A lot of people have been complaining because the new pope is a Catholic.

They should be pleased that the Archbishop of Canterbury isn't an Anglican.

Steven Den Beste: why say that? If anything the problem is that too many Anglicans have their own theology garbled. This is the same religion that supposedly believes "don't steal" and "don't covet your neighbor's property". Not much leeway for socialism in that!

"since 1983, they have pursued liberalization. Guess what? Their real GDP has increased every year since 1983. Not even Britain has such a stable economic record. And poverty, though high, has decreased."

If liberalization was the reason for Ghana's growth, then Africa - which according to the World Bank now has the least trade restrictive policies of all developing regions - should be booming. Guess what? It isn't. I wonder how well Ghana would be doing without its massive inflow of remittances from abroad (up to 13% of GDP from only 2% in 1990). And then there's overseas aid, which was identified in the same report that graph came from as a significant factor in Ghana's recent growth - I wonder why Alex didn't mention that?

Basically Ghana is barely hanging on (it grew much faster in the 1950s, and per capita incomes still haven't recovered to the levels of the early 1970s), with most regions experiencing no reduction in poverty. It's interesting that Ghanaians themselves generally seem to think that poverty has increased, and that "Urban communities considered that the initially beneficial ef-
fects of economic reform in the 1980s had not been sustained, while rural communities felt that the vulnerability of their livelihoods was increasing." It's not implausible that this increased vulnerability is linked to over-zealous liberalisation.

"It is good that the debate has moved beyond slogans"

It'd be even better if the Globalization Institute moved past its own slogans and its obsession with trade liberalisation, which anyone can see has had a distinctly mixed record in Africa.

Free trade or not is not the major factor with respect to African problems.

A country starting from scratch has a lot of things to get right, and different things are bottlenecks at different times. Culture, institutions, and economic policy all are in the mix.

Ghana in the 1950's grew fast because they were a British colony. Given a basic level of economic freedom, stable and honest institutions are of greater value for a developing country than free trade. Independence did Ghana no good at all.

Jim's comments are off-base. Africa could usefully do with the same sort of liberal market economics that wrought big benefits in parts of southeast Asia (yes, I know that parts of Asia are still statist in some ways, but the overall trend is clear). When he talks of a mixed record he does not state which, if any African countries, have practised free trade consistently. I cannot think of any, although I'll willingly stand corrected.

What Africa also needs, of course, besides liberal economics, are the foundations of stable property rights and the rule of law. We may have to wait a long time.

Congratulations Alex on getting the Archbishop's attention. The Globalization Institute has achieved more in a few months than International Policy Network has done in five years.

Interesting to hear what insights about globalization can be derived from theology - the archbishop's field of expertise. Is there in the scriptures a receipe for economic growth ? (besides thou shalt not steal) ?

What will he preach next ? About global warming and green energy ?

One thing I see as a severe loss from the picture is jobs.

One of the most common and dangerous misconceptions about free trade is that even if listeners accept the thesis about the free trade benefitting the consumer they still think it will cost a number of jobs.

They don't comprehend that it's the lack of cheaper products that doesn't allow the consumers to save the difference in prices and spend it in the rest of economy. So if you do not have cheap imports you may save the jobs in protected industries but actually lose - or strictly speaking NOT GAIN - even a greater number in the rest of economy. This point is absolutely critical, but it rarely if ever gets covered in such debates.

A good example is France: when Mitterand went into office there was 1 million unemployed Frenchmen. Today there's 3 million of them. Somehow all that protectionism didn't save the jobs.

There was this comedy with Steve Martin as a medieval 'doctor' where he tried to cure a pale girl by bloodletting. She became even paler. The 'doctor' says 'well she clearly needs more bloodletting'!

The 'bloodletting' is the loss of purchasing power in hands of consumers. If they don't buy cheap T-shirts from China and _have to_ buy expensive domestically produced stuff instead, they have less money to spend in the rest of economy. And they simply can't spend it all on imports.

I raise this point bc the main fear and opposition to free trade in the political sense comes from the devastatingly wrong idea of 'number of jobs as a fixed pie, if a number of jobs abroad increases, we lose the same or similar number of them', so they think the trade reduces the number of jobs - which is precise opposite of the truth and the real interests of the workers, consumers and owners. If we win the battle 'jobs lost or gained as result of free trade', we win the jackpot. If we lose this debate, we gain no ground or at best very little of it.

Martin, well said. Your point cannot be stressed too often.

I think the "disruptive" impact of global capitalism needs to be addressed head-on and it is a reason why decent folk like the Archbish make the points he does. The answer, I think, is to point out that the kind of stability and security desired by today's protectionists is unachievable and will backfire anyway. Jobs are constantly being created and replaced. What is necessary is to have an economy that is sufficiently dynamic and open that people who see their jobs become uncompetive have the means to do something else.

