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The World Health Organisation: a time for reconstitution 257market failure. This suggests that government failure, not marketfailure, is often the source of observed societal problems and difficulties.These considerations are relevant to a consideration of the WHO.The WHO was built upon a collectivist foundation which still guidesthe agency’s work and activities. What it needs is not a renovationof its collectivist structure, but a new foundation that reflects theprimacy of liberty and the supporting (rather than leading) role ofgovernment in the organisation of economic and social affairs.A comparison of the experiences of South Korea and the Philippinesover the past fifty years is a salient illustration of this point.Fifty years ago, each country had similar levels of per capita income,and each seemed to most analysts to face similar future prospectsfor economic growth and development. Today, per capita income inSouth Korea is around four times as large as that of the Philippines,due to a considerably faster rate of growth in the former. The Philippines’economy has been much more thoroughly plagued by interventionistgovernment policies than that of South Korea.Adam Smith claimed in the 18th century that “little else is requisiteto carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from thelowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administrationof justice; all the rest being brought about by the naturalcourse of things.” 4 Smith’s claim clashed severely with the collectivistorientation that was dominant throughout much of the 20thcentury, but in the post-socialist era, its wisdom has been reaffirmedas the most prosperous and robust economies are those wherepeople have the greatest measure of liberty. 5A market economy grounded in private property and freedom ofcontract has two overwhelming advantages that are taken awayincreasingly as the blanket of collectivism spreads over aneconomy. 6 One advantage resides in the division and use of knowledgethat characterises a market economy. In a famous essayentitled I, Pencil, economist Leonard Read noted that no singleperson could describe how to make a simple pencil, let aloneactually make one. The task exceeds our mental capacities, for the