Want to Raise Consciousness? Adopt Markets
2 November 2006
The Editor, New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
To the Editor:
Bob Herbert, rightly horrified by the abuses that women suffer in countries such as Pakistan and Ethiopia, demands that we "do something about it" ("Punished for Being Female," November 2).
But the best thing we can do for women is not to have "activists" cry out "for our consciousness to be raised." Instead, it is to encourage the continuing expansion of global markets. As Helen Rahman, a close observer of Bangladesh, says of women working in third-world factories, "The income the women earn gives them social status and bargaining power."* In the long-run, it's far better for women to enjoy genuine opportunity and wealth than to be the cause du jour for western "activists."
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* Quoted in Martin Wolf, Why Globalization Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 185.
The Editor, New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
To the Editor:
Bob Herbert, rightly horrified by the abuses that women suffer in countries such as Pakistan and Ethiopia, demands that we "do something about it" ("Punished for Being Female," November 2).
But the best thing we can do for women is not to have "activists" cry out "for our consciousness to be raised." Instead, it is to encourage the continuing expansion of global markets. As Helen Rahman, a close observer of Bangladesh, says of women working in third-world factories, "The income the women earn gives them social status and bargaining power."* In the long-run, it's far better for women to enjoy genuine opportunity and wealth than to be the cause du jour for western "activists."
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* Quoted in Martin Wolf, Why Globalization Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 185.
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Tuesday June 12, 2007 at 6:00pm