Beyond Leadership: Balancing Economics, Ethics and Ecology, Revised Edition

Freedom to be Enterprising

Looking at First World and Third World in a unidimensional manner, we would associate the First World with freedom-seeking and the Third World with power-seeking as they remove the shackles of the old colonialist past. The First World country will possess typical multiparty political structures, while the Third World one will confine itself to one-party states. The First World is more open, while the Third World is more closed. Third Worlders typically talk about redistribution, the seizure of government, and the control over other people. First Worlders want to live and let live. Authoritarianism and rigid control is the hallmark of Third Worlders, and democracy and tolerance that of the First World. However, on a psycho-sociological axis, things might well look different.

During a trip to Dakar in Senegal, we could not help but watch the freedom to be enterprising at work. There were hawkers, taxi drivers, and backyard shoe manufacturers, all pursuing their self-interest and putting in efforts for desired rewards. But the economy at large was sick. Banks and factories had all been nationalized once freedom from France was achieved, and the country subsequently chose to move into poverty. Those hawkers and small entrepreneurs were First World people operating in a Third World country!

Mauritius, an island which suffered under socialist rule for too long, decided to liberalize its economy. It lowered foreign-owned company tax to 5 percent and individual ...