Bird Dog has already commented on the Left's upside-down understanding of economics in which it is assumed that the rich gain their wealth only through taking from others. While this "zero-sum" fallacy usually arises in the context of domestic issues, enterprising Leftists have employed it in an international context as well: see, for example, any of Bono's or Bob Geldof's commentary on Africa, or the lovable George Galloway, who recently remarked that India's economy is growing so rapidly only because it is making up ground that it was "not allowed to occupy" during colonialism.
Galloway is not worth paying any attention to, of course, but even The Dylanologist's old political science professor back in college gave a similar explanation for why the economies of Africa had failed to make any gains in prosperity since independence (it was because those nasty colonialists built railroads to serve resource exploitation rather than domestic growth, in case you were wondering. And no, do not ask how the countries would have been more productive without any railroads at all).
The irony of the views of virulently anti-Western politicians such as Galloway is that they necessarily must cast the nations of Western Europe as all-powerful entities, capable of holding entire nations hostage to their will, while India and the nations of Africa are reduced to passive and helpless actors who can only be what the nations of Europe let them be. This point of view is hardly less patronizing than anything dreamed up by 19th century colonialists.
The truth? As Bird Dog has mentioned, each nation must come to prosperity on its own terms: no poor nation ever grew wealthy through aid alone, nor have war and oppression ever been able to permanantly cripple an economically vigorous country.
Photo: The splendid Masai, who do not welcome Western condescension or pity.
