Freedom Line Blog

Last week, President Obama made the surprising announcement that Dartmouth University President Jim Yong Kim — a relatively obscure figure — was his nominee to become the next President of the World Bank, the international organization that works to spur economic development throughout the world. Thanks to some careful digging by the NYU Development Research Institute, we’re now learning a bit more about Jim’s views — and the details are a little startling. The Ivy League executive seems to think of economic growth as a zero-sum game — and one in which the developed world has been consistently sticking it to the little guys. A few excerpts from his writing:

… the quest for growth in GDP and corporate profits has in fact worsened the lives of millions of women and men.

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Using Cuba as an example, Chapter Thirteen makes the case that when leaders prioritize social equity and the fundamental right of all citizens to health care, even economically strapped governments can achieve improved and more equitable health outcomes.

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… [G]rowth – the market-led economic growth sought by governments, the growth in profits celebrated by businesses, and the growth in power and influence of transnational financial and corporate interests – often comes at the expense of the disenfranchised and vulnerable…  As the imperatives of growth at any cost increasingly determine economic and social policy and the behavior of global corporations, more people join the ranks of the poor and greater numbers suffer and die.

And if this isn’t bad enough, the final passage cited by the NYU group finds Jim quoting Noam Chomsky.

Dinesh D’Souza caught a lot of flak for positing in his book, “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” that the president’s ideology could be traced largely to the Kenyan anti-colonialism of his father. While I think that D’Souza overstated the case rather severely, instances like this one remind us of the germ of truth to his argument.

Whether Obama is decrying a world where international negotiations were “just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy” or picking a new World Bank President who seems to find the very practice of capitalism predatory, there seems to be a consistent suspicion that someone somewhere is being victimized. Should Jim Yong Kim become the head of the World Bank, it will be the people of the developing world — caught in the downward economic spiral that always accompanies attempts at implementing “social justice” — who will be the victims.

As commemorations and retrospectives continue to accompany the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birth, the far left is taking its chance to recycle the anti-Reagan propaganda it’s had to keep on ice for the last quarter century. And when it comes to radical revisionism, no one’s better that MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, the dean of wise old leftists insulated from reality by the tenure system.

In an appearance on the program “Democracy Now”, Chomsky offered this summation of the Reagan Legacy:

 “What happened after Reagan left office was the beginnings of an effort to carry out – this Reagan legacy to try to create from this really quite miserable creature as some kind of deity and amazingly it succeeded,” Chomsky said. “I mean, Kim Il-sung would have been impressed. The events that took place when Reagan died, the Reagan legacy, this Obama business – you don’t get that in free societies. It would be ridiculed. What you get it is in totalitarian states.”

Apart from the fact that this world-renowned linguist has all the syntactical finesse of a five year old, what’s most telling is Chomsky’s bogeyman invocation of totalitarianism. Remind us again, Noam, what was your role in bringing down the Soviet Union? And what is it exactly that Hugo Chavez finds so appealing about your books?