Geoffrey Lean in the Daily Telegraph has incredibly good news: that we may see poverty come to an end. It is easy to see the downside of fast economic growth but it is lifting the Third World out of poverty. Undoubtedly the nineteenth century liberals were right about the benefits of free trade in creating prosperity and peace. Several aid workers, none of them on the right politically, have told me all aid is wasted but the Marshall Plan helped prepare Europe for the economic miracle which began in the 1950s in the developed world. The reasons for that miracle are still, as far as I know, mysterious, though socialism certainly had nothing to do with it. Let us pray that the same miracle is repeated in the poor world.
And let's hope that the Third World countries as they become richer keep some of the many good things that they have at the moment and do not lose their culture and way of life, at least not completely. Unfortunately this hope is an empty one.
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