Groovers,
When we last left off I was going to explain how to eliminate world poverty but in the last few months got a bit distracted by the important issue of the top 5 David Bowie albums of all time and this reminded me that I did also promise to blog on the title "Why one should never meet one's heroes - The sad tale of David Bowie and DJ Abs" and then someone rather unkindly pointed out that this suggested I had actually met David Bowie and since I hadn't, this made DJ Abs and his blog somewhat disingenuous but surely you understand I was speaking metaphorically not literally and really just wanted to make a point about hero worship, male emotional retardation, the cult of the celebrity and the phoniness of it all and then move on to a deeper point based on that new book by Malcolm Gladwell "Outliers" that suggests that what is behind most successful people is (more often than not) luck and opportunity rather than superior genes and then say something about executive salaries and the whole moral bankruptcy and unfairness of our modern reward and recognition system but then that was all getting a bit complex so I refocussed back to just settling once and for all the top 5 David Bowie albums and in the process reconciling the deeper emotional issues that DJ Abs has with David Bowie and whether one could ever forgive him for Tin Machine, Blue Jean, his appearance on Rove Live and Extras, etc, etc so without further ado, and after some 25 years of careful deliberation and research, I herewith present to you David Bowie’s Top Five Albums of All Time:
1. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
2. Diamond Dogs
3. (somewhat controversially) Hunky Dory
4. Scary Monsters
5. Low (with Aladdin Sane a close sixth).
OK - glad that issue is finally settled.
Time to move on and eliminate world poverty.
So, it seems to DJ Abs that the fundamental failure with most developing nations is not just a lack of resources (after all the greatest resource of all is people) but the failure of government within those nations. And without reforms to that government, these economies will never get off the ground.
Development aid is important - no doubt. But there is a growing body of evidence that suggests development aid is not enough and indeed, in some African countries, extreme poverty and associated measures such as life expectancy, infant mortality, literarcy, etc have been going backwards despite increases in aid over the last two decades.
Going back to the Magna Carta, it seems an important, if not an essential pre-cursor to any successful economy that it has a stable government supported by a strong independent legal system that secures basic human rights, including private property rights. If people are going to build houses, grow crops, work hard, etc they need to have the confidence that their private property rights will be respected and enforced.
You only have to look at Zimbabwe to see how quickly a society can be destroyed by the absence of a functioning legal system. DJ Abs visited Zimbabwe just over 10 years ago and let me tell you groovers it was the jewel of Africa. Black and white living prosperously in peace. A modern, first world nation. Clean water, traffic lights, shopping centres, parks, schools, nightclubs - the whole kit & caboodle.
And then Mugabe started acquiring land without compensation, setting prices by executive fiat, printing money to prop up his power base and pay his government and the economy collapsed. An entire nation destroyed was within a matter of years with 80% unemployment and millions left starving.
So how do we encourage corrupt, lawless, despotic nations to reform themselves in a way that will enable their countries to get off the poverty line and develop economically and sustainability.
Well – it is hard and probably unethical to simply externally impose a system of government on a nation even if its leadership sucks.
What I propose (and have been proposing for some time) is to look at a way of gently and slowly encouraging reform from within. The way to do this is by making developing nations comply with a basic set of human rights as a condition of access to the world trading community.
These rights would be set out in a simple document which I call a World Constitution. Compliance with the World Constitution will be a pre-requisite to access the world trading community.
The rights in this World Constitution need not be complex or detailed. I’ll quote my man Barak Obama on the key ones: the right to free speech, the right to worship how or if we wish, the right to peaceably assemble or to petition the government; the right to own, buy and sell property and not have it taken without fair compensation; the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures; the right not to be detained by the state without due process; the right to a fair and speedy trial; and the right to make our own determinations, with minimal restrictions regarding family life and the way we raise our children.
Most would consider these rights universal and indeed many are currently enshrined in the UN Charter of Human Rights (which many nation states have already agreed to).
But where my idea differs from others is its needs to be more than a well meaning statement of nothing.
For a start, all nations will need to comply with this Constitution to be accepted to the World Trade Organisation or similar federal trading body. And if, over time, a nation fails to comply with the Constitution, it needs to run the risk of enforcement action in the form of economic sanctions or ultimately expulsion from that community. And to prevent abuse and ensure legitimacy, such enforcement action should only be taken with approval of a World Court - a Court independently constituted by eminent jurists to adjudicate on compliance with the Constitution (similar to America’s Supreme Court or Australia’s High Court).
This might all sound like pie in the sky stuff but there are precedents for this idea.
