in fact quite far from it. It is also quite interesting to see that economic freedom and a lack of corruption go hand in hand. After all, most corruption is based on economic regulation and the power to grant exceptions to it. This of course motivates people to seek that power at the expense of human rights and democracy.
The concept of an "open society" was created by the French philosopher, Henri Bergson, and further developed by Austrian philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994) in his book "Open Society and Its Enemies", published in 1945.
An open society is based on the idea that no individual or group of individuals possesses perfect information or a final truth about how a perfect society is to be reached. Since they thus cannot attain perfection, the advocates for an open society aim for the second best alternative, a society open to improvement and advancement.
Increased knowledge can only be attained through criticism, trial and error. Hence an open society must be multicultural and tolerant in order to provide the optimal breeding ground for new ideas. In an open society, individual freedom may not be limited based only on an appearance of deviance, uncivility, repulsion or insanity, unless an individual violates the rights of another. After all, he might be acting based on some perfectly valid rationale which we are not aware of, or perhaps we are just mistaken. Perhaps an invention or a piece of art we now consider useless will prove invaluable later on.
In an open society citizens have the right to freely and critically appraise public policy and its consequences, without fear or reprisal. This is necessary to guarantee that the policy can be changed as needed, or even dropped altogether. A safe atmosphere of impassionate, critical discussion over disagreements leads to societal flexibility, and enables us to quickly adapt the society without violence.
An open society is a community where free individuals respect each other's rights while limited public authority provides a framework of security. A strong and diverse civic society, respect for human rights, a democratically elected administration, distributed power, the rule of law and free market economy are all characteristic of an open society. An open society enables people with distinct interests, views and identities to live together peacefully.