Herbert E. Meyer says in his book "The Cure of Poverty" That the Free Market is the cure of poverty.That’s because According to Meyer the Free Market is the only environment in which entrepreneurs can flourish. And it’s the entrepreneurs – and only the entrepreneurs -- who create the jobs that lift us all out of poverty.
Let’s begin at the beginning:
The dictionary defines entrepreneur as “a person who organizes and manages a business undertaking, assuming the risk for the sake of the profit.” When we think of entrepreneurs, we tend to think of famous people like Bill Gates of Microsoft, or Apple’s Steve Jobs. But that nice man who lives down the street, and who opened a new auto repair shop last month, is also an entrepreneur. So is the woman who stopped by your house yesterday to see if you might be interested in buying some of those fancy cookies she’s baked, or that couple you hired last month to paint your house. Farmers are entrepreneurs, and so are dentists. So’s the kid next door who mows your lawn. In short, anyone who launches any kind of business whatsoever – who sells goods or services and who doesn’t have an income until someone purchases these goods or services – is an entrepreneurb (Herbert E. Meyer,Cure Of Poverty).
Why do some countries have entrepreneurs while others don’t? It’s for the same reason there’s life here on Earth and none on the moon: Life requires a specific atmosphere to support it – nitrogen, oxygen, traces of argon and carbon dioxide with some water vapor. We have that kind of atmosphere here on Earth; the moon doesn’t (Herbert E. Meyer,Cure Of Poverty).
The “atmosphere” that entrepreneurs require to survive and flourish is called the Free Market. The Free Market is comprised of property rights, the rule of law, a modest level of taxation, competent regulation, and a government that protects its citizens by assuring the country’s defense while doing the everyday things a government is supposed to do, such as building roads and bridges, operating schools, and delivering the mail (Herbert E. Meyer,Cure Of Poverty).
Because the Free-Market “atmosphere” that entrepreneurs require to survive and flourish is political and economic – rather than chemical, like the Earth’s atmosphere – there’s no one formula that any competent technician can look up in a textbook and then follow. Maintaining this “atmosphere” – monitoring it constantly and making the adjustments needed to sustain it as political and economic conditions change -- is as much an art as a science. It takes a combination of technical knowledge, hard work, vision, and that unquantifiable “gut feel” for what to do and when to do it (Herbert E. Meyer,Cure Of Poverty).
I wish to agree with Mr Meyer in that the environment or atmosphere in which the freemarket flourishes promotes entreprenuership.But The free market is flawed,because the premise it is based on is also flawed.The free market will not produce goods which have no exclusivity (goods whose benefit can be enjoyed by people who havent paid directly for it e.g roads,streetlights).Yet many would say that is the job of Government and I would understand their line of reasoning.
But Economics is fundamentally flawed.It is based on the premise or assumption that wants are unlimited and resources are scarce.This is flawed because it bases economics on "WANTS" but when we talk of poverty, people lack basic "NEEDS" which are limited.The free market works in the same way, it provides products for peoples "wants" such as luxury goods yet it wont produce clothes(basic need) for people who cant afford to pay them immediately.This applies to medicines as well,a key factor for making drugs is the property rights protection.If a pharmacuetical spends money on making a new drug,it would not want to give it for free because of the costs of making it,which is only logical but flawed when there are people who need that drug but are unable to pay for it immediately.
"Take one reflective look at the planet and you easily come to terms with the extravagant abundance of creation. From the abundance of sunlight to that of mineral resources in the earth, you realize that whereas people might be poor, the planet is not poor! The universe is in fact teeming and saturated with abundance of resources and provisions. This goes to show that the Creator never meant for man to be poor." (Rev Wildfire D-Favour,The Cure Of Poverty).
Poverty is much deeper than the absence of cash. As a matter of fact, the chronic lack of money is just one of the various manifestations of poverty. Poverty is essentially the inability to realize the fullness of one’s potentials in time and space (Rev Wildfire D-Favour,The Cure Of Poverty).
What we need in Africa and the rest of the world where people are suffering, is not more financial aid from rich donor countries, but rather a greater capacity for self-determination; a greater level of personal responsibility (Rev Wildfire D-Favour,The Cure Of Poverty).
I must also appreciate Rev Wildfire D-Favour's view on the Cure Of Poverty.Though my only disagreement is that he chooses to define poverty as a spiritual problem.His answers for the solution seem like vague motivational quotes for an individual.Never the less his views are well apreciated.
What I wish to attempt to do,though rather pragmatically is to find the cure for poverty in more practical terms.For I strongly believe that the cure for poverty can be found through academic research and empirical evidence.
This is part of a series I will be running on the cure of poverty..stay tuned for the next edition.
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