Tag: Instruments of Change
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Prosperity: The Trade Policy Instrument
The final instrument for addressing the problems of the poorest nations, given in Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion, is trade policy. Collier acknowledges the complex ramifications of trade. He laments the good-intentioned but wrongheaded campaigns of many activist and Christian organizations who cast freer trade as a conspiracy of large corporations to take advantage of…
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Prosperity: The Laws and Charters Instrument
Paul Collier lists four instruments for addressing poverty in The Bottom Billion. We have looked at aid and military intervention. We turn now to the third instrument, laws and charters. Collier writes that far too often, “…the rich countries have been a safe haven for the criminals of the bottom billion.” (136) The idea of…
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Prosperity: The Military Intervention Instrument
Paul Collier starts his brief chapter on military intervention in The Bottom Billion this way: After Iraq it is difficult to arouse much support for military intervention. For me this chapter is the toughest in the book because I want to persuade you that external military intervention has an important place in helping the societies…
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Prosperity: The Aid Instrument
Probably the most intuitive response to the plight of the bottom billion is for the wealthy to give aid to the poor. Poor people lack resources, so let's give them more resources. The left champions this approach as reparations for colonialism, and the right equates aid with welfare for those who won't do what they…
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Prosperity: Instruments of Change
We've now glanced at the four poverty traps listed in Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion. To summarize, Collier writes concerning the people of the bottom billion: "Seventy-three percent of them have been through civil war, 29percent of them are in countries dominated by the politics of natural resource revenues, 30 percent are landlocked, resource-scarce, and…