Colectivismo

Ya lo dije varias veces por acá. Durante décadas tuve que aguantar la cantinela de que la planificación centralizada de la economía era netamente superior a la economía de mercado y que el futuro de la humanidad pasaba por el socialismo a la cubana o de la ex Unión Soviética.

Después del colapso del comunismo, los amantes del utopismo colectivista cambiaron el versito. El problema era que la economía de mercado no resolvía todos los problemas del mundo lo suficientemente rápido.

Ahora, ante el peso de la evidencia, la objeción es que la economía de mercado es demasiado eficiente. Nos estamos volviendo demasiado prósperos y nuestra calidad de vida se está elevando demasiado rápido. Debemos elegir la pobreza voluntaria. Después de todo, los pobres son más felices que los ricos.

El objetivo es el mismo de siempre: decirnos cómo debemos vivir nuestras vidas. Por supuesto, estas recomendaciones son siempre para que las pongan en práctica los demás, nunca los que las formulan.

A través de un comentario del camarada Blogovido llegué a esta columna de Mark Steyn, no se la pierdan.

Y recuerden, jóvenes argentos, el verdadero enemigo de la izquierda no es la pobreza sino el éxito:

But to this future of vast, unstoppable, ever-expanding wealth, the champions of the oppressed have come up with an ingenious solution: global poverty! We need a massive Poverty Expansion Program if we're to save the planet. "I don't think a lot of electricity is a good thing," says Gar Smith of San Francisco's Earth Island Institute. "I have seen villages in Africa that had vibrant culture and great communities that were disrupted and destroyed by the introduction of electricity," he continues, globally warming to his theme and regretting that African peasants "who used to spend their days and evenings in the streets playing music on their own instruments and sewing clothing for their neighbours on foot-pedal powered sewing machines" are now slumped in front of "Dynasty" reruns all day long.

George Monbiot, celebrated doom-monger of Britain's Guardian, agrees: "It is impossible not to notice that, in some of the poorest parts of the world, most people, most of the time, appear to be happier than we are. In southern Ethiopia, for example, the poorest half of the poorest nation on Earth, the streets and fields crackle with laughter. In homes constructed from packing cases and palm leaves, people engage more freely, smile more often, express more affection than we do behind our double glazing, surrounded by remote controls."

In Ethiopia, male life expectancy is 42.88 years. George was born in 1963. That may be why the cheery peasants in the fields are cracking up with laughter. They know that even if he moves in tomorrow, they'll only have to endure his column in The Gamo Gofa Times-Herald for another year or two. No wonder they're doubled up and clutching their sides. It's not just the dysentery from the communal latrine.