Eat the Rich

Por que algunas naciones crecen y prosperan, y otras no ?

En este blog hemos conversado muchas veces sobre esto, que para mí es un tema obsesionante, en vista de lo que veo cada día que salgo a la calle.

En esta vena, hoy quiero compartir con la distinguida audiencia un libro que a mí me ha fascinado :


Para hacer que ustedes piquen y lo compren (o lo pidan prestado, o lo lean gratis en Borders los que pueden), aquí les paso el índice, y les transcribo la forma directa en que P.J. empieza el libro y entra en materia.

CONTENTS
1 LOVE, DEATH AND MONEY
2 GOOD CAPITALISM: Wall Street
3 BAD CAPITALISM: Albania
4 GOOD SOCIALISM: Sweden
5 BAD SOCIALISM : Cuba
6 FROM BEATNIK TO BUSINESS MAJOR
7 HOW (OR HOW NOT) TO REFORM (MAYBE) AN ECONOMY (IF THERE IS ONE): Russia
8 HOW TO MAKE NOTHING FROM EVERYTHING: Tanzania
9 HOW TO MAKE EVERYTHING FROM NOTHING: Hong Kong
10 HOW TO HAVE THE WORST OF BOTH WORLDS: Shanghai
11 EAT THE RICH

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LOVE, DEATH AND MONEY

I had a fundamental question about economics: Why do some places prosper and thrive while others just suck? It's not a matter of brains. No part of the earth (with the possible exception of Brentwood) is dumber that Beverly Hills, and the residents are wading in gravy. In Russia, meanwhile, where chess is a spectator sport, they're boiling stones for soup. Nor can education can be the reason. Fourth graders in the American school system know what a condom is but aren't sure about 9 x 7. Natural resources aren't the answer. Africa has diamonds, gold, uranium, you name it. Scandinavia has little and is frozen besides. Maybe culture is the key, but wealthy regions such as the local mall are famous for lacking it.

Perhaps the good life's secret lies in civilization. The Chinese had an ancient and sophisticated civilization when my relatives were hunkering naked in trees. (Admittedly that was last week, but they'd been drinking.) In 1000 B.C., when Europeans were barely using metal to hit each other over the head, the Zhou dynasty Chinese were casting ornate wine vessels big enough to take a bath in -- something else no contemporary European had done. Yet, today, China stinks.

Government does not cause affluence. Citizens of totalitarian countries have plenty of government and nothing of anything else. And absence of government doesn't work, either. For a million years mankind had no government at all, and everyone's relatives were naked in trees. Plain hard work is not the source of plenty. The poorer people are, the plainer and harder is the work that they do. The better-off play golf. And technology provides no guarantee of creature comforts. The more wretched locales in the world are well-supplied with complex and up-to-date technology -- in the form of weapons.

Why are some places wealthy and other places poor? It occurred to me, at last, that this might have something to do with money.

But I didn't know anything about money. I didn't know anything about money as a practical matter -- did I have enough to pay the mortgage? And I didn't know anything about money in a broad or abstract sense. I certainly didn't know anything about economic theory. And I wasn't alone in this.

Altamente recomendado con el sello de calidad Mike@