The famous economist

I was fortunate enough to be invited to a dinner party last night at the home of Harvard economist Lant Pritchett and his wife Diane. I've heard about the Pritchetts for years and had met several of their children, but had not met them until last night. They are very fascinating people and have lived and traveled all over the world (most recently in India for three years).

Lant has been working on issues of migration recently and I'm very intrigued by his ideas (http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~lpritch/). For years now nationalism hasn't made sense to me. From a religious perspective, if we are all children of God then we should treat everyone with dignity and respect despite their location of birth. On a more self-interested level, I could and do have more in common in terms of values, worldview, and lifestyle with some individuals in Uganda or India than I do with many people in New York. Should I really care more about and invest more in the New Yorker because of geographic proximity than the Ugandan or Indian who is much more similar to me? Very odd idea really...