Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Can Working With The Gadhafis Be Morally Acceptable?

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A Palestinian boy holds posters hailing Moammar Gadhafi and his son Saif for helping break the Israeli blockade of Gaza in July 2010. (AP)

A Palestinian boy holds posters hailing Moammar Gadhafi and his son Saif for helping break the Israeli blockade of Gaza in July 2010. (AP)

Harvard professor Dani Rodrik met with Saif Gadhafi, the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, when Saif was being heralded as the man to move Libya toward political and economic reform.

Rodrik didn’t end up working with Saif, but in an article for Project Syndicate he argues that working with repressive regimes can sometimes be the right moral choice.

Rodrik is professor of International Political Economy at Harvard and author of “The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy.”

Other stories from Tuesday's show

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

  • Portnoyk

    The dilemma of dirty hands? Spare us, will you? It all comes down to accepting money. I’ve quit TWO jobs over moral issues, and there were no dilemmas: just what was right and what was wrong. Of course I suffered financially. I may have had holes in my bankout, but at least I didn’t have one in my morals.
    Ken Portnoy, Marblehead MA

  • Portnoyk

    should read “bank account” not “bankout”
    kp

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