International organizations, unions, blocks and associations are important political, security, economic and ideological institutions of the XXI-st century. The United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, NATO, European Union, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), OECD, WTO, NAFTA, World Economic Forum (Davos) and many other regional and global NGOs are not just dialogue platforms to facilitate the exchange of opinions for politicians, experts, economists and ideologues. They have become major institutions designed to shape international and domestic policies. Though they were thought to represent just interests of their individual members they grew considerably beyond their mandates.

As any complex bureaucracy, these organizations turned into the institutions that acquired and developed their own agendas. They went through the genesis similar to the state. Their founding fathers (politicians, businessmen and intellectuals) had noble ideas to make things better for the peoples of the world. They claimed to better living conditions, to improve security, to ensure sustainable development, to increase effectiveness of the countries’ economies and welfare systems and to make life on our planet fairer, freer and morally superior to the world without them. Heads and management of these organizations are not directly elected by the people. They are appointed by politicians and reportable to them. Having broad, ill-defined missions and inflated agendas, international nomenclature finds it easy to expand and ensure more money for their programs and projects. Since the end of the World War II the main international organizations (UN, IMF, World bank, GATT/WTO, EU) have turned into self-supporting, self-purporting and self-efficient institutions. Like a state, they began to influence decision makers on the national level. They distorted the incentive structure of policy makers, business community and civil society. Moreover, they have become strong promoters of a certain type of ideology, certain maxims that formed the framework for intellectual, philosophical, economic and political debate. On the first stage of forming international institutions their mission and ideology were shaped by intellectuals mainly from the USA and Europe. Later they themselves turned into powerful intellectual ideological centers that employed intellectuals from universities all over the world. They began to promote their own agenda as they had access to generous financial and media resources. The international organizations provided lucrative jobs not only for retired politicians from nation states but for economists, political scientists, sociologists and experts in other spheres. They became prestigious places to work for as salaries and social security packages were generous and responsibilities were quite vague. After a few decades of exponential growth UN, IMF, World Bank, EU, WTO and a few other international organizations began to influence policy shaping and policymaking on the nation state level.

            Similar to the state, very few people recall the original mission and raison d'etre of these organizations. The state was supported to provide protection from internal and external enemies and facilitate dispute and conflict resolution on a certain territory. However, states grew considerably in size and in scope of activities. The term “security”, “order” and “stability” were dramatically changed. Fears and risks were redefined allowing new approached to justice, freedom, the good and the bad. The emergence and development of welfare state and various forms of the totalitarian state (fascist, communist, religious fundamentalism) ensued the dominance of philosophy of statism and collectivism.

International organizations followed a similar pattern. Their agendas and missions were even more vaguely defined. Therefore, it was easier for their employees and leaders to adjust them to the need to expand activities and to require more funding from member states. The United Nations, OSCE and the Council of Europe demanded more attention and claimed to make more order in the area of security, democracy, fight with poverty, global governance and sustainable development. WTO claimed to free international trade and to ensure free movement of goods, services and finance. EU argued that it guaranteed the four freedoms: movement of goods, services, money and labor. IMF and World Bank argued that the financial system of the world and the world economic development in general without them would be hampered by unregulated chaotic impulses and decisions of the market. NATO keeps repeating that the world will be a much less secure and more vulnerable place without this political and military organization.

The mere existence of all these institutions presumed that people have limited intellectual capacity, blurred moral standards and restricted knowledge to know what is best for them, how to utilize the existing factors of production, how to defend their homes and property, how to balance their existence during the life span and how to tell the good from the bad. International intermediaries argue that national non-government organizations, business associations and ordinary citizens will not be able to neutralize risks and threats (allegedly, they are becoming more global). Besides, they believe that bilateral agreements and voluntary exchange of individuals is unlikely to utilize all the potential of the modern world in the sustainable mode. i. e. without hampering interests of future generations (as a rule such arguments are made without clear definition of these interests and how they will suffer).

            Federalization of the world and creating supranational institutions can also be viewed as an attempt of national and international bureaucracy to dilute responsibility and to divert attention of the people from real evil makers of the modern world both on the national and international level.

Back to basics: values, threats and on importance of thinking independently

M. Rothbard states that “ethics deals with standards of right and wrong, and principles of morality, duty and obligation”[1]. Ayn Rand defines ethics as a “code of values to guide man’s choices and actions – the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of life”[2]. In the beginning of the XXI-st century the statement of one of A. Rand major characters seems to be correct as ever. John Galt said to the interventionists and intellectuals that led his country to wide-scale crisis, “yes, this is an age of moral crisis… Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not to return to morality.. but to discover it”[3]. This appeal to discover morality in the modern society as acute as it was in the late 1950ies when “Atlas Shrugged” was published. The dominance of postmodernism makes our times the age of deep moral crisis when the good is neglected or ridiculed while the evil became relative and even pitiful.

            The answer to the question why a man needs values in the context of globalization and unprecedented historical information exchange is even more important today than in the XXth or earlier centuries. “Will of God”, “the good of the society” as a standard of the good and as the validation of the virtuous behavior have been tried many times in the course of history. Recently the good of the planet, its sustainable development and global justice have become new standards of morality for nation states and supranationals. This is the point of view of mainstream educational and cultural institutions.

It is quite confusing to have such highly aggregated concepts as the source, the standard and the criterion of ethics. It means that the people and institutions that act on behalf of the society and/or global world may do whatever they please as they define “the good” prior to their action or they can make amendments to the original plan at any moment they please.

            “The good of the planet” as well as “the welfare of the society” is expressed by policy makers, experts and whoever gets funding from nation states directly or via supra-state bodies. Hence, there is strong demand for interpreters of these notions, for the institutions that people view as guardians of ethics and the standards of value as presented by these interpreters. It is similar to the situation with religion. Christianity or Islam needs priests to interpret the Bible and Koran. Likewise, modern mantras (laws, concepts, programs) of many states and international organizations also require interpreters. Though we do not call them priests and we do not call their normative basis and theories a religion in many cases a man is supposed just to form a belief in opinions of lawyers, politicians, judges or experts in any other area of expertise.

