Tag: building peace

• December 13, 2009

  QUESTION ON BUILDING A MIDDLE CLASS AS WAY TO BRING PEACE

  Folks, I am looking for as much information and links as possible on the question of when and how can building an honest middle class, small businesses leads to societies that are less violent, less corrupt, more just. What is the evidence, actually? I am well aware of political and military factors that will prevent people, no matter how middle class, from actually achieving peace, justice, political liberty. But I am looking at the question of whether building economies from the bottom up actually creates peace. That it has helped millions, that microfinance has changed millions of lives, there is no doubt. But where is the demonstrable linkage to peace, to less polarization, to less extreme ideologies on all sides? Where is the cumulative evidence of any country, region, or city, that build stability in this way and thus supplanted radicalism, and/or that led to government reform and a greater …