An open letter to Amnesty International on corporate abuse and entrepreneurship as a human right

I got an email from AI about "corporate abuse" of human rights, asking if it is on the rise. So here is an email I sent to some AI officials.

Below is an email I sent to Ana Polanco in response to her email. I think many governments around the world make it very hard for people to start a business and that this contributes to poverty. Perhaps this is a human rights violation. I think that entrepreneurship is a human right. What do you think? Maybe you have a committee or some experts who study this issue that you can pass this along to.

Ms. Polanco:

I received an email about this topic and I admit that it could be a concern. Corporations don't necessarily put human rights first. But when it comes to economic issues and their relationship to human rights, I also believe that governments do many things which prevent people from starting and running businesses that help get them out of poverty. Governments often set things up so that you have to have a connection to or be a friend of some official to get you business started. Or there is an enormous amount of paper work and regulations that have to be complied with to start a business. This makes things hard for the poor and those with little formal education. I have provided some links to articles on this topic. I wish that AI would look into this issue to see if it is worth publicizing and acting on. I believe that entrepreneurship is a human right. Thank you for your time.

Cyril Morong

Here is an article in the New Yorker by James Surowiecki called The Tyrant Tax

The Tyrant Tax

Here is Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker on the upheaval in the Middle East

Here is an article by economist HERNANDO DE SOTO in The Wall Street Journal called "Egypt's Economic Apartheid"

Egypt's Economic Apartheid