In quite a few cases, the interpreters of ideologems and norms managed to establish the monopoly for the right to set the standards of value and their practical implementations (fascism, communism). History demonstrated the danger of such development. Once a subjective opinion of a person, his whim, instinct, feeling or taste becomes a standard of ethics, a behavioral norm or an economic pattern we face the danger of discriminating those who happen not to share these feelings, interpretations or opinions. The risks grow alongside with the increase of the powers of those who spread their standards of value upon more and more spheres of life. As the government keeps the monopoly over the initiation of the use of force and is empowered to make a case on behalf of the society the people who are elected or appointed to work for the government tend to expand their powers and to demand more money for their “benevolent”, “virtuous” actions. The power of interpretation turns into the power of discrimination. “Fair” price, “optimal” distribution, maximization of benefits and minimization of costs, social cohesion, social justice, civic duties and sustainable development – these are the clichés that are used to justify interventions into the voluntary exchange of individuals (production, trade, consumption, investment, protection, choices of life style and behavioral patters).

            Forcing individuals into a certain type of economic and social behavior requires laws, financial resources, enforcement structures and other institutions to monitor the status norms and standards enforcement. The more issues the government pledges to solve or to balance (whatever it means) the more intervention it makes into choice of individuals, the more resources are diverted into the projects that would have never been implemented without imposing such “ethical” standards and norms.

            A. Rand defines value as something that one acts to gain and/or to keep. “The concept “value” is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative”[4]. A man chooses to act to achieve his goals. He chooses to think or to act based on trust or on an instinct or a feeling. Thinking is not automatic. It is the faculty of choice. If a man is told that the government (a church, a global international organization) takes care of his needs and ensures his risk-free life he has a strong incentive not to think about theses issues. Instead, he channels his resources, time and energy into other actions that maximize his personal utility. In most cases, he does not realize or simply ignores the costs for the process of empowering other people to neutralize risks and threats as individuals as stated by interventionists. As costs are dispersed and are not felt right after the government received more powers to make decisions for a person there is no immediate revolt against it. Delegating authorities to take care of his security, stability, justice, fairness and sustainable development a man refuses to think for himself. He believes that values, ideas, feelings and standards of politicians, bureaucrats and experts (he does not know and have never met most of them) will deliver him better results at lower costs. He hopes that he would be able to reap more benefits at lower costs at the expense of the mystical structure called “government” as if it has its own resources different from the ones it took away from its citizens.

            A person knows relatively well the risks and threats that he can face in his every day life. He takes care of his personal property and belongings (measures against theft). He takes care of his health (warm clothes, diet and medicine). He invests into his skills and knowledge to be able to sell his labor and earn a living. He invests his energy and attention into his family (friends) in order to enjoy life and feel happy. These are clear activities as they are directed at meeting well-defined personal goals. In order to achieve them you do not need to delegate any powers to any body or institution on the level of a nation-state to say nothing of a supranational organization.

A person has a much vaguer idea about the nature of risks and threats that the government representatives talk about. Macroeconomic destabilization, recession, inflation, unbalanced income distribution, suboptimal resource allocation, energy delivery risks, cut throat competition or labor market disequilibrium – these are just a few examples of the definitions of risks and threats. They are used to urge an individual to transfer the right to make choices and to deal with them to the government. Once the government acquires much wider authorities than those connected directly with the protection of life and property and conflict resolution it turns into a self-sufficient entity with much bigger potential for manipulation and clear propensity to grow. It shapes and controls educational, information and ideological context in which a person makes choices. It forces a person to believe that the state is almost like a God-given “natural” institution that was set up alongside with Man to make the Earth a better place. As few people bother digging deep enough to track the origin of the state and its functions the mainstream vision and perception inspired by the state’s ideologues reigns supreme.

As a result, the state expands and takes over new areas of interest and expertise to neutralize more risks and threats. When a state fails to deliver, (collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist system in general is a clear case, deep crisis of the American economy in the late 1920-ies, severe recession in New Zealand in 1984 etc. or inability of the government to manage the economy in the late 1970ies in Great Britain) people demand reforms, a change in policies and stripping the government off its powers. As a rule the change of the ruling party and some key notorious public figures is the response of the state to the crisis. However, it happens quite rarely that people demand the abolition of the existing ideology, that they call the mainstream ideas and mechanism of their implementation bankrupt. It is even rarer that such revolution of ideas is offered by the state itself. Even the bloodiest, cruel and immoral system of communism and its underlying ideology is still awaiting its trial. Unlike fascism communism is still tolerated by democracies. Its proponents keep repeating that the ideas are right but the implementation was wrong. Hence, it deserves another chance or at least the presence in politics. There was just one serious attempt to condemn communist on the international level but it has not led to any meaningful actions yet[5].

Two world wars and the collapse of the Soviet system accelerated the search for new concepts to disguise interventionist practices and to legitimize the existence of a big government and the mechanisms to transfer powers from an individual to the collective bodies. In search for publicly appealing labels and solutions intellectuals and politicians went a way beyond the borders of nation states. They moved to a new level of conceptualization. Sustainable development, corporate social responsibility, global governance, ensuring equal sharing of the fruit of globalization, balancing global ecological system, social cohesion, building the sound system of global finance, balancing the North and South, taming the so-called golden billion, fight with terrorism, global security, solving the problem of digital divide – these are a few examples of the goals of the age of international organizations. This is how they shape the so-called global agenda.

A person is told that threats and challenges of the new millennium require empowering supranational bodies. They argue that only such structures can cope with modern threats and challenges. They want another expanded version of the world bureaucracy and push the nation states to form a Federation of the Planet Earth. Having failed on the level of the nation state and running out of plausible causes to keep their lucrative place in the economy and the society interventionists internationalized their efforts and came out with a new idea how to save their influence and powers alongside with the access to financial resources. As the goals become global, so the appetites of interventionists both from the national and supranational level grow. They demand more money to be transferred to international organizations, new taxes to be imposed on export – import operations and/or rich transnational corporation. People are poured torrents of information on the essence of new threats and risks: global warming (it was cooling in the 1970-ies) on the planet, genetically modified “death”, bird flu, mad cow disease, AIDS, radiation, pesticides, the depletion of ozone layer, deforestation, extinction of species – you name it. If somebody is not persuaded to pass his powers and money to the national and international governments and organizations he is urged to think about terrorism, the danger of using chemical and biological weapons by rogue states or fundamentalists. Today fears, threats, risks and challenges became so complex and incomprehensible that a person who wants to make his own choices to reduce the risks of living is marginalized and discriminated against by the frightened majority. The nation states and international organizations begot so much tension and so many grudges in so many parts of the world that many people genuinely believe that only the state and the organizations like UN, OSCE or NATO are solutions to the mounting problems.

