I have the misfortune of having to read Niomi Kleins, book, The Shock Doctrine, in which she argues that free markets must be forced upon a country rather than its citizens accepting it voluntarily, usually by dictators. She also portrays Milton Friedman as a neoconservative and corporatist...She completely misrepresents his beliefs. Kleins arguments rely almost always on cherry picked data points, as shown by Johan Norberg. [1] But I was interested in what actual economists who have researched say on the matter. --According to a study of post-communist countries: ...democracy reinforces economic liberalization, which in turn leads to better growth performance. [2] --Another study of post-communists countries from economists at UC Berkeley states: [This paper]examines the data that have been used to assess the relationship between economic liberalization and political democratization...the authors find that economic liberalization advances rather than undermines democratization.[3] In other words, economic liberalization promotes democracy. --Our investigations have shown that deep inflation and growth crises are significantly correlated with more pronounced policy reform...the paper also finds evidence for a positive impact of democratic regimes and checks and balances on the extent of economic reforms. [4] This means that economic liberalization occurs in economic crisis (obviously to lift them out of it) and that democracy promotes economic liberalization. --Another study on the relationship between economic freedom and political freedom states, We conclude that increases in economic freedom between 1975 and 1990 are to some extent caused by the level of political freedom[5]. --According to a study by Cambridge University: This article... tests the effects of economic liberalization on individual political participation across sixteen Latin American countries for the period 1980–2000... this article provides strong evidence that economic liberalization leads to greater levels of societal mobilization in the context of free-market democratization. The article also demonstrates that economic liberalization does not induce a decline in political participation. [6] --Another study states, Democracies do tend to liberalize the economy... ‘‘Dictators’’ are less likely to open up the economy, as suggested by the fewer cases of economic liberalizations under dictatorships...d the data do suggest that autocrats are less likely to open up the economy. Indeed, most economic liberalizations tend to be preceded by political reforms, perhaps imposed by a struggling population on an unwilling leader [7] --Lastly, according to a study by an economist at the Paris school of economics: Taking advantage of a new survey conducted in 2006 by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank in 28 post-transition countries, we find a positive and significant effect of democracy on support for a market economy...democratization may become a necessary condition to obtain public support for further economic liberalization. [8] These empirical studies suggest that economic freedom is not something pushed upon a country, rather, it is something that democracies embrace. I honestly wonder if Niomi Klein has access to the internet, apparently she couldnt have taken a few minutes to see the research academic journals have published on the matter. As I said earlier, Klein cherry-picked examples of when economic liberalization was forced upon a country (like in Chile) and acted as if this was the norm. Klein relies on her personal interpretation of anecdotes and examples and never tries to supply broad,statistical evidence for her case. It’s an understandable omission, because the data don’t support her argument.In fact, the enormous body of academic work on this subject definitively shows this is not the case. [1] reason/archives/2008/09/26/defaming-milton-friedman/1 [2] siteresources.worldbank.org/INTDECINEQ/Resources/fidrmuc.pdf [3] cps.sagepub/content/40/3/254.short [4] sciencedirect/science/article/pii/S0176268003000144 [5] sciencedirect/science/article/pii/S0176268003000132 [6] journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=7625516&fileId=S0043887100009187 [7] homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~kslin/macro2009/Giavazzi&Tabellini_2005.pdf [8] halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/59/60/78/PDF/DemoMarket_complete.pdf
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 14:00:01 +0000
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