In a world of plenty, want abounds. To blame are big corporations, international trade and open markets, according to demonstrators who have been attacking the World Trade Organization.
They couldn't be more wrong. Economic liberty offers the world's poor the best hope for a better future.
For decades, Third World nations shared the protesters' aversion to free markets. Countries chose state-run development strategies in an attempt to accelerate economic growth. The result was disaster. Economies collapsed. Societies dissolved. Countries imploded. Small, wealthy elites prospered at the expense of the impoverished masses.