            A person is told to abandon reason and to rely on faith to the national government and “benevolent” and caring international institutions. Interventionists want a person to believe that the modern world has become too complex to identify the essence of its basic concepts. They want a person to voluntarily choose not to think, not to look up for the meaning of words and phenomena, not to discover real cause and effect relations of the modern world. As thinking is not an automatic function, interventionists apply all possible sticks and carrots to force a person to abandon thinking in favor of arbitrary decision making of the government and international organizations. The philosophy of postmodernism and nihilism, deconstructionism, post-culturalism, relativism of the good and the evil became the environment for keeping and expanding interventions into the economy and society.

Earlier a person was told that the state would change his life for the better. It would make him richer, happier, healthier from cradle to grave. Development economics promised to make it as fast as possible. Now a person is told that that he is not capable of telling the right from wrong, discovering the nature of the state and his own place in the globalizing world. Witch doctors of the past hailed the state as a panacea against poverty, injustice, discrimination and depressions. Hence they made people pay for this panacea as the best means to survive and flourish. They failed miserably having left dozens of countries with huge structural problems, high unemployment, polluted environment and immoral behavioral patterns.

Witch doctors of the XXI-st century promote self-annihilation, self-denial and self-dissolution in the modern “cynic” world or in the cyber space. Hence, they make people pay for anonymous institutions and organizations. They argue that these structures somehow keep things running at least until we all die. They have not delivered any practical results yet. They just came out with Millennium Development Goals[6] which is a kind of Christmas wish list for taxpayers of the world to pay for the years to come.

Inability of mainstream scholars, economists, political scientists and sociologists to grasp the meaning of the ongoing processes resulted in their rejection of reality as it is. Their escapism in political sphere resulted in promoting federalization of the world, empowering existing inter-state and supra state structures and international non-government organizations on the one hand and the rejection of political activism as such on the other. Mainstream mass media, pop culture and educational institutions are dominated by the creed of anti-value, anti-reason and anti-conscience. Internet added much to creating a sort of parallel “reality” for many people who were confused by the complexity of the modern world and the abundance of information. They were disgusted by politicians and existing political institutions and escaped into cyber space where their reality can be customized. This kind of behavior also benefited modern interventionists and their ideologues. Instead of appealing to reason, promoting adequate methods and ways to understand the meaning of new data they urge people to either rely on national and supranational bodies and their ethical and civic guidance or to ignore politics all together.

            Collectivist ethics states that a man should live for something that goes beyond his own life. The ethics of individualism argues that a human being is the end in himself, not the means to the ends or welfare of others. That is why a man should live for his own sake, “neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself”[7]. It means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose. Declaring happiness as the moral purpose contradicts modern mainstream philosophers and ideologues. Happiness is a joy without penalty or guilt, the joy that does not clash with any values a man holds nor does it lead to his own destruction. Collectivists want happiness not to a concrete person but the aggregate “planet” or “global society”.

Moral government? Still a metaphor rather than a fact

Today post-modernist culture vehemently rejects happiness as a moral purpose and the right of a man to choose his own goals. On the one hand, it argues that a man should sacrifice himself for the sake of higher moral goals set forth either by the nation state or by international organizations. On the other hand, ideologues and politicians want a man to believe that the best way to achieve his goals is to sacrifice his money (taxes) and delegate his powers to them.

            Each person gains from living in a human society. Trade and knowledge are two biggest values of social existence. If a man is told to abandon thinking and his own goals for the sake of the goals of “higher order”, if he is urged to sacrifice his resources to the government and international organizations and he yields to this pressure he loses the ability of critical thinking, gaining information and processing it. Relying on the institutions that operate at the expense of taxpayers, he limits his capacity to gain from free trade, knowledge and information exchange. Hence following the pattern of modern interventionists enables the few to live at the expense of the majority by a combination of force (the state) and propaganda with PR.

            Another benefit of living in the society is the division of labor. Openness of the world definitely adds much value to the life of a man. He specializes in certain areas of economic activities and gains more knowledge and skills. His productivity grows and he can get more value in the process of voluntary exchange. A man maximizes his production potential in a country when its government does not interfere with his economic activities and does not impose its goals on him. The bigger the area where the principles of laissez faire capitalism (it is defined as a system of decentralized decision-making) are applied the more beneficial the social cooperation is. Such systems result in more happy people who meet their own personal goals at the lowest possible cost. They benefit the people who are productive, rational, knowledgeable and independent. Parasites, spongers, brutes and moochers suffer and tend to change their behavioral patters in such society.

As a capitalist society rewards people for hard work, perseverance, knowledge, the ability to continuously satisfy customers, civility and honesty we consider a capitalist society moral. A person who chooses to initiate brute force against others or who lies or cheats on his partners is either imprisoned or fined or condemned by the people. On the contrary a person who is productive, honest, knowledgeable and treats others with respect and dignity is awarded with both materials gains and the approval of the society.

Hence, any international institution or an organization that promotes good capitalism practices, free trade, protection of property rights and individual goal setting is ethical and moral. If it deprives a man of the right to act for his own sake, deliberately distorts the incentive structure and the information that is used by a man to make individual decisions then such international organizations are immoral. They hamper social development and prevent individuals from achieving their personal goals. Moral governments and supranational bodies abide by laws of praxeology and economics. They recognize scarcity as a fundamental human condition and private property rights as a device to coordinate the actions of individuals constrained by scarcity[8]. They protect liberty and set equal conditions for every man to pursue his own goals, to be happy in his own way. They do not discriminate against the volume of wealth, a country of registration or origin of the capital, form of property or any other factor that can be arbitrarily chosen by politicians and bureaucrats.

            There are few governments in the world that we can call moral against the mentioned above criteria. The quality of the government services can be measured with the help of a few sets of indicators. The first set of them is presented by the World bank in its report “A Decade of measuring the quality of governance. Governance matters 2006[9]”. The World bank’s experts  use six criteria: 1) voice and accountability, 2) political stability and violence, 3) government effectiveness, 4) regulatory quality, 5) rule of law, 6) control of corruption. The countries that have ratings better than in 75% of the countries and more are coded in green color by the authors of the report. The leaders of the world in terms of governance are Iceland, Finland, New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway and Luxemburg. These countries have better indicators at all six factors than at least 90% of the world. If we expand the list and include the courtiers that are better than 75% of the world then the following countries will be added to it: Andorra, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, Lichtenstein, Malta, Portugal, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Gren., Sweden. Hence, we can say that based on the governance criteria 21 countries of the world can be qualified as moral. However it is just the first pillar of morality.

