Talk:Peter Thomas Bauer

Links
I have begun to insert links on this page SCRA5071

NPOV Issues
This article has Neutral Point Of View issues, e.g the phrase "so-called development experts" SCRA5071

This article reads like a love letter to Bauer. "Greatest contributions", "firmly in the tradition of the great libertarians", assigning to Bauer far more importance than he had (really, revolutionised thinking?), stating that he "refuted" or "showed" things which he merely asserted and which at best remain disputed and at worst - e.g. the idea that poverty is in no way self-perpetuating - are extremely marginal opinions. In my opinion, the entire thing needs rewriting. Mlleangelique (talk) 19:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Plaigarism
There are significant quantities of text on this page copied from SCRA5071

Rewrite and cleanup
This article needs significant rewriting and cleaning-up. I will do what I can, but anyone more experienced in these matters, please help SCRA5071

Audio interview
I listened to an interview of Peter Bauer by John Blundell, available online [http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=963&Itemid=27 here. Unfortunately, his English accent is just horrible and I can't understand what he says after 9'40, when he makes a difference between inequalities and differences. I was able to get "We shouldn't talk about inequalities but about differences" but not what followed. Could a native English speaker help me on that? Many thanks. --Bombastus (talk) 19:36, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * "Because differences are a neutral term and inequalities a loaded term. And inequalities are often equated with inequity. And then the next step leads to the idea that the poor are poor because the rich are rich...". That was what I thought he said, I'm not sure though.--Johnbull (talk) 20:43, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Many thanks :) --Bombastus (talk) 21:38, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Article is extremely biased in favour of Bauer's politics
Needs extensive rewriting. --128.86.156.116 (talk) 13:06, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposed redraft
I share a lot of the views of the authors of the article and personally admire Bauer. But I don't think the article satisfies the NPOV policy, and can benefit from idiomatic English. Here is a proposed NPOV redraft

Peter Thomas Bauer, Baron Bauer (6 November 1915, Budapest – 2 May 2002, London) was a development economist. Bauer is best remembered for his opposition to the idea, widely-held among North American and Western European policy makers in the mid-20th century that the most effective manner to help developing countries advance was through state-controlled foreign aid. Contents [hide] 1 Life 2 Contributions to economics 3 Major works 4 References 5 External links Life [edit]

Bauer was born as Péter Tamás Bauer in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, in 1915. He studied Law in Budapest before moving to England in 1934 to study Economics at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from which he graduated in 1937. After a brief period in the private sector working for Guthrie & Co., a London-based merchant house that conducted business in the Far East, Bauer spent most of his career at the London School of Economics. Bauer started teaching there in 1960 and retired in 1983 as Emeritus Professor of Economics.[1] In 1983, on the recommendation of his friend and admirer Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he was made a life peer as Baron Bauer of Market Ward in the City of Cambridge. Lord Bauer was also a fellow of the British Academy and a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, a libertarian political and economic organisation founded by, among others, his friend Friedrich Hayek. In 1978, Bauer received an Honorary Doctoral Degree at Universidad Francisco Marroquin[2] for his contribution to economics.

He died in London, England, on 2 May 2002. Contributions to economics [edit]

Bauer's main contributions concerned development economics, international development and foreign aid. Bauer argued that central planning, foreign aid, price controls, and protectionism perpetuated poverty rather than eliminating it, and that the growth of government intervention politicised economic life and reduced individual freedom. These arguments reflected ideas promoted by market-oriented economists about the weaknesses of the state as a co-ordinating factor; suspicion that the personnel of the state acted in their own, rather than some "general", "national", or "common" interest, and that markets both provided information about resource scarcity through pricing, and incentives for behaviour that fostered development. Bauer influenced thinking about the determinants of economic advance. For example, the World Bank, in its 1997 World Development Report, recording the Bank's then thinking about development, adopted the point of view Bauer had been advocating for years, stating that the idea that "good advisers and technical experts would formulate good policies, which good governments would then implement for the good of society" was misplaced: the institutional assumptions implicit in this world view were, as we all realize today, too simplistic... . Governments embarked on fanciful schemes. Private investors, lacking confidence in public policies or in the steadfastness of leaders, held back. Powerful rulers acted arbitrarily. Corruption became endemic. Development faltered, and poverty endured.

For Bauer, the essence of development was the expansion of individual choice, and limiting the role of the state to protect life, liberty and property so that individuals could pursue their own goals and desires.[3] He advocated limited government instead of central planning, contrary to the views of many western development economists of his time.

Bauer placed himself in the tradition of libertarians. In his many articles and books, including Dissent on Development, Bauer sought to refute many of the commonly held beliefs of development economics. He argued that the idea that poverty was self-perpetuating was wrong, and that central planning and large-scale public investment were not preconditions for growth. He criticized the idea that the disadvantaged could not and would not save for the future, or that they had no motivation to improve their condition. He opposed "compulsory saving," which he preferred to call "special taxation," and, like modern supply-side economists, stressed the detrimental effects of high taxes on economic activity. Bauer also saw that government-directed investment funded by "special taxation" would increase "inequality in the distribution of power."[4]

Bauer's experiences in Malaya (now West Malaysia) in the late 1940s and in West Africa influenced his views on the importance of individual effort by small landowners and traders in moving from subsistence to a higher standard of living. Bauer noted the importance of the informal sector and advocated that as well as conventional "static" gains from realization of comparative advantage, opening an economy to trade allowed for "dynamic gains" from international trade – that is, the gains that resulted from exposure of the opening country to new ideas, new methods of production, new products, and new people. He argued that trade barriers, and restrictive immigration and population policies deprive countries of those gains. For Bauer, government-to-government aid was neither necessary nor sufficient for development, and might actually hinder it. The danger of aid, according to Bauer, was that it increased the power of government, led to corruption, misallocated resources, and eroded civil society.

Bauer also sought to refute what Ralph Raico has termed the "timeless approach" to history. In his view, it was a fallacy to ignore the various events and preconditions which existed before and acted as prerequisites for the event or state of affairs being analyzed. Quoting Raico: "Rejecting the 'timeless approach' to economic development, Bauer has accentuated the many centuries required for economic growth in the Western world, and the interplay of various cultural factors that were its precondition"[5] [6] Paradoxically, this historical determinism meant that some of his thinking bore similarities to the German Historical School of econonmics, to which the market- and individual-focussed Austrian School had been opposed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.91.95 (talk) 13:44, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

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