Paul Farmer

[LostLost]

I finished reading The Pathologies of Power and i am planning to read his biography Mountains beyond Mountains. It seems that this forum has a lot of people who admire Paul. His argument on how some people are structured, as if predistined, to poverty and sickness is very powerful and probably true. This guy is truly amazing and I admire him because I just don't think i have the will power to do what he is doing.

Now... He also did a lot of free-market trashing talk in the book like how free trade has left a lot of indigenous people behind. It seems to me that he is blaiming free-market neoliberal economic policies for the underdevelopment of the Chiapas region in Mexico. I think he is blaming the wrong guy mainly because the Mexican government is mainly and predominantly responsible for the susatainable development of the region. China has been able to lift out 500 millions people out of poverty and at this point the Communist Congress is stressing the development of the rural regions or namely the even and sustainable development of the country. The same could be done in Mexico.
Paul also does not offer what type of a system would replace free market structure if this structure is putting some proportion of the population at undue risk of poverty and death. Is there even a structure that doesn't do that?

I am not sure i am reading him right but this is the impression that i am getting. what do you guys think?

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[Phoenix.]

Moved to the Topics in Health Care Forum for discussion.

 

[theraball]

I too admire Dr. Farmer and I think he ought to get a Nobel prize for his work. Heck if Al Gore can get one.... But--this guy grew up on a houseboat, was raised by socialists, and has spent his entire career doing charitable clinical work. With all due respect, genius or no genius, he knows nothing about business.

He's also hard core left wing. I once saw him talk at Harvard, and he went out of his way to mock George W. Bush every chance he got, really mean personal attacks on Bush's intelligence and integrity that I found juvenile and distasteful, though most of the audience just laughed and agreed with him. Farmer wants to find big business donors to support his work? He wants to work within the system to reform international health policy? He'd better learn to shut his big mouth and become a little more diplomatic. Just my $0.02.

 

[Miami_med]

Dr. Farmer gave a lecture once at my school in which he stated, and I quote, "I don't understand economics," when questioned deeper about his beliefs. He went on to say something about being a doctor and leaving economics to the economists. Considering that all of the underdeveloped regions of Mexico have never been developed, it's pretty difficult to blame the economic system that never really took hold in Mexico anyway for its woes.

Dr. Farmer is a firm believer in central planning. A closer look at China might show a communist system that kept its population IN poverty for 50 years until opening up some of its market to free trade, after which significant economic development began. I believe that Dr. Farmer is correct. He does not understand economics.

Regardless, his argument is less economic and more anthropological in the "environmental determinism" camp. None of this proves that central planning or forced wealth redistribution actually SOLVES this problem that many people don't really believe exists (the idea that some people are damned to poverty). Most central economic planning schemes seem to prove that it does not.

I have a lot more to say, but very little time to say it

 

[LostLost]

(the idea that some people are damned to poverty). Most central economic planning schemes seem to prove that it does not.

I agreed... In one of my economic class, i learned that although the percentage of the population below poverty income remain constant, there are a lot of dynamic moving up and down going on. After about fifty years, half of the "poor" population moved up to middle class and some people in middle class moved down to poverty. This is the stat for America... i am not sure how restricted social mobility is in Chiapas Mexico. But at least this point out that Paul can't make a blank statement regarding poverty determinism.