A Million Paths to Peace is an article in TCS Daily about the growing acceptance of trade in progressive circles as a positive contributor to poverty reduction.
Something extraordinary is happening in global development circles. For the first time since the 19th century, progressive activists are embracing trade as positive tool for change. The global NGO Oxfam is the latest progressive interest group to change its tune. It has launched a campaign to end agricultural subsidies in the developed world.
This could represent a fundamental turning of the tide from a world based on nationalism and violence to a world based on commerce and peace.
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Because Oxfam has widespread credibility among the activist community, even their tentative support for the benefits of free enterprise may be a more important turning point for global peace than the hard work of those isolated classical liberals who continued to work for peace while being ignored or insulted for the past hundred years. The next step for Oxfam and other progressive activists, if they are serious about creating a peaceful world and alleviating global poverty, is to work more comprehensively towards economic freedom. Just as those who opposed economic freedom in the 20th century should rightly be held responsible for creating the conditions leading to war and mass starvations, so too those who oppose economic freedom in the 21st century should be held responsible for creating conditions leading to war and mass starvation. If a global activist movement that pressured nations to increase their Fraser Index ranking was effective, we might well achieve global peace in our lifetimes.
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