Dear Editor,
Economist and Nobel laureate Eric S Maskin speaks with the Post at the Hotel Cambodiana last week.
I agree with Professor Eric Maskin, who says that Cambodia has been at risk from a growing gap between rich and poor (“Nobel laureate to push PM on school reform”, January 20).
An unbalanced distribution of the wealth of the nation has worried many scholars besides Maskin, including David Jonathan Gross, who is also a Nobel laureate.
Cambodia can be viewed from two perspectives: progressive by comparison and progressive in actuality. If we compare the Kingdom to the past, we can see that anti-colonialism, the Cold War and globalization have played a significant role in Cambodia’s recent history.
The era of Lon Nol and Pol Pot must be evaluated in light of global cold war politics and the opposition between communism and democracy. Cambodia had no peace during this period, and the intractable conflicts led to mass killings and foreign intervention.
Though the media have focused considerable attention on this part of the Kingdom’s history, qualitative and quantitative progress since that time has sometimes been overlooked.
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