The second factor is economic freedom. The ingredients of economic freedom are “personal choice, voluntary exchange coordinated by markets, freedom to enter and compete in markets, protection of persons and their property from aggression by others”. It is the definition of Frazer Institute and Cato Institute[10]. Let’s take the countries that have economic index 7.5 points and above (19 countries). They are Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, United States, Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, Iceland, Luxemburg, Australia, Austria, Estonia, Finland, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Germany and Japan.

            We assume that the countries that are in both groups ensure political and economic liberty, rule of law, participation of citizens in shaping the policy of the state. Besides their governments provide the best value for the taxpayers’ money. It means that the state lets a person make a free choice himself and take responsibility for it. Therefore, the system that acts like that can be called moral as it implies voluntary exchange and absence of coercion or rather its limited scope (the state is allowed to initiate force in politically and economically free countries to protect citizens and to ensure law enforcement).

We call the activities of the governments of these countries moral based on a rather loose criterion. If we make it just a bit stricter and take into account the volume of government expenditures the list becomes much shorter. Based on the two criteria – governance and economic freedom the list includes just 10 countries in the whole world: Iceland, Finland, New Zealand, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Ireland and Japan. Policy makers and political elite of these countries operate in open competitive environment. They let their people get involved into voluntary exchange with minimal interference. They promise to produce certain services and they deliver. However if we take another valid criterion to define a government and its activities as moral – the size of government expenditures (let’s take government expenditures 30% of GDP as a threshold) the list shortens much. The countries that would be disqualified from the list are Iceland (total tax revenues to GDP in 2005 – 42.4%[11]), Finland (44.5%), New Zealand (36.6%), Luxemburg (37.6%), Austria (41.9%), Canada (33.5%) and Denmark (49.7%). Based on these two criteria the only three pure moral governments in the world are in Japan (26.4%), Switzerland (30%) and with a slight deviation Ireland (30.5%). If we take as an additional criterion not the tax revenues but general expenditures of the government than the number of purely moral governments in the world shrinks just to one. The name of the champion is Ireland. In 2005, the government had 1% GDP budget surplus. The two other countries that qualified to be moral based on the criterion of tax revenues are disqualified as their governments spend more than 30% of GDP. Hence, the Irish government is the only government in the world that can be called moral based on the criteria of governance, economic freedom and the volume of economic decisions that an individual makes himself without being forces to delegate them to a central body of power.

Coalition of immoral institutions

This classification enables us to make a far-reaching conclusion about the nature of the modern world, the policies of nation-states and international organizations. Firstly, it is big dangerous myth that liberalism as ideology and capitalism as the political system have won in the modern world. It is a grave mistake to say that the history has ended and peoples and governments of the world choose capitalism i. e. the most moral and productive social economic system. The reality is far from that. Various forms of interventionism still prevail both on the nation state level. The ideology of redistribution through the state is as popular as ever. The world is becoming freer very slowly[12]. Forms of intervention and labels that hide them change but neither on the national level nor on the international level strong institutional barriers against unethical policies were abolished.

Secondly, most international institutions and organizations have not contributed to the moral behavior of nation states. They themselves turned into big tax consumers from nation states. The agenda of UN, IMF, World Bank, OECD, EU and other supranational structures and international organizations prove that they support a big state, a complex government regulation and high taxes i. e. stripping an individual off his power to produce, exchange, save and manage independently. They believe in market failures and are quite reluctant to acknowledge the government failure to correct them. The expansion of the internationals that began to consume more and more tax money from the nation states did not lead to the reduction of the size of the national governments. Moreover, the national governments grew in size during the last 30 years[13] without any clear indicators of better services that they provide for the people. Supranational bodies were supposed to solve global problems (peace, stability, democracy, poverty) but they failed to deliver. The improvement of living standards throughout the world, on poverty reduction was due to empowering people on the ground rather than international organizations’ employees in Washington DC, Geneva or Brussels. Since 1945, the world has been only 26 days without wars[14]. The UN that was supposed to prevent conflicts and punish aggressors but its impact on the state of the world security was almost non-existent. IMF and World Bank were supposed to bring stability to the world financial systems and to ensure fast development and growth of poor countries. In reality, the methods of achieving these goals (extensive foreign aid, copying western government practices of wealth redistribution, production and trade regulation by developing countries, active application of monetary and fiscal tools, extensive government investment programs etc.) did not prevent crises, depressions and huge structural misbalances from happening.

Thirdly, the rise of the big state and big supranationals created a dangerous coalition of anti-market, anti-enlightenment and anti-freedom forces that are immoral and have a high propensity to further centralize powers and prevent an individual from making his own choices. UN, OECD, EU, IMF, World Bank, Council of Europe, OSCE and many other institutions predominantly support redistributive practices, interventionist agenda and big states. They distrust markets – hence, the ability of individuals to make choices and to bear responsibility for them. Ultimately, they contrast property rights with human rights and believe that the former should be restricted to guarantee the latter. It is one of the most dangerous and grave mistakes that lead most supranational to support interventionist in various forms and shapes hence applying immoral practices, punishing for achievements and rewarding for inefficiencies, laziness and poor services to the consumer. The supranationals played a major role in saving the ideology of socialism and interventionism. They provided new labels, publicly appealing slogans and better-worded policy proposals to essentially keep the powers (money, assets, land, natural resources) in the hands of governments. In fact, they have become a kind of multi-faced ideological ministry for nation states. It would be difficult to carry on pursuing the interventionist policies after so many failures to achieve the declared goals for such a long period of time. Instead of making the world a better place and ensure setting up or strengthening the institutions that protect an individual in his making a choice without any coercion the supranationals focus on redistribution and immoral practices on depriving or narrowing the scope of an individual’s choice. The only exception is the organizations and institutions that state clearly in their mission and charters that they stand up for protection of property rights, entrepreneurship, individual liberties, free trade and capitalism – and they act accordingly. They are CATO, Heritage Foundation, Atlas Economic Research Foundation, Center for International Private Enterprise, Mont Perelin Society and a few more (they can be found in the list of friends and partners of these organizations on their web sites) that act beyond their national borders. However, their scope of activities, the place in decision-making and the impact on the policies of the national governments and supranationals prove that the world is still heavily dominated by their ideological adversaries.

