Newsweek Columnist Fareed Zakaria

Thursday, April 24th, 2003

Fareed Zakaria (“Indian-born, educated at Harvard, conservative”) is a Newsweek foreign-affairs columnist who’s getting quite a bit of press these days. Newsweek Columnist Fareed Zakaria explains how he became a conservative:

Zakaria became a conservative, he says, from observing the Indian state. “People often say, ‘How could you, living in India, end up a Reaganite?’ Well, the answer is, live in India. There are two things that people don’t understand. One is the degree to which a highly regulated economy produces masses of corruption because it empowers bureaucrats. It just has to be seen to be believed.

“The second,” he continues, “is that you are very quickly inured to the charms of pre-industrial village life. Whenever someone says the word community, I want to reach for an oxygen mask.”

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