Let's face it, if you think your job has been "taken" by workers in Bangalore or Beijing, you are going to be pretty cheesed off even if you have read the entire works of F.A. Hayek and agree with them. It is human nature to fear change and we need to realise that.

What will he preach next ? About global warming and green energy ?

Ain't that a bitch? Whatever happened to 'Give to Caeasar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God?' Or 'My Kingdom is not of this world?'

Obviously, he has the right to do it. But it is similar to fighting for Loretta's (Stan's) right to have babies even though she (he) doesn't have a womb (Monty Python's "Life of Brian"). Worse, it may be counter-productive, it may actually turn away people from the church in question (I say that even though I was raised Catholic).

If spiritual leaders don't do their job of helping the metaphysical dimension in human lives be cultivated somehow, the life will become more dry and desolate than it has to be, and people will turn away not only from faith, they will turn away from rationality per se. They will turn into nihilists or French (little difference, if any). The new pope seems to understand that.

I think the "disruptive" impact of global capitalism needs to be addressed head-on and it is a reason why decent folk like the Archbish make the points he does. The answer, I think, is to point out that the kind of stability and security desired by today's protectionists is unachievable and will backfire anyway.

God damn it, Jonathan, I was thinking precisely the same thing about the need to meet the disruption / loss of social cohesion!

There's not even reason to afraid why they try to make the points they make. The most basic need in life is security, or at least Abraham Maslow sez so.

Markets inevitably require and cause disruption by technological innovation - I specifically asked one economist about it, and he claimed that innovation is one of the main tools for disrupting the market and raising profit. Therefore, as long as we don't live in one big bloody collective farm, there's always going to be disruption and the loss of social cohesion. The culture must adapt to that. Unless we want to get back to caves, because freezing societies at current level of development is not an option that anybody but the fringe would accept either.

When there's a loss of social cohesion, some people with little or no moral compass definitely will indulge in self-degradation. In minds of weak, sheepish collectivists that is legitimate grievance against free market.

A couple of comments.

First, there is a romantic attachment on the part of many moralists, such as the Archbishop, to the idea of the caring community which guarantees everyone will be taken care of no matter what, and no one will be injured by the heartless seeking after profit by uncaring business types.

The fact that this misty world of never ending niceness is always just around the corner, will take just a little more control over this abuse or that predatory practice, and exists only in a cloud of good intentions, is lost on those who dream of Atlantis, even while all around them is occurring the collectivization of Ukraine, or the famine of Mao's Great Leap Forward.

Second, it is well to remember how disruptive and stressful "progress" is, especially the kind generated by the chaotic bubbling of capitalism. This is a new thing, this idea that everything should change all the time. When speaking of cultures like the Chinese or Indian or African, it is necessary to recognize that we could be talking about people who have lived in the same small area and farmed or whatever for thousands of years. Thousands of years. Thousands.

Even for Europe, and certainly for the Americas, that kind of history is a bit daunting when it comes to telling someone how it is ok if their whole way of life gets tossed up in the air, and we're not really sure how it's all going to work out, but trust us, it'll be alright in the end.

I believe that free and open trade is the best policy for creating wealth. But it is good to understand that one of the reasons I do is that it is what I know. If I lived in a village where my ancestors had farmed or tended goats for the last 2200 years, my viewpoint might be a little different, and my anxiety level quite a bit higher.

My spidey senses started tingling when he started talking about "forc[ing] choices."

Marcin Krol:

Whatever happened to 'Give to Caeasar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God?' Or 'My Kingdom is not of this world?'

The first is a very deliberate evasive answer. WHAT exactly is Caesar's? His response is only isomorphic to "don't steal (from Caesar)". He was wriggling out of a dilemma, annoy the Romans or the Jews?

As for the second, the only way you can get any comment on markets is by taking it completely out of context. Here's the context put back:

Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm."

you can have statistics that show a spectacular increase in national wealth alongside a reality of instability, increasing poverty in many areas and a loss of social cohesion.

But many (perhaps most) poor Third World nations are tyrannies and what is so great about pleading for stability in a tyranny? Overthrowing the bastards at the top who do more than anyone else to keep people in poverty requires a great deal LESS stability. I am sure the Chinese are very keep for Tibet to remain 'stable'. Is that what the Archbishop wants too?

Personally I hope to see it become ungovernable along with a great many other parts of the world where tyranny prevails.

you can have statistics that show a spectacular increase in national wealth alongside a reality of instability, increasing poverty in many areas and a loss of social cohesion.

Disregarding the last point (Does anyone know what "social cohesion" actually means?), it is possible that you can, but generally you don't. The fact is that spectacular increases in the national wealth pretty invariably lead to the growth of middle classes. That is, poor people (or at least the children of poor people) cease to be poor.

I believe that the pretty term "social cohesion" refers to the idylic and simple village paradise life (aka: grinding poverty) that the western left likes to prattle about "saving". Thus, a loss of social cohesion is actually the escape from this said village life into one of industrialized employment, most likey in a large and growing city.