Economics focus: Unlikely revolutionaries

摘要

The cover carries a fresco by Diego Rivera, a Mexican revolutionary and artist. The text within bemoans the many ways, overt and covert, in which elites protect their interests and hold down the poor. In response, it advocates policies that will challenge the privileged and empower the disenfranchised. The World Bank's latest World Development Report (WDR), published this week, is heady stuff: more than 200 pages arguing that the Bank itself, as well as the governments it helps, should put "equity" at the forefront of their thinking. The WDR is not quite as radical as this sounds. By "equity", it means equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome (except that people who squander their opportunities entirely should be spared the worst of outcomes). A person's fate should be decided by effort, talent and luck, not race, caste, gender or inherited privilege. Philosophers will wonder why the talented, who did not earn their God-given abilities, deserve their rewards any more than the well-born, who did not choose their parents. Such cavils aside, there is little here to which a liberal could object.