Positive Liberty

The Independent Institute’s annual Olive Garvey Essay Competition is open. Entries are due by May1, 2007. Full or part-time students (grad or undergrad) under the age of 35 are invited. Prizes up to $2,500. Here’s the topic:

“Is foreign aid the solution to global poverty?”

A 2005 United Nations report called for a doubling of foreign aid to poor countries as the means to reduce poverty. Yet the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a for-profit microloan bank and its founder, an apparent vindication of the ideas of Peter T. Bauer, Henry Hazlitt, Deepak Lal, and others. As Bauer wrote, “Development aid, far from being necessary to rescue poor societies from a vicious circle of poverty, is far more likely to keep them in that state….Emergence from poverty requires effort, firmly established property rights, and productive investment.”

More info here.