Lessons ignored

The modern international institutions and organizations clearly ignore the lessons of well-known economists and thinkers Murray Rothbard and Bertrand de Jouvenel. The former in his book “The ethics of liberty” and latter - in his publication “The Ethics of Redistribution” described clearly the ethics of a moral system or an institution. B. de Jouvenel warned about the complexity of mechanisms to distribute wealth from the rich to the poor and the consequences of such practices[15]<. The system of land and asset redistribution through the government was supposed to bring the new order of brotherly love but it led to the creation of brutal immoral totalitarian states. Destruction of private property or its severe restriction to create a just society led to the expansion of corrupt practices, gray economy, nepotism and graft. Instead of aristocracy and discrimination based on the birth and belonging to a certain social group the countries faced the discrimination based on the allegiance to the declared moral principles of communist builders. Socialist practices that were supposed to lead to the extinction of the state resulted in the creation of omnipotent totalitarian state with even more antagonisms than before. The theory of redistribution based on the two ethic propositions – unjust under-consumption and unjustly high level of consumption – was tested in economic policies and institutional arrangements both on the national and international levels. There is no empirical evidence to prove that the interventionist system generated more wealth, more equality or more happiness. At the same time there is much evidence to prove the opposite. It is proved by such different publications as the latest “Economic Freedom of the World Report 2006”[16] and “The Happy Planet Index”[17]. The former gives convincing evidence that the system based on personal choice, voluntary exchange coordinated by markets, freedom to enter and compete in markets and the protection of persons and property from aggression of others is not just economically superior but it generates much better social outcomes: more jobs, longer lives, lower infant mortality, much higher income level of the poorest 10% of the population in economically free countries compared to economically unfree states, better conditions for human development, better protection of political and civil rights and freedoms, less corruption and much better governance[18]. To crown it all the countries with less interventionism generate cleaner environment[19].

The governments centralized power and severely restricted the individual’s freedom of choice to make nation states and the world a better, more ethical place to live. Decades of experimenting with various degrees of interventionism in different cultural and religious contexts proved that good intentions paved the way to immorality on unprecedented scale. The governments showed their inability to behave better than markets especially in transitional economies. Instead of protecting the poorest (the declared goal) the governments turned into powerful mechanisms to privatize huge assets and distribute them among the very few while blocking access to resources, assets and land to the overwhelming majority of the population. The heavily interventionist policies of governments were based on envy of the people to the rich and the successful. It was fuelled by media, religions and educational institutions.

            Friedrich von Hayek, Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand warned about the danger of separating human rights from property rights. One of the biggest mistakes of the reformers in post-socialist countries was to talk about property rights only in the context of efficiency, investment, management and legal procedures. Human rights and civil liberties (freedom of expression and assembly, the right to protection, to elect and be elected etc.) were treated in isolation with property rights. As a result people did not recognize the fundamental importance of property rights in the process of building a free society. M. Rothbard wrote that “..not only are there no human rights which are not also property rights, but the former rights lose their absoluteness and clarity and become fuzzy and vulnerable when property rights are not used as the standard”.

            The standard for all post-socialist governments were the freedoms and rights presented and interpreted by the supranational organizations (UN, OSCE, the Council of Europe) and mainstream scientific and educational institutions. They mostly ignored the property rights while talking about other rights and freedoms. Hence, they made them relative, easily restricted and suspendable for the sake of “higher” goals such as sustainable development, fair society national interests or “strong state”. Both nation states and supranationals use the word “social” to emphasize a kind of a new meaning of justice, equality and responsibility. The conclusions of F. von Hayek are still ignored, “… in a society of free people who are allowed to use their knowledge to meet their own goals, the term “social justice” does not make any sense or meaning”[20].

            To build the state based on “social justice” the government intervened into production, distribution and exchange of goods and services among individuals claiming to protect people and utilize all the resources of the society to achieve the optimal results. Using democratic and semi-democratic procedures (so-called managed democracy in Russia or full imitation of democracy under the title “sovereign democracy” in Belarus) government officials and politicians set prices for all factors of production, restricted imports and exports (duties, quotas, certificates, identification marks etc.), imposed means of exchange and procedures of payment, confiscated a big share of revenues (taxes, fees, nationalization and confiscation procedures) and regulated the contexts of information, advertisement and educational materials. In addition, the governments deprived citizens of the right to protect themselves by using guns. Hence, human rights were an appealing cover for wide scale violation of property rights. It is not enough to talk about freedom of speech per se. We should ask the question, where a person has this freedom. We should indicate that he has the right to speak on his own property or on the property of others if they agreed on the exercising of such freedom. As M. Rothbard writes, a person does not have a "right to freedom of speech"; what he doeshave is the right to hire a hall and address the people who enter the premises. He does not have a "right to freedom of the press"; what he doeshave is the right to write or publish a pamphlet, and to sell that pamphlet to those who are willing to buy it (or to give it away to those who are willing to accept it). Thus, what he has in each of these cases is property rights, including the right of free contract and transfer which form a part of such rights of ownership. There is no extra "right of free speech" or free press beyond the property rights that a person may have in any given case”[21].

There is no transitional government in post-socialist area that privatize mass media and created free access to information market especially to electronic media. They were heavily influenced by politicians, nomenclature, local monopolies and oligopolies. In many cases newspapers, TV stations and radios were used by oligarchs and autocratic rulers to win or stay in power and/or to destroy competitors through black PR and slander. Separating property rights and freedom of expression the governments abused individual rights and acted immorally.

            The failure to recognize property rights as the foundation of other human rights led to expansion of the concept of human rights. They became a new ethical cover-up for interventionism. “Freedom from want”, “freedom from fear”, the rights to decent wage, comfortable living, to a satisfactoryjob or goodeducation presume that it is somebody’s duty to ensure them. If one has a right to a well-paid job it is important to ask, it is worth asking at whose expense these rights are guaranteed? Is it moral to force a trader, an investor or a manufacturer to pay a wage higher than the market rate? “Jobs, food, clothing, recreation, homes, medical care, education etc. do not grow in nature. These are man-made values – goods and services produced by men. Who is to provide them? If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others , it means that those others are deprived of the rights and condemned to slave labor”, argues A. Rand[22].

If the government forces some individuals to pay for the services consumed by others, does it generate more wealth, prosperity, equality and sustainability to the country? The empirical evidence says “no”. The government turns into legal norms such notions as “fair”, “normal”, “equilibrium” or “equal” and builds a complex bureaucracy to impose them. It claims that it can utilize all the resources of all entities in the country. The government claims to achieve the optimal distribution of values. Its representatives put much effort and money to make voters believe that only the government has a clear vision of the future and it is omniscient to define production and employment structure for the best allocation of resources. They cheat people by substituting an individual who acts and makes choices with a concept, a metaphor or an aggregate. They are used to hide individual interests of those who become rich by freeloading, sponging and distributing other people’s money. Therefore, such activities are immoral and unethical.