After all the United States of America is a federation of smaller states built on a constitution that contained all these rights. It is no small coincidence that it is now the largest economy in the world - an economy built by impoverished immigrants and outcasts from Europe (which was then way and beyond the most powerful economic block in the world). In my view, America’s Constitution, its Supreme Court and its system of government helped secure and enforce the basic human rights necessary for economic development.
Turkey is another good example. It is transforming itself into a modern, secular and tolerant society and developing rapidly. A key reason for this is its leaders understand Turkey’s economic future lies with admission to the European Union. And the EU will not tolerate breaches of human rights amongst its member states. So Turkey’s improvement in human rights is partly motivated by its desire to join the European Union.
Indeed, what I am suggesting already happens to a limited extent through the United Nations. Nations seek to impose sanctions on errant nations such as Zimbabwe or Burma because of human rights abuses but any action gets bogged down in inter world politics precisely because there is no clear, independent and objective way to adjudicate on these human rights abuses.
A World Constitution would provide that legitimacy.
It would also provide a powerful incentive for despots and human rights abusers around the world to lift their game. What the Mugabe’s and the Kim Jong’s recognise (and if they don’t, their supporters ultimately will), is that their survival, and that of their nations, depends on economic prosperity. And that won’t happen without trading access to the wealthier nations of the world (forget what some anti-globalisation people may have told you - time and time again the evidence strongly suggests poorer nations have the most to gain from free trade with wealthier nations).
The other benefit of a World Constitution is that the more a country’s economic fates is tied to its trading partners, and the more interaction and trade between them, the less the prospects of war. The chances of the United Kingdom, Germany or France ever engaging in major war again are virtually nil and the European Union is a powerful reason for that. The same with the United Nations (or States) of America.
So there you have it – how to permanently eliminate world poverty.
The problem is not just lack of resources – there are ample resources to feed the world - but lack of basic functioning legal systems and human rights in many developing nations. A World Constitution – a set of basic human rights that all nations are required to comply with - is one way of encouraging the necessary changes to enable these economies to grow and develop. And for those of you that think there aren’t sufficient resources to feed the world, I remind you the number one health issue in the developed world is obesity – hardly a sign of food shortages. I am fond of saying we live with the ridiculous irony that about half the world worries about eating too much whilst the other half worries about getting enough to eat.
It is time to fix that problem.
Until next time Groovers,
Peace, Love, Respect and Amen.
DJ Abs
When we last left off I was going to explain how to eliminate world poverty but in the last few months got a bit distracted by the important issue of the top 5 David Bowie albums of all time and this reminded me that I did also promise to blog on the title "Why one should never meet one's heroes - The sad tale of David Bowie and DJ Abs" and then someone rather unkindly pointed out that this suggested I had actually met David Bowie and since I hadn't, this made DJ Abs and his blog somewhat disingenuous but surely you understand I was speaking metaphorically not literally and really just wanted to make a point about hero worship, male emotional retardation, the cult of the celebrity and the phoniness of it all and then move on to a deeper point based on that new book by Malcolm Gladwell "Outliers" that suggests that what is behind most successful people is (more often than not) luck and opportunity rather than superior genes and then say something about executive salaries and the whole moral bankruptcy and unfairness of our modern reward and recognition system but then that was all getting a bit complex so I refocussed back to just settling once and for all the top 5 David Bowie albums and in the process reconciling the deeper emotional issues that DJ Abs has with David Bowie and whether one could ever forgive him for Tin Machine, Blue Jean, his appearance on Rove Live and Extras, etc, etc so without further ado, and after some 25 years of careful deliberation and research, I herewith present to you David Bowie’s Top Five Albums of All Time:
1. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
2. Diamond Dogs
3. (somewhat controversially) Hunky Dory
4. Scary Monsters
5. Low (with Aladdin Sane a close sixth).
OK - glad that issue is finally settled.
Time to move on and eliminate world poverty.
So, it seems to DJ Abs that the fundamental failure with most developing nations is not just a lack of resources (after all the greatest resource of all is people) but the failure of government within those nations. And without reforms to that government, these economies will never get off the ground.
Development aid is important - no doubt. But there is a growing body of evidence that suggests development aid is not enough and indeed, in some African countries, extreme poverty and associated measures such as life expectancy, infant mortality, literarcy, etc have been going backwards despite increases in aid over the last two decades.
Going back to the Magna Carta, it seems an important, if not an essential pre-cursor to any successful economy that it has a stable government supported by a strong independent legal system that secures basic human rights, including private property rights. If people are going to build houses, grow crops, work hard, etc they need to have the confidence that their private property rights will be respected and enforced.
