The small restaurant I had lunch at today has wireless internet access. Mind you, this was not in a Sheraton hotel, but in the crowded, narrow alley filled with tailors, shoemakers, and other little types of businesses--that is, a typical developing world alley.
I don't normally travel with my laptop, since I like to go light, so it's no benefit to me. But it clearly was to the two patrons checking their email and scanning the news.
Once upon a time I thought that capitalism was bad...but then I hadn't yet studied economics or travelled to Damascus. I am more and more amazed all the time at the power of markets and the entrpreneurial spirit, and at the ways the market works to the benefit of average people.
5 comments:
James, great posts... I look forward to the full debrief on your return.
cheers,
Jim M.
Nothing gives you an appreciation for markets like the study of them.
After all Ronald Coase was a Fabian socialist as a student, until he studied economics at least.
I love Coase. I've read "The Problem of Social Costs" 3 times, and while I get lost in the middle of his argument each time, so that I can't quite follow his logic, I get the concept, which remains endlessly fascinating to me.
Jim, how did you happen to find my blog?
James,
I found it through a post you did on Dispatches a while back.
J
I'm bringing you a gift--some kind of Damascene insect that died in my hotel bathroom.
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