Do not dare to abandon the fight!

Sir, focusing too much on fighting inequalities might indeed hinder economic growth but that is by a far stretch not a valid reason to “abandon the fight” as Moisés Naím calls for, April 18. Naím, as a Venezuelan, should be aware that it was exactly because society ignored the inequalities that the right conditions were created for that destructive Tsunami that has it currently running totally amok. Today, instead of abandoning the fight what we need is for some good drill sergeants to teach the generals not to interfere with the productive initiatives of the private soldiers, and, when trying to achieve some reasonable distribution of the produced results, that they limit themselves to the use of the strategic weapons of taxing and public spending.

Unfortunately, in too many countries the generals, for political reasons, frequently want to show off as entrepreneurs and good hearted distributors of anticipated spoils of war, and in doing so they most often turn themselves into the greatest promoters of inequalities.

We need so urgently to make certain that the future is equally shared among all that we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted trying to distribute equally the past.

Sent to FT, April 21, 2006