Excerpts from Reagan address
... Ten years ago, only a third of the people of Latin America and the Caribbean lived in democracies or in countries that were turning to democracy. Today over 90 percent do.... In India and China, freer markets for farmers have led to an explosion in production. In Africa, governments are rethinking their policies, and where they are allowing greater economic freedom to farmers, crop production has improved. Meanwhile, in the newly industrialized countries of the Pacific Rim, free markets in services and manufacturing as well as agriculture have led to a soaring of growth and standards of living. The ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asia Nations] nations, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, have created the true economic miracle of the last two decades, and in each of them, much of the magic came from ordinary people who succeeded as entrepreneurs. In Latin America, this same lesson of free markets, greater opportunity, and growth is being studied and acted on. ... From Colombia to Turkey to Indonesia, governments are cutting taxes, reviewing their regulations, and opening opportunities for initiative.
There has been much talk in the halls of this building about the ``right to development.'' But more and more the evidence is clear that development is not itself a right. It is the product of rights - the right to own property; the right to buy and sell freely; the right to contract; the right to be free of excessive taxation and regulation, of burdensome government.... Those who advocate statist solutions to development should take note - the free market is the other path to development and the one true path. It is the people's path. And, unlike many other paths, it leads somewhere. It works....
We will continue to press the Soviets for more constructive conduct in the settling of regional conflicts. We look to the Soviets to honor the Helsinki Accords. We look for greater freedom for the Soviet peoples within their country, more people-to-people exchanges with our country, and Soviet recognition in practice of the right of freedom of movement.