Ideological rape through the language

In most post-socialist countries, the governments eagerly turned to the concept of collectivist rights and freedoms to justify their exclusive privilege to appropriate so-called “national capital”. They carried out privatization in the way that discredited the institution of private property. Instead of holding a transparent, fair process of property sales on the market principles (the assets are sold to the highest bidder) the governments used the schemes that enabled nomenclature and Soviet system insiders to capitalize or monetize their ties, connections and knowledge. Having acquired the legal ownership status the proponents of government intervention made the best use of a wide range of tools of wealth redistribution. They favored inflation, devaluation, restrictions on the currency market, licenses, regulation of costs, prices and wages, certification and progressive taxation with numerous breaks and exceptions. Some governments set forth a long list of investment conditions (creation of a certain number of jobs, making a certain amount of investment, building some real estate or houses “for the people of the country). In some cases, privatization deals were annulled as investors failed to fulfill the privatization conditions. As a rule such decisions were made by competing political groups that wanted to redistribute valuable assets. Such tug-of-war alienated people from politicians and politics in general. In most transitional economies, privatization was carried out in this way. It was supported by very weak information campaign. Moreover, the media exposed many violations and glaring facts of passing state assets to private companies.

As a result, to most people wealth and big wealth in particular is associated with theft and with deeply immoral behavior. It was not produced or earned as in the USA or other western countries, which are based on entrepreneurship and relatively free market practices. The policies of the governments in transition led people to believe that property is theft in most cases. That is why they do not resist the policies of the government to restrict property rights by imposing various regulations. Severe deficit of knowledge about the nature of property rights in the genuine sense of this key phenomenon was favorable to interventionists who came from Soviet nomenclature and communist party elite groups.

Hence different phenomena that western political system is based upon (democracy, market economy, rule of law, social equality, human rights, private property etc.) acquired distinctly different meaning in most post-Soviet countries. People who claimed to be liberals and democrats behaved in a way that was neither liberal nor democratic. The chaos and post-modernism in the language of reforms (words meant different things to different people at different periods of time) evolved in deep distrust of people to western civilization and even to the notion of liberty. They observed that fortunes in the society were not the result of personal achievement, hard work, education and fair competition but the corollary of nepotism, favoritism and monetization of close ties with nomenclature and decision makers. Many people especially young people tend to believe that if immoral practices ensure fast materials success, the access to luxuries and beautiful life “here and now” than values and morality are atavisms of the past and can be abandoned for the sake of hedonistic pleasures.

The expansion of collectivist rights, passing resources and authorities to central governments and supranational bodies that are very weakly connected to voters aggravated the situation. Moral relativism, negation of the culture of individual achievement, personal liberty and responsibility, sticking the adjective “social” to any phenomenon enabled interventionists and their ideologues to consolidate power, to form monopolies, to restrict severely economic and political freedoms and put all the blame for social and economic problems on the West. By imposing control over media and educational infrastructure the state managed to create the image of immoral, culturally inferior wealth-thirsty and ruthless West that does not care about the poor, the weak and the “disenfranchised” (this is one of the words that major supranational use to describe a situation when a person does not have access to the goods of a modern western society including internet, a well-paid job, healthcare and education as if the “franchise” to live includes al these goods and services by the right of birth).

In fact, interventionists from post-Soviet countries and even from all developing countries relied and continue to rely on mainstream intellectuals of the West. They formed postmodernism and the culture of negation of individualism for the sake of new millennium collectivism. Very few genuine liberals were well-equipped to challenge joint efforts of both the collectivist West and aggressive interventionist post-Soviet East. Few people took note of F. von Hayek’s words, “There is no limit to the violence over the language. It is done for the sake of high ideals. “Social justice” originated the notion “global justice”. Its opposite “global injustice” was recently defined by the ecumenical gathering of American religious leaders as the notion that “characterizes the scale of the sin of economic, political, social, sexual and class structures and the system of global society. There is an impression that the conviction that a person fights for the right cause contributes to slovenliness of thinking and even intellectual dishonesty more than anything else.”[23] If that was true for a western country it became an axiom in institutionally weak, intellectually disoriented post-Soviet and developing countries, which were still trapped in ideology of Marxism and Leninism.

International institutions: words and deeds: UN and the Council of Europe

In order to understand the nature of major international organizations and institutions or supranationals let’s analyze their messages, charters and activities. The United Nations is the main international structure to keep and promote collectivism ideology and socialist practices. Its Declaration of human rights[24] sets the agenda for redistribution of resources by nation states and supranational structures. If everyone as a members of society has the right to social security (article 22), to work (article 23), “the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection” (article 23), to rest and leisure, “the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control” (article 25) than somebody shall provide for them. The contents of numerous reports and documents prepared by the UN states it quite clearly that taxpayers shall be forced to ensure all these rights. It means that the state shall be empowered to redistribute resources at its own discretion. The UN also states that everyone should be entitled to a social and international order where other rights can be fully realized. It is a direct call for funds to be transferred in favor of international organizations.

UN Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) also laid the foundation for global redistribution of funds. The goals sound like a wish list for a rich foreign uncle who promised to bring presents for Christmas. The UN makes it a duty for developed countries to help developing countries fight poverty, diseases and other misfortunes, preferable through its own structures and programs. Of course, it is virtuous to wish to halve the number of people who live on less than one dollar a day, to halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and who do not have access to safe drinking water. No doubt, it would be a noble deed if at least 100 million slum dwellers achieved significant improvement in lives.

Like nation states that declared the building of socialism as their ultimate goal the UN fails to identify the sources of funding for such wide scale allocation of resources. Supranational bureaucrats and many mainstream experts demand the introduction of a tax on trade to fund such activities. As the UN makes citizens in poor countries believe that it is their right to get a good job, education and healthcare they are easily led to think that rich countries are to blame for their poor fate. One of the worst lies about the nature of exchange is that trade is a zero sum game, that the rich get richer at the expense of the poor still dominate the ideologies of most developing countries. Hence, the UN contributed to growing alienation between developed and developing countries. It fails to identify the real cause of poverty and the factors that make a country rich. In annual Human Development Reports the UN writes about the fight with poverty but there is an impression that authors of these reports are afraid of the phrase “private property”. The international organization emphasizes the importance of aid but fails to identify the crucial role of economic freedom, private property and free trade to make poor countries prosperous. W. Easterly and other economists proved that modern assistance programs failed to take poor countries out of poverty[25]. Other two international organizations – International Monetary Fund and World Bank also embrace MDGs planning. By doing that they strengthen the supranational platform for the new millennium collectivism. Hence, they also support immoral practices of redistribution and intervention.

