In an op-ed in today's New York Times entitled "Up With Egypt" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/opinion/09friedman.html), Thomas Friedman, writing from Cairo, attempts to make the case that the protests in Egypt derive from poverty, and that this poverty results "from a system in which a few people have gotten fantastically rich, in giant villas, and everyone else has stagnated." Friedman proceeds to compare the calm in China with the current chaos in Egypt:
"China deprives its people of political rights, but at least it gives them a rising standard of living. Egypt deprived its people of political rights and gave them a declining standard of living.
That is why this revolt is primarily about a people fed up with being left behind in a world where they can so clearly see how far others have vaulted ahead. "
What Tom forgets to mention (numbers from the CIA World Factbook):
China's population growth rate:
0.494% (2010 est.)
country comparison to the world: 153
Egypt's population growth rate:
1.997% (2010 est.)
country comparison to the world: 58
"Small" difference, huh, Tom? With or without Mubarak, there is no way for Egypt to emerge from its crushing poverty until the birth rate in that country comes down.
Hi, Jeffrey
ReplyDeleteit appears, you explain Egypt's poverty by high "growth rate". Is this a common knowledge that high growth rate causes poverty? I thought, it may be another way around.
What is "country comparison to the world" here?
I find the quote funny: "system in which a few people have gotten fantastically rich, in giant villas, and everyone else has stagnated". You wrote here that Friedmah himself has huge estate, while most of other people in USA are "stagnated". I guess, he has nothing against the system here.