A Thousand Ton Weight

The death of Hugo Chavez reminded me that I had to discuss this wonderful piece by Larry Diamond. He discusses how the myth that Global South countries are not "read for democracy" and how that should be dispensed with immediately. In many ways, the last few years of Chavez's life are a testament to this. He lost a considerable amount of control over Venezuela and his long term vision for the future of the country came under intense scrutiny.

The fact is that Chavez was no great hero or visionary. He simply rode the wave of oil wealth and made people believe that his way was the best way for Venezuela. Globalization has proved him to be massively wrong. The once robust economy has returned to where it was 50 years ago, other industries in the country have suffered, and they are currently running a 15 percent deficit of GDP. With so much government control, their economy simply cannot compete in the world. Other dictators like Fidel Castro have recognized this as well.

Even though Diamond wrote his piece primarily focusing on other areas of the world, the same paradigm applies to Middle America and South America.

The lower- and middle-income democracies that did come through the last two decades intact have shown that authoritarianism confers no intrinsic developmental advantage. For every Singapore-style authoritarian economic “miracle,” there have been many more instances of implosion or stagnation—as in Zaire, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and (until recently) Burma— resulting from predatory authoritarian rule.

Right. In fact, the assertion that tyranny and dictatorships are "just around the corner" in many parts of the world is also a myth.

While it remains true that democracy is more sustainable at higher levels of development, an unprecedented number of poor countries adopted democratic forms of government during the 1980s and ’90s, and many of them have sustained democracy for well over a decade. These include several African countries, such as Ghana, Benin, and Senegal, and one of the poorest Asian countries, Bangladesh. Other very poor countries, such as East Timor, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, are now using the political institutions of democracy as they rebuild their economies and states after civil war. Although the world has been in a mild democratic recession since about 2006, with reversals concentrated disproportionately in low-income and lower-middle-income states, a significant number of democracies in these income categories continue to function.

Yes, they do because democracy is the best system to fit in with this era of globalization. And countries aren't the only ones that have embraced it.

Further refuting the skeptics, democracy has taken root or at least been embraced by every major cultural group, not just the societies of the West with their Protestant traditions. Most Catholic countries are now democracies, and very stable ones at that. Democracy has thrived in a Hindu state, Buddhist states, and a Jewish state. And many predominantly Muslim countries, such as Turkey, Bangladesh, Senegal, and Indonesia, have by now had significant and mainly positive experience with democracy.

Diamond also discusses Hugo Chavez towards the end of the piece.

Despite the persistence of authoritarianism under Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, and the authoritarian tendencies of left-wing populist presidents in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, the bigger story in Latin America has been democratic resilience and deepening. Chile and Uruguay have become stable liberal democracies, Brazil has made dramatic democratic and economic progress, and even once chronically unstable Peru has seen three successive democratically elected presidents deliver brisk economic growth with declining poverty rates. In fact, Latin America is the only region of the world where income inequality has decreased in the last decade.

To me, the death of Hugo Chavez is symbolic of a much larger sea change. The time of dictators and authoritarian rule is drawing to a close. Countries like North Korea and Iran will not exist as they do now in a decade. The prosperity that has resulted from globalization is going to squash them like a thousand ton weight.

The Good News Keeps Rolling In

For all the talk about how broken our health care system is, the world as a whole is actually doing much better than in the past. Some examples.

• Dr. Benn singles out Rwanda as an example of stunning progress: More than 90 percent of eligible Rwandans were receiving ART by the end of October. "This is fantastic ... historical. That is beyond our expectations from a couple of years ago," Benn says. 
• Kazakhstan is the site of another moment of global public health progress this year. In March, it was certified malaria-free by the World Health Organization, joining only four other malaria-endemic countries with that designation. 
• Nigeria heads the pack of 17 countries poised to eliminate malaria. Their antimalaria agenda includes a $50 million bed-net program, underwritten by The Global Fund, which hopes the country will offer two bed nets per household. 
• The Republic of the Congo, meanwhile, has made massive strides in combating maternal mortality. The number of women dying in childbirth dropped 60 percent between 2010 and 2011, from 740 deaths per 100,000 live births to 300 deaths.

There are many more examples like this happening around the world and the best part about all of it is that it is happening exponentially. Juxtapose this with the sharp reduction in extreme poverty and it's clear that we are heading in something more than the "right direction." 

Honestly, it's becoming more and more apparent every day that we are heading towards that Star Trek vision of the future and it's largely due to the leadership of the United States. 

Happy!

Get used to a new word for 2013: reshoring.

Conventional wisdom says that American jobs are flying like crazy over to China. But a recent piece in the Christian Science Monitor says otherwise.

There's no official tally of the number of jobs returning, but Harry Moser, director of the Reshoring Initiative, which aims to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, estimates that 50,000 jobs have returned in the past three years. He bases his estimate on a close read of the media and on reports his organization receives. If that number is accurate, reshoring would account for 12 percent of the manufacturing jobs the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports returned to the American economy since 2010. 

The Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm, in a September report projected that returned manufacturing could bring 5 million new jobs by 2020 and add $90 billion in US exports to the economy.