The UN and other international financial organizations that promote aid not free trade and global capitalism failed to ensure good governance and transparent administration of their projects. They cooperate with governments that have high propensity to distribute aid to their own needs, not to the poor. The scheme when taxes from rich countries are allocated to private coffers of government officials and their stooges in poor countries can not be called moral. The UN, IMF and World Bank also failed to persuade developed countries especially EU, Japan and EU to ensure free access of goods and services from developing countries to their markets. Though politicians from nation states and representatives of supranational structures declare their support for free trade WTO trade talks on trade liberalization in the framework of Doha Development Agenda are in deep crisis. Though World Trade Organization unites 149 countries[26] both poor and rich nation states still apply dozens of different tools of tariff and non-tariff regulation to discriminate against import. The failure of major international economic organizations to ensure genuine global free trade area proves that protectionism and interventionism still thrive in the modern world dominated by the ideologies of new collectivism. Heritage Foundation report on economic freedom states that in 2006 out of 157 countries only 11 countries qualified and 20 were in the "near-miss" category, falling short in only one factor by 1 point to become members of Global Free Trade Alliance[27].

            Recent scandals about the UN activities in Iraq (“Oil for Food” program), inability to prevent genocide in Rwanda, Congo and other African countries, the failure to solve the conflict between Israel and Palestine discredited this organization even further. Politically correct slogans and pledges were not followed by consistent actions. The UN still plays a major role in keeping socialist ideology afloat and appealing to peoples. It did not learn from failures of development economics. Many structures of UN wet set to meet noble goals but turned into standard supranational bureaucracies. The World Heath Organization is one of them. Instead of fighting with malaria and TB in poor countries it fights with smoking in rich countries. P. Dietrich, president of Institute for International Health and Development was deeply disappointed by the activities of WHO. He argued that it turned into the organization for its own sake. In the middle of the 1990-ies it spent on different meetings as much as for immunization from TB and diarrhea. They spent more money on office supplies than on diarrhea programs[28]. Empowering such structures and giving them more money will not solve global problems but will definitely raise the propensity of supranationals to corrupt and to spread immoral practices and harmful ideologies.

The Council of Europe is another supranational organization that is set “to defend human rights, parliamentary democracy and the rule of law, develop continent-wide agreements to standardize member countries' social and legal practices”[29]. The Council of Europe pledged to assist “the countries of central and eastern Europe in carrying out and consolidating political, legal and constitutional reform in parallel with economic reform”. It is useful to talk about human rights and civil liberties, to campaign for a fair election process, the rule of law and free media but it is not enough to promote these things without consistent ideology of individualism and the philosophy of capitalism. The Council of Europe like the UN is founded on the same ideological premises. Supporting reforms in post-socialist countries it inculcates the norms and standards of new collectivism. As developing countries wanted to joint the Council of Europe and European Union they accepted the recommendations of these organizations and built their policies on them. So called “ Washington consensus” was a set of guidelines and the cage for reformers in emerging democracies. As nomenclature in the transitional countries managed to capture the state and severely restrict democratic procedures good intentions of the UN and the Council of Europe with their highly interventionist agendas led to the creation of oligarchic states, formation of clans and deep disappointment of people with democracy and the West in general. The Council of Europe was supposed to preserve basic rules of democracy but it made the decision to suspend the special guest status for blatant violations of democratic procedures only in respect of Belarus. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Russia and other countries with a sad record of violation of human rights and democratic procedures are still there. They are a part of the process of regional cooperation. Though they are criticized every once in a while they still belong to the organization that allegedly in based on values. It does not prevent Russia from severely restricting democracy and freedom of expression. It does not prevent the governments of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan or Georgia from violating the rights of political opposition and establishing “managed democracy”. So instead of sticking to clearly defined moral principles and values the Council of Europe and the UN pursue the policy of moral relativism and realpolitik. As a result, both human rights fighters and supporters of capitalism are disillusioned with the West. Politicians and nomenclature of transitional countries quickly saw the ideological weaknesses of the mature western democracies. Ordinary people are also confused. They thought that freedom, which is closely associated with the West would bring them prosperity, security, justice and choice. In fact, they argue in many developing countries it resulted in poverty, unemployment, corruption, outburst of violence and sex on TV and in media, the crisis of the institution of the family and arrogance of the new political and business elites.

The Council of Europe strongly endorsed the concept of sustainable development and urged its members to support other collectivist policies. Ideologically it remains as hostile to free market and individualism as the UN. In this respect, its impact on the policies of the nation states in transition was negative.

IMF and World Bank: bulwark of Keynesianism and immoral interventionism

Two other major international economic organizations are the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These institutions hardly add to stability, liquidity and effectiveness of the world financial market. The function of the lender of last resort is performed by national banks as the IMF is ill equipped to decide which loan is good and which is bad on the nation state level. IMF has a history of bad decisions and the support of the policies that led to crises. Mexico regularly had crises from 1976 to 1994 but IMF’s support was still there. In spite of IMF and World bank’s providing loans to developing countries the gap in income with developed countries remains the same. The policies promoted by these two organizations increase debts and the burden of servicing them. National governments fail to reform economies and establish the institutions necessary for the functioning of the market. Supporting the manipulation with monetary and fiscal tools IMF endorses heavy government intervention that distorts incentives of economic entities. They empower politicians and deprive an individual of his right to choose and bear responsibility for his choices.

            For more than 20 years more than 70 countries depended on IMF’s loans. Egypt, India, Turkey received assistance from IMF for more than 40 years. 24 countries depended on IMF’s loans for more than 30 years. 32 countries were IMF’s borrowers for 20 – 29 years. This evidence challenges the notion that IMF provides temporary assistance. For over 20 years, IMF supported authoritarian regimes of Zaire, Yugoslavia, Romania and Argentina[30]. IMF’s cooperation with the governments of Russia, Turkey, Moldova did not prevent crises and even corruption. MeltzerCommission of the US Congress recommended stopping long-term crediting and insisted on IMF overhaul. Using IMF’s funds to save countries created moral hazard. Private investors and creditors estimate risks differently when IMF operates in the country. When a government promises to save banks in case they face financial difficulties economic entities forget about frugality, thrift and risks. Expansion of such practice led to at least 90 banking crises in developing countries. In 20 cases, the programs of saving the national financial systems cost 10 – 25% of GDP.

