|
Click here to subscribe to the monthly FLOW newsletter.
February 2007
Greetings friends in FLOW,
I know an idealist, eager to work
for world peace, who would lobby for a federal "Department of Peace" but who doesn't want
her husband to invest their family's funds in a Middle East business
- because "you can't be sure that the government there wouldn't
take it away." But investing in businesses in troubled areas,
together with promoting those economic reforms that would make
such businesses sound investments, is the surest path to world
peace we have.
One of the most exciting items to
enter my attention in the last month was an article reporting
that Dubai
is entering the business of creating free zones around the world. For those of you who were either enthused or angry
about Bush's proposed "surge" in
troops, or the latest twist in the Israeli - Palestinian quagmire,
or even the new IPCC report on global warming it might seem odd
that an article about Dubai entering the free zone business would
make the top 1,000 most important items, less alone the top ten.
But Dubai has, in less than twenty years, created the most successful
economy in the Middle East - out of nothing but sand, freedom,
and sound economic institutions. If they, and competing free zone
entrepreneurs, are encouraged to replicate their models around
the world, we will be making significantly greater progress on
our way to the "End of Poverty," and ultimately the end
of war, as well.
Once again I was criticized at the most recent FLOW gathering
in NYC for celebrating Dubai. The concerned idealist had read articles
reporting facts such as this:
Dubai lifestyles are attended by vast numbers of Filipina, Sri
Lankan, and Indian maids, while the building boom is carried on
the shoulders of an army of poorly paid Pakistanis and Indians
working twelve-hour shifts, six and half days a week, in the blast-furnace
desert heat. (from
an article in Mother Jones magazine)
For the record: I believe that people always and everywhere should
treat other people well. People who don't treat other people well
are engaging in bad behavior and should stop.
That said, dismissing Dubai because there are corporations based
there that hire immigrants and pay them low wages strikes me as
short-sighted. The immigrants have voluntarily moved to Dubai because
they perceived that working in Dubai would provide them with much
greater opportunities than they had at home. Because many of them
are dependent on the employers who obtained their visas and brought
them in they are subject to exploitation and yes, again, this is
a bad thing. But immigrants to the U.S., especially illegal immigrants,
are likewise subject to exploitation - and yet they continue to
come as fast as they can, risking death to come here.
The simple fact is that a Mexican laborer finds his or her labor
worth about ten times as much on this side of the border. Imagine,
if you can, that you could increase your income by a factor of
ten - by walking across a line. You might hear that, from time
to time, some people might not treat you well at your new salary.
But I suspect that most Americans making an annual salary of, say,
$30,000 or $50,000 now would enthusiastically choose the risk of
being treated poorly from time to time if they could suddenly earn
$300,000 or $500,000.
Again, this is not to justify the
fact that some people treat other people badly. Instead, the
point is to understand the psychology of opportunity and to learn
to sympathize with the real decisions made by poor people around
the world. It is condescending to believe that "we" are smart enough to choose a ten-fold increase
in our salaries in exchange for some risk of poor treatment but
that "they" are not smart enough.
I am not being glib. Nepal, which
is just recovering from a painful civil war, has no jobs. As
a consequence, one of the most important sources of income in
Nepal is remittances from Nepalese workers in Dubai. At the same
time, it is reported that approximately 10,000 Nepalese girls
are sold into the sex slavery trade in India each year. In their
own words, the girls say, "the
day that I was sold was the day my God died." It is difficult for us to wrap
our minds around a world in which we would sell our daughters into
sex slavery.
When I have been away from my family, my natural propensity is
to work all the time, from the moment I wake up until the moment
I go to sleep, seven days a week, day in, day out. When I was younger,
there were periods in which I did physical labor from morning to
night, day after day, month after month. I have read reports that
Chinese workers from rural areas want to get as many hours in as
they can at their city jobs. This makes sense to me; if I had left
my home strictly to make money to support my family, I would want
to work every waking hour.
Now what if I had left my home to support my family - and the
alternative if I fail is that I sell my daughter into sex slavery.
Again, I can't even imagine it. But based on my far more prosaic
willingness to work hard all the time, it seems natural to me that
Nepalese workers in Dubai would want to work all the time, under
almost any circumstances.
The most abused workers in Dubai, like the most abused workers
in the U.S., are illegal aliens. In both cases they suffer abuse
because they would rather suffer abuse than be deported. While
particular incidents of employer abuse deserve our outrage, to
extend our outrage to Dubai in general, or to the U.S. in general,
in such circumstances strikes me as a serious mistake in moral
judgment.
