St. Maximos' Hut

There is a really fine column on the new World Bank report "Where is the wealth of nations?" at Tech Central Station by Tim Worstall.
He sets out in clear language the case for free trade:

The poor countries must industrialize in order to be adding value, so that they can feed themselves, grow, without entirely consuming the environment around them. While there is debate about exactly how this should be encouraged as was shown at the United Nations last week there is something simple that we can do to encourage it. Yes, our old friend, free trade. Not managed trade, not fair trade, not trade except in those things that we produce, but pure, simple, free trade. The benefits that flow to the poor countries are but a side effect, for free trade makes us richer ourselves, must do or we wouldn't indulge in it.

My favorite bit is his dissection of a report by the British newspaper The Guardian on Norway's success at being a nice place to live (according to a UN report). The Guardian said:

If they could bottle and sell their secret to the rest of us, Norwegians would be even richer than they are already.

Worstall's response:

Bottle it? Well, as that figure for resource consumption shows us, actually they barrel it. It's called oil. As Odin (which is I think a wonderful name for part of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) points out:
"In 2001 petroleum-linked activities made up almost 23 per cent of the GDP, while manufacturing accounted for 9 per cent."
Which leads, I think, to an interesting conclusion about the criteria that the UN uses to determine what is a good place to live, what it is that makes a nation the ne plus ultra of the human experience, similarly something that is to be praised when viewed from Planet Guardian. It's OK, admirable even, to rape Gaia, deplete the Earth's precious natural resources, boil the planet and drown Bangladesh as long as you have free child care while you do so.