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Thursday, January 11, 2007

Eat the Rich

It often takes an outsider to distill the essence of something. P.J. O'Rourke on one page in Eat the Rich gives all the advice that the west ought to ever give on development. The secret to getting ahead is hard work, education, responsibility, rule of law, property rights and democratic government.

The way he gets there is a world tour of Wall Street (Good Capitalism), Albania (Bad Capitalism), Cuba (Bad Socialism), Sweden (Good Socialism), Russia (How not to reform an Economy), Tanzania (How to make Nothing from Everything), Hong Kong (How to make Everything from Nothing) and Shanghai (the worst of both Worlds). I am not sure if he would re write the chapter on Shanghai.

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