"The first night they forced
me to have sex. When I refused, they held me down, beat me
and raped me. I was seven years old."
Gina, a Nepalese girl raped by fourteen men on her first day in
the brothel at age seven, is now dying of AIDS.
Most of the time most of us ignore the horrors that go on daily
around the world - it is just too painful for us to accept the
realities. Those of us who do focus our attention on these horrors
often respond first with straightforward outrage. Some of us then
search for some action that we can take.
At thedaymyGoddied.com, the site from
which the Nepalese girls' voices above have been taken, the only
action they list under "What
Can I Do?" is to write your political representatives and
insist that they enforce the Trafficking Victims Protection Act,
which authorizes Congress to withdraw non-humanitarian aid from
those nations that do not adequately enforce laws against sex trafficking.
So the only solution to Gina's tragedy is for the U.S. Congress
to withdraw aid from India and Nepal? Personally I do not find
that to be a satisfying action item; I am committed to finding
deeper solutions.
At FLOW our motto is "Criticize by creating." At
bottom, I believe that the most powerful means of reducing sex
slavery is economic growth. Our heroes are thus those activists
who take action to reduce poverty by means of entrepreneurial
capitalism.
I'd like to introduce you to two such heroes, Toni Maloney and
Charlie Jackson. Toni Maloney was a successful businesswoman who
had achieved her financial and professional goals and wanted more
in life. She created the Business
Council for Peace, a non-profit
dedicated to helping women in post-conflict regions to learn business
principles so that they could create successful enterprises. BPeace
has flown women from Rwanda and Afghanistan to New York City so
that they can experience first hand how the business world operates,
with guidance from caring professional businesswomen who serve
as ongoing mentors.
Charlie Jackson has visited several
post-conflict regions, including El Salvador, Kosovo, and Iraq,
in each case working to help people re-build their lives by helping
them build enterprises. Although Charlie still keeps a full-time
tech job, his vocation is using his business skills and experience
to support struggling entrepreneurial enterprises in the aftermath
of war. He is currently leading a delegation to Amman, Jordan
to support a sort of "Women's
Chamber of Commerce" of refugee Iraqi businesswomen:
Acceleros and Texans for Peace are sponsoring a delegation to
Amman, Jordan in April to continue ongoing work with members of
the Women's Business Center of Baghdad. During the 1 week trip
Texas and Iraqi business women and professionals will dialogue,
build professional and personal connections, and learn more about
challenges to work and home.
We encourage a diverse delegation, representative of the many
occupations, faiths, and political views of Texas. Deadline for
delegation applications is February 20, 2007. For applications
and additional information: http://acceleros.com/WBCB/Amman.htm
Charlie notes that one doesn't need to be Texan to apply.
Both Toni and Charlie exemplify the "Criticize by creating" ethos
that FLOW seeks to cultivate in all of us. None of us will be able
to save Gina. But the pain that we feel from opening our eyes to
the horrors that Gina has experienced should move us beyond outrage,
beyond writing letters to politicians, beyond attempts to manipulate
foreign aid, and towards concrete action to support positive entrepreneurial
enterprise around the world.
By creating free zones, Dubai has created the most dynamic center
for entrepreneurial enterprise in the Middle East. Those enterprises
are not always perfect, but they are a source of hope - and a source
of millions of dollars in remittances that Nepalese men send home
so that their daughters don't suffer the horrors that Gina has
suffered. The solution to the abuse of illegal aliens in Dubai
and in the U.S. is not to attack the free zones, but to create
far more of them around the world, so that poverty gradually vanishes.
It is a simple truth, all too rarely understood, that entrepreneurial
capitalism quite literally creates wealth, and distributes that
wealth in part by means of creating jobs.
Entrepreneurial capitalism literally creates wealth. Expanding
the number of places on earth in which this creation process may
take place freely and vibrantly is the only way to End Poverty
Now.
If you still don't like Dubai, then support Open World's development
of socially responsible free zones. I have a contact in Nepal,
a spiritual economist who has studied sex slavery there, who would
love assistance in creating a Nepalese Open World zone.
If you don't like Dubai, criticize by creating.
Towards peace, prosperity, happiness and well-being for all,
Michael Strong
CEO & Chief Visionary Officer
FLOW, Inc.
Please contact us at contact@flowidealism.org with ideas, insights,
and inspiration. And remember that FLOW is a non-profit organization
that promotes economic freedom and broadly distributed prosperity.
You can support FLOW through your financial contributions among
other means.
|