            Another argument against IMF and its immoral policies is the nature of the programs it supported. Socialization of profits in good times and socialization of losses in bad times is just not fair. South Korea received $57 bln. This money helped few banks but left citizens alone with their financial problems. When financial problems mount, IMF supports the policy of high taxes, active participation of the state in financial sector and in manufacturing. It justifies and finances redistributive practices and blocks free market solutions. Acting in the framework of Keynesian theory and relying on collectivism ideology IMF endorses immoral economic practices and policies. It continues to pursue the policies that deprive an individual of his economic powers. Other supranational organizations like OECD also supports the ideology of new collectivism. It stands against tax competition and urges governments of developing countries to harmonize tax systems with developed countries. It is a good example of the mainstream ideology of the modern supranationals and big governments. They do not mind politicians and bureaucrats redistributing 40 – 50% of GDP. Though European Union can not impose rules of tax harmonization its member states and officials from Brussels insist on abolishing “harmful” tax competition. By doing that they want to keep the framework of a big state untouched and unreformed.

            The World Bank is also a strong supporter of the ideology of “sustainable development”, MDGs and global governance. This institution carried out quite a few projects than made a lot of damage to the nature of developing countries. The project of regional development Polonoroeste in Brazil, a similar project in Indonesia, NarmadaDam project in India, Arun Dam in Nepal etc. A big share of project carried out by the bank was considered ineffective even by the bank itself. The World Bank contrasted sustainable development with “traditional development”. By creating SociallySustainableDevelopmentNetwork, it became more active in spreading the ideology of new millennium in developing countries through thousands of NGOs. Ecological, anti-globalization non-profit organizations became regular recipients of World Bank grants. Instead of promoting property rights as the most effective means to solve ecological problems they turned into aggressive fighters against liberty and capitalism. They endorsed collectivism and helped to save the socialist agenda partly at the expense of World Bank i. e. the money of taxpayers from nation states. It is an example of the Coalition of bureaucrats of a nation state and an international organization against capitalism and moral behavior of individuals.

            However, the World Bank should be given credit for a number of its successful research projects. “Doing business” reports, reports on estimating the quality of governance (for example the most recent report “A Decade of measuring the quality of governance. Governance matters 2006. Worldwide governance indicators”[31] give a lot of evidence in support of liberalism, free market solutions and economic freedom. This analysis and cross-country comparisons enable us to support the conclusion of Frazer Institute, CATO Institute and Heritage Foundation on strong correlation between economic freedom and corruption, human development, environmental performance, political rights, civil liberties and social standards. In spite of these facts and clear tendencies the supranational organizations are quire reluctant to endorse the agenda of libertarians and classical liberals on the one hand and theoretical foundations of capitalism on the hand.

            The World Trade Organization has a special place among international organizations. It states that its function is to “ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible[32]”. It does this by “administering trade agreements, acting as a forum for trade negotiations and settling trade disputes”. One is tempted to believe that the WTO unambiguously and unconditionally supports free trade and free markets but it is simply not true. It describes 10 benefits of the organizations and sets 10 misunderstandings of the WTO[33]. Number 2 in the list is that “the WTO is for free trade at any cost”; Item 3 is “commercial interests take priority over development”; item 4 -“commercial interests take priority over environment”. It is obvious that representatives of the organization try to make the fundamental principle of capitalism relative. They continue to think that free trade imposes costs on a country that the governments should take care about. They oppose commerce and development, commerce and environment echoing old grievances of interventionists of different breeds. In 2006 WTO World Trade Report they state that “government subsidies can be useful instruments in correcting market failures and working towards social objectives but can also distort trade and provoke strong responses from trading partners”[34]. Member-countries of this organization habitually violate its rules and procedures. The 2006 report estimates that “21 developed countries spent almost $250billion on subsidies, while all countries spent over $300 billion. The arithmetic average ratio of subsidies to GDP is lower in developing than developed countries, but large variations of the ratio can be found in both country groups. For a sample of 31 developing countries the average ratio of subsidies to GDP was 0.6per cent, while the comparable figure for a sample of 22developed countries was 1.4per cent”[35]. These figures prove that neither WTO nor any other international organization managed to force developed countries from abandoning their interventionist policies in trade. In addition WTO’s legal and enforcement procedures are long and costly. WTO membership has not prevented countries from applying dozens of different tools to restrict or block movement of goods and services. Suspention of the Doha negotiations is another evidence of the crisis of the organization. It also means that its member-countries are reluctant to apply free trade, free market principles both domestically and internationally. So they use supranationals either to expand their interventionist practices to benefit from external transfers or to block any decisions to set global capitalism agenda.

            It is worth noting that international organizations receive their intellectual “ammunition” and support from major universities of the western world. Mainstream humanitarian education is dominated by interventionist philosophies and anti-capitalist mindset. As nomenclature from developing countries send their children to study in the West this ideology is spread all over the world leaving very little room for scientific and educational pluralism. In such institutional arrangements the philosophy and ideology of capitalism, the theories of free market economics have are excommunicated.

Lone rangers of morality on the supranational level

As we estimated, there is only one relatively moral government in the world. Moral supranational organizations are also few and far between. Atlas Economic Research Foundation builds the network of think tanks to win the battle of ideas[36]. Its mission is “to discover, develop and support intellectual entrepreneurs worldwide who have the potential to create independent public policy institutes and related programs”. Atlas is famous for cooperating with dozens of independent think tanks that promote moral policies and the philosophy of free market. Center for International Private Enterprise is also one of the organizations that promotes private sector development and private initiatives in more than 100 countries. An important part of its mission is to “to promote development of the legal and institutional structures necessary to establish and maintain open market-oriented societies, to increase business participation in the democratic process, support private voluntary business organizations and freedom of association”[37]. Teaching people in developing countries about modern business practices, advocacy and private property is an important investment in the institutions of free capitalist society.

            Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation and their partners all over the world are also important institutions of capitalism and liberty. They challenge interventionist policies and theories to defend the “principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace”[38]. The Heritage Foundation’s mission is “to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense”[39]. They do it not only in America but all over the world. The network of free minds has been expanding due to activities of such international organizations and their foreign partners. They are front runners in the battle of ideas. This battle cannot be won just by one generation in one period of time. It is the investment we should make for sustainability of the political system based on morality and freedom. It is our quest for capitalism.

Morality of governance: interventionist vs. capitalism oriented countries

Source: «A decade of measuring the governance. Governancematters 2006» www.worldbank.org

Morality of governments: economic freedom

Source: Economic Freedom of the World 2005. 2006 Annual Report www.freetheworld.com