For years, developed economies have been teaching poor countries what to do to improve their economies. Often referred to as the “Washington Consensus”, we have been telling developing countries that they are poor because they engage in too much industrial policies such as higher taxes and subsidies. They need to be free, go to the free market. Don’t be like Argentina, be like Singapore.
The latest article of Scott Lincome points out that now developed economies are adopting these anti-growth policies:
I guess you could argue that we have changed our minds about industrial policies. But we still tell developing countries like China to lower trade barriers and subsidize producers.
PS. This comment on The Economist catch my eye:
The Economist, using data from the Manifesto Project, a research group, examined the ratio of positive and negative discussions of free enterprise in the manifestos of political parties in 35 Western countries from 1975 to 2021, the most recent year available (see chart 1). We used a five-year average and left out parties that won less than 5% of the vote. In the 1990s deregulation, privatization, free trade and other business-friendly policies were praised almost twice as much as they were criticized. Now politicians are more likely to reject these ideas than to celebrate them.
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