Free Market Principles

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer notes that worldwide free market policies have been debated extensively for their help or hindrance in alleviating poverty, particularly in third-world countries. The writer points out that while some hold that the free market exists to provide all countries with the opportunity to compete worldwide and thus improve their economy, others hold that the policies related to this practice are fundamentally harmful for the economic development of specific countries. The writer maintains that both on a global scale and also in terms of simple humanity, it is without a doubt the ethical responsibility of the global rich to alleviate the suffering of the poor around the world. The writer concludes that rather than doing this via providing increasingly inadequate resources, a much more effective approach would be via a change in currently damaging policies.

From the Paper:

"In principle, the free market philosophy promotes worldwide democracy and an equal opportunity for all countries to participate in the world economy. In reality, however, it appears that the promotion of the free market is merely another tool for the richest to promote their own well-being to the detriment of the poorest. Malawi, as recently reported in the New York Times, seems to be a case in point in substantiating this argument. While both political and economics issues are at stake, the most important in the Malawi case is the focus on ethics. Ethical issues relate not only to the world market and the responsibilities of the rich toward the poor, but also to individual countries and how they are governed."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Dugger, Celia W. "Ending Famine, Simply by Ignoring the Experts". New York Times, December 2, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/world/africa/02malawi.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin
• Madsen, Peter. "Ethics and Policies Regulating Multinational Enterprise." H.J. Heinz School of public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University, 2001. http://www.spea.indiana.edu/tac/colloquia/2001/pdf/Madsen%20.pdf

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