Posted on 09/04/2005 12:47:50 PM PDT by COBOL2Java
REYKJAVIK, Iceland.
Why is this cold, rainy land with its stark volcanic landscape, without much in the way of natural resources, one of the wealthiest places on Earth?
Small states, in the past, were most often poorer on a per capital income basis than large states, but in the last half-century many have become much richer then their large neighbors. Among the wealthiest places on the planet, in addition to the United States, we now find Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Denmark and Ireland, none with many natural resources.
In a just-concluded meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Iceland, some leaders of small states that have developed very successful economies met with some of the worlds' leading free-market economists and policy institute professionals, partly to discuss what lessons the rest of the world can learn from these small states. Mart Laar, former prime minister of Estonia, was the principle architect of his country's remarkable economic transformation from impoverished vassal of the Soviet Union into one of the world's freest (No. 4 in the world according to the 2005 Index of Economic Freedom) and most dynamic economies. Mr. Laar said he succeeded by following the teachings of Nobel Prize-winning economists F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman.
After obtaining freedom 15 years ago, Estonia rapidly moved to establish a rule of law, protect private property and create a sound currency. Estonia removed most price controls, discarded useless regulations, privatized most state-owned enterprises and established a free-trade regime. The result has been the largest percentage increase in real per capita incomes of any of the former communist states.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
After obtaining freedom 15 years ago, Estonia rapidly moved to establish a rule of law, protect private property and create a sound currency. Estonia removed most price controls, discarded useless regulations, privatized most state-owned enterprises and established a free-trade regime. The result has been the largest percentage increase in real per capita incomes of any of the former communist states.Estonia has now moved on to create the world's first "e-government": Most government operations are on the Internet, and in electronic form. By moving away from bureaucrat paper, Estonis reduced corruption and cost and created much more transparency and accountability. All proposed laws are placed on the Internet before passage so any citizen can review and comment before they are voted upon.
Maybe the fact that there is a large American military base there has something to do with the economic prosperity?
This is hardly unique. The US does the same, and I wager most us States do as well. I know my state does.
The problem is that laws are written to obfuscate, and people are lazy and don't want to wade thru tons of boring appropriations measures and junk legislation combing for those few transgressions of government int private lives.
We need to write our laws such that an 8th grade education can understand them.
I also like the proposals that are popping up requiring "Constitutional Impact" statements for laws, requiring pre-disclosure of any rights that may be affected, or any privledges provided.
No man is safe while the legislature is in session.
No man is safe while the legislature is in session.
Amen to that.
Good stuff!
Good post. Glad to read this. It follows a bit from this snippet:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/terrorism.htm
Another theory is that without foreign aid or natural resources, governments are forced to liberalize because it is the only way for them to get tax revenues. In other words, when wealth can only be generated through the naked productivity/ingenuity of it's citizens, the rulers of that country will be most inclined to introduce reforms to accelerate this. Notice some of the strongest economic zones in the world today - Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Switzerland, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea and the (early, eastern) United States - are poor in natural resources. Historically, the British, Dutch, Portuguese and, going way back, Carthageans and Athenians, were all were top world powers without being strong in natural resources. Why was the Spanish Empire, a centrally controlled country drowning in colonial gold, discarded into the ash heap of history so fast? Returning to the Africa analogy, the areas which are richest in natural resources, especially the diamond belt, are suffering the greatest conflict and strife. Taking this into account, Moore and other leftists should wonder why the United States would even want to "take over" any oil...
"Maybe the fact that there is a large American military base there has something to do with the economic prosperity?" - /free_at_jsl.com
Haven't read about such a base. Is there any information on the web that mentions it?
Well you, konaice, are exactly correctamundo!!!
We certainly have EnvironMental Impact Statements at the fed level and EnvironMental Impact Reports at the CA State level!!!
Maybe if we'da been havin these instead, we wouldn'ta been havin to pay so many overpriced CONsultants to do the EIS's and EIR's!!!
Small countries like Iceland are sometimes ethnically very homogeneous. Right now that seems to work for them. Everyone knows what to expect from everyone else. Ethnically heterogeneous small states may have the same problems with trust and jockeying for power that larger nations and empires have. But you usually can't create homgeneity in countries that are ethnically more heterogenous without doing injustice to someone.
And there's no telling about the future. Countries like Iceland or Finland benefit from the advantages of European culture without paying much of a price for the problems of that culture. That may not always be so, if Europe's economic and demographic troubles increase. What once looked like a boon may become a drag.
This topic is very much of our time, an age with no wars between Western states and generally free trade. In the 19th century -- a very different age characterized by trade wars and real wars -- the general rule was to get big and powerful or submit to the control of those who were.
Nowadays the little guys don't have to worry about defense spending or tariff barriers. They're more competitive, because they don't spend what the larger countries do on military and social welfare spending. But it's not clear how long the current state of things will last.
I can understand the appeal of theoretical discussion of this topic, but there's more to be said for loyalty to one's own country, however large and unwieldy it may be.
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