You only have to look at Zimbabwe to see how quickly a society can be destroyed by the absence of a functioning legal system. DJ Abs visited Zimbabwe just over 10 years ago and let me tell you groovers it was the jewel of Africa. Black and white living prosperously in peace. A modern, first world nation. Clean water, traffic lights, shopping centres, parks, schools, nightclubs - the whole kit & caboodle.
And then Mugabe started acquiring land without compensation, setting prices by executive fiat, printing money to prop up his power base and pay his government and the economy collapsed. An entire nation destroyed was within a matter of years with 80% unemployment and millions left starving.
So how do we encourage corrupt, lawless, despotic nations to reform themselves in a way that will enable their countries to get off the poverty line and develop economically and sustainability.
Well – it is hard and probably unethical to simply externally impose a system of government on a nation even if its leadership sucks.
What I propose (and have been proposing for some time) is to look at a way of gently and slowly encouraging reform from within. The way to do this is by making developing nations comply with a basic set of human rights as a condition of access to the world trading community.
These rights would be set out in a simple document which I call a World Constitution. Compliance with the World Constitution will be a pre-requisite to access the world trading community.
The rights in this World Constitution need not be complex or detailed. I’ll quote my man Barak Obama on the key ones: the right to free speech, the right to worship how or if we wish, the right to peaceably assemble or to petition the government; the right to own, buy and sell property and not have it taken without fair compensation; the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures; the right not to be detained by the state without due process; the right to a fair and speedy trial; and the right to make our own determinations, with minimal restrictions regarding family life and the way we raise our children.
Most would consider these rights universal and indeed many are currently enshrined in the UN Charter of Human Rights (which many nation states have already agreed to).
But where my idea differs from others is its needs to be more than a well meaning statement of nothing.
For a start, all nations will need to comply with this Constitution to be accepted to the World Trade Organisation or similar federal trading body. And if, over time, a nation fails to comply with the Constitution, it needs to run the risk of enforcement action in the form of economic sanctions or ultimately expulsion from that community. And to prevent abuse and ensure legitimacy, such enforcement action should only be taken with approval of a World Court - a Court independently constituted by eminent jurists to adjudicate on compliance with the Constitution (similar to America’s Supreme Court or Australia’s High Court).
This might all sound like pie in the sky stuff but there are precedents for this idea.
After all the United States of America is a federation of smaller states built on a constitution that contained all these rights. It is no small coincidence that it is now the largest economy in the world - an economy built by impoverished immigrants and outcasts from Europe (which was then way and beyond the most powerful economic block in the world). In my view, America’s Constitution, its Supreme Court and its system of government helped secure and enforce the basic human rights necessary for economic development.
Turkey is another good example. It is transforming itself into a modern, secular and tolerant society and developing rapidly. A key reason for this is its leaders understand Turkey’s economic future lies with admission to the European Union. And the EU will not tolerate breaches of human rights amongst its member states. So Turkey’s improvement in human rights is partly motivated by its desire to join the European Union.
Indeed, what I am suggesting already happens to a limited extent through the United Nations. Nations seek to impose sanctions on errant nations such as Zimbabwe or Burma because of human rights abuses but any action gets bogged down in inter world politics precisely because there is no clear, independent and objective way to adjudicate on these human rights abuses.
A World Constitution would provide that legitimacy.
It would also provide a powerful incentive for despots and human rights abusers around the world to lift their game. What the Mugabe’s and the Kim Jong’s recognise (and if they don’t, their supporters ultimately will), is that their survival, and that of their nations, depends on economic prosperity. And that won’t happen without trading access to the wealthier nations of the world (forget what some anti-globalisation people may have told you - time and time again the evidence strongly suggests poorer nations have the most to gain from free trade with wealthier nations).
The other benefit of a World Constitution is that the more a country’s economic fates is tied to its trading partners, and the more interaction and trade between them, the less the prospects of war. The chances of the United Kingdom, Germany or France ever engaging in major war again are virtually nil and the European Union is a powerful reason for that. The same with the United Nations (or States) of America.
So there you have it – how to permanently eliminate world poverty.
The problem is not just lack of resources – there are ample resources to feed the world - but lack of basic functioning legal systems and human rights in many developing nations. A World Constitution – a set of basic human rights that all nations are required to comply with - is one way of encouraging the necessary changes to enable these economies to grow and develop. And for those of you that think there aren’t sufficient resources to feed the world, I remind you the number one health issue in the developed world is obesity – hardly a sign of food shortages. I am fond of saying we live with the ridiculous irony that about half the world worries about eating too much whilst the other half worries about getting enough to eat.
It is time to fix that problem.
Until next time Groovers,
Peace, Love, Respect and Amen.
DJ Abs
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