Wow.

Why is this happening?

Rising wages in China, unpredictable supply-chain problems, oil prices, and the risk of intellectual property theft are making manufacturers more wary of producing overseas, analysts say.

That's the beauty of the free market, in this case the labor market. Eventually, workers start to demand more money and everything evens out as the labor market adjusts in its growth. But this isn't even the best part.

It's not just that it's getting more expensive to produce overseas. It's also getting cheaper to produce back at home. "It's the shale gas revolution," says Kevin Swift, chief economist and managing director of the American Chemistry Council. "There are low-cost, abundant sources of energy [here] now." Mr. Swift says that's a game changer for his industry: "We were being written off as being noncompetitive. It's completely changed. There's significant investment on the books ... 50 [planned] projects valued at over $40 billion."

Yes, indeed. Things are looking up for our country and it makes me quite happy!

Planet Earth

For all of my crabbing on here, the world is actually getting to be a much better place in which to live. There's a lot of good news out there and if are diligent, you can find it. The best place to start is The Christian Science Monitor as they are usually very unbiased and shy away from sensation. The last issue, for example, had a plethora of good news and I'm going to be highlighting some of their stories over the next week or so. This, by the way, keeps my promise to put up more world news content as well:)

The first one that caught my eye was this story on poverty. I had to read it twice before I believed that it was real. Extreme poverty in the world has been...cut by half?!?

In fact, the rate of decline in extreme poverty everywhere in the world has more than doubled in the past decade, Ravallion says. That's after adjusting for China, whose sheer size makes it an outlier.

Simply amazing.

Now, the article does go on to say that there is still a great deal of poverty in the world but we are heading in the right direction. With the changes seen in China (as noted in the article), the direction we are heading as a world is very, very positive. In fact, I think the prediction that Bono made a year or two ago is going to come true: within 50 years, there will be no more hunger on this planet. Barring some unforeseen catastrophe, there will be no going back to "Live Aid" days. (Note: this includes climate change, incidentally, which is actually quite "foreseen" and will be eventually dealt with in an appropriate fashion).

So, why has this happened? Well, mainly, it's because of us. Our country has spread prosperity around the world in the form of liberal economic theory. Communism is gone and capitalism and free markets are spreading everywhere. If countries don't want to be a part of this (and there aren't many left out there), they will find themselves on the outside. Our new world certainly is not perfect and we have had some growing pains but the increased prosperity has no other explanation. Everyone on the planet wants an iPhone.

And, as the countries of the world begin to need less aid, we are going to see greater wealth in the Global North countries. In fact, my children will likely live in a time where there will be no delineation between the Global North and the Global South.

It's simply going to be Planet Earth.

Resolutions

In many ways, 2012 was a great year for this site. Blogger has made it very simple to bring in widgets and links to allow for more connectivity to outside resources and related sites. We saw more page views and comments than ever before in our seven year history. We also have a core following of about 200 readers and that suits me just fine. I've always wanted to be the digital equivalent of a small town newspaper and now it is safe to say that we fit that description perfectly. And it's been great to have a fellow contributor to take the daily load of posts off...thanks Nikto!

This does not mean, however, that we should rest on our laurels here at Markadelphia. I've been thinking that this site needs some changes, content wise, and so I've come up with a few resolutions for 2013.

1. More World News.

Last in line has quietly chided me over the past few months about how this site used to be more focused on international events. Well, he's right. Those topics have fallen by the wayside and it's time to bring them back (especially now that the election is over). At least once a week (and likely more than that), there will be a post commenting on world news. Will it be the latest on the strife in the Central African Republic? Or how about China's PMI forecast? Who knows? Whatever strikes my fancy, I guess, but it's going to be regular occurrence that will likely be a welcome break from political talk. Speaking of which...

2. Pop Culture.

Most of the readers of this site don't know that I am a massive fan of pop culture...music and film, in particular. In addition to the weekly world news post, there will be one that comments on pop culture. I do one at the end of the year but there just has to be more. My passion for this is simply too great to ignore it further and, again, talking about politics all the time can get rather tedious. I will probably throw in some sports posts here and there as well.

3. Education.

I have far too few posts about education which is odd considering that I am teacher. Part of the reason for this was to keep a degree of privacy in my life. Yet, I find that there are some experiences  in my classrooms  that I should write about and as long as they are done in the broader context of the issues facing education, I think I can maintain that public/private balance. So, expect more posts about the state of education in our country and the world (starting tomorrow with a video sent to me by last in line...him again!). These will likely have a more personal tone as well.

4. Science

Many of you may not know this but Nikto is a classically trained scientist. He's thrown out a few posts here and there with different scientific themes which have given me the idea to make this a more regular occurrence. Expect more posts that focus on innovation and science in the world today. Yes, that's right, Nikto, I'm volunteering you:)

These four resolutions can be summed up simply by noting that there is going to be more of a mix of content with less politics. That doesn't mean that my quest to destroy the right wing bubble is at an end. Far from it! I just feel the need to stretch myself out more with some different content which makes me look forward to 2013 with a large amount of gusto and zeal!