Ravi used to live on a farm that had been handed down in his family for many generations. It was small, dirty, unproductive, inefficient and out of date. But help was at hand. Now he lives in a lovely slum and has the opportunity to work up to ten hours a day for which he earns almost a dollar. He can’t understand why his neighbour, Gupta, committed suicide by drinking his own weed killer when he could have had the privileged life Ravi leads. Ravi is really impressed by the determination of western liberals to bring progress to his country. They have introduced it to free trade and have shown their commitment to their principles by flooding his country with their own heavily subsidized goods. They will not rest, in fact, in their zeal to better the lot of humanity. They are busy producing lots of carbon dioxide to make sure everybody is kept nice and warm. It’s true that there are some weary willies and nay sayers, including most of their own scientists, who don’t see the point. But you always get spoilsports of that sort. Determined, resolute, resolved, they press on in their great endeavour. Ravi is proud to think that he might have played a part, even it’s only a small one, in this great march of progress. If he’s lucky he might even live long enough to see his children inherit a devastated earth. Just to think, in the dark ages they might have spent their childhood playing on that little farm.
