Hyrum Smith has asked what I consider a magnificent question: What
should those of us who're (a) progressive people with deep concerns for the
world's 3 billion or so poorest citizens and (b) sensitive to the Net's
immense potential here, be DOING? It's such a profound question that I'm
now beginning a full-length article on it for the economics-law journal I've
edited for the past couple of decades. And, needless to say, I'll also be
responding here as my thoughts on its crystalize. Two come immediately to mind:
First, it seems to me that there are two parts to Hyrum's great
question. Part 1, in my view, is to identify a set of public POLICIES that,
IF implemented in those 150 or so countries, would in fact eliminate their
poverty problem. We might call this first issue the "economic" part of the
issue. Can we devise such a cluster of national policies, one that will
first cure the raw hunger of the planet's poorest countries, then set them
on the road to sustainable overall prosperity? I have no doubt that we can.
Can we also get it implemented? Here we go beyond the turf of
economics and into that of political science, sociology, psychology, and the
rest of the "persuasion" disciplines and skills--into the arts of
"communication," e.g., into the potential of that marvelous instrument, the
Internet. The issue ultimately becomes, then, whether hundreds, thousands,
and hundreds of thousands of linked and cross- linked good people on the
Net--armed with a solid set of poverty-curing public policies for the 3rd
world's poor nations--could present those policies in a sufficiently
persuasive manner to the leaders--and citizens--of those countries. Again, I
have an immense faith in the power of the Internet--its unique capacity to
reach those hundreds of thousands of village squares where our 3 billion
poorest can learn that their lives of the future need not be the
wretchedness of the past.
Two questions for the members: (1) Your set of policies to cure
the poverty of those those 150 countries, and (2) how to implement them.
Charles Mueller, Editor
ANTITRUST LAW & ECONOMICS REVIEW
http://webpages.metrolink.net/~cmueller
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At 08:19 PM 9/5/97 -0400, you wrote:
>I'm interested in anything you have to say about the war on poverty.
>Your emails are unfailingly well researched and mind stretching. What
>would you have us do?
>
>Hyrum C. Smith, Ed.D.
>International Business Manager
>The Learning Center at Con Edison
>718 472-6030
>http://www.coned.com/tlc/home.htm
>
