REBUILDING IN AFGHANISTAN AND AROUND THE WORLD
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
When Secretary of State George Marshall looked at Europe in 1947, he said
there were possibilities of disturbances arising because people were
desperate. He asserted that there could be no political stability; no peace
without economic security. He said that US policy was directed not against
any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos.
George Marshall was responsible for establishing the European Recovery
Program of 1948. More than 13 billion dollars, or five percent of the United
States GDP in 1948, were spent on rebuilding a Europe devastated after the
war.
Many assert that the Marshall Plan was a success. GDP in Europe rose 32
percent between 1948 and 1951. Industrial production increased 40 percent
from prewar years and agricultural output grew by 11 percent. European trade
volume grew 40 percent. With our aid, we created strategic and trade
partners. We improved European living standards and strengthened economic,
social and political structures in Western Europe. The Marshall Plan
essentially proved Marshall’s assertion that a sound economy led to sound
politics.
Now the words “Marshall Plan” describe any rebuilding effort that uses
outside money to help develop an internal infrastructure. To be sure, it
takes more than money. Half a century ago, Europe had underemployed skilled
labor available, and a set of laws and customs designed to encourage
commerce. The same may not be true in Afghanistan, where a new government
is poised to take over on December 22. People speak of a Marshall Plan for
Afghanistan, but some wonder whether the conditions for accepting outside
investment – some political stability and a legal structure – exist there.
Whether the conditions are right or not, current conditions have nurtured
terrorism and they need to change. Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del), who chairs
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, thinks a US-led nation-building
effort in Afghanastan should focus on changing that country’s economic and
social climate. Biden echoes George Marshall in noting that poverty, chaos,
hunger, and desperation all produce terrorists. If we are willing to spent
$1 billion a month bombing, how much can we spend rebuilding?
The Marshall Plan concept should be applied in a domestic context.
Former Urban League President John Jacobs called for a domestic Marshall Plan
two decades ago, but his pleas generated little attention. That’s a mistake.
While our nation’s African American community has been nickel and dimed with
well-meaning programs, there has never been a comprehensive attempt to turn
inner cities around, lavishing the same kinds of dollars on these areas that
our nation once lavished on Europe. Our nation’s inner cities have a higher
poverty and unemployment rates than the rest of the nation. Like the
vanquished Europeans that George Marshall talked about in 1947, inner city
residents, in 2001, are experienced too much “hunger, poverty, desperation,
and chaos” These areas cry out for the kind of intervention that we
initiated in Europe, when we spent half a percent of our GDP on “European
Recovery.”
Today, it would take $500 billion to spend up half a percent of GDP. If
we’d set aside such a percentage for rebuilding during the past ten years,
when our economy was booming, we’d have set aside $5 trillion for rebuilding
at home, on the African continent, and everywhere else we see “hunger,
poverty, desperation, and chaos.” The Worldwatch Institute says that 1.2
billion people struggle to live on $1 a day or less, lacking access to safe
water, sanitation, and adequate nutrition. It would only take $40 billion to
provide water and sanitation, reproductive health, nutrition and education
for this population. That’s a fraction of the money available on an annual
basis, and it could touch the world, a fraction of the proportion of money
spent on a European Recovery Plan. Why can’t we provide it?
We have already started talking about those things we cannot do in
Afghanistan. Some say it isn’t our job to rebuild, and that the Marshall
plan concept is irrelevant here. Yet we have acknowledged for decades that
there cannot be peace without economic stability, and we know we can
contribute to the stability in Afghanistan. Too, our conflict there reminds
us of the many other areas of the world that experience political stability
because of economic hardship. In much of the developing world, especially on
the African continent, political unrest is largely a function of economic
reality. At home, the unrest in our nation’s inner cities can be directly
connected to the limited opportunities so many urban youngsters face. The
bottom line – most underdeveloped areas can use a Marshall Plan, a little
help, and an outside infusion of capital.
Our global leadership requires us to step up to the plate abroad, to
consider rebuilding efforts for Afghanistan. What will move our nation to
take the weight at home, to develop a domestic Marshall Plan, as well as a
Marshall plan for the rest of the world?