The End of Poverty

One of my winter reads was Jeffrey Sachs The End of Poverty, a book promoting a worldwide plan to end extreme poverty by 2025.  The head of Columbia University's Earth Institute, Sachs is an economist who stumbled somewhat backwardly into the realm of international economic development.  He has since become a leading voice calling for debt forgiveness and other policies aimed at freeing the poorest countries from the cycle of poverty.  Sachs plays an interesting role: on the one hand, he is a harsh critic of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the wealthy countries that use foreign aid to accomplish their political ambitions, and on the other hand he is an unashamed capitalist singing the praises of industrialization and free-trade.  He is a firm believer in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (he helped draft them), and much of the book is dedicated to calling rich countries to fulfill their promises to the rest of the world.


Most Americans believe that upwards of 20% of our federal budget is dedicated to foreign aid.  With disasters like we've seen in the Haiti earthquake and Indonesian tsunami, the US is on the forefront in promising emergency relief.  However, Sachs points out that despite all of our promises, the US gives only approximately 0.2% of our Gross Domestic Product to international economic development.  In fact, the US agreed in 1993 to raise expenditures in foreign aid to 0.7% of GDP, a standard that the rest of developed nations agreed to in the 1970s.  Since pledging that number, foreign aid has actually declined, and much of that which is given funds "consultants" from the World Bank or IMF.  For those of you who prefer visual aids, the budget office provides a lovely pie chart here.


Sachs also does a brilliant job of outlining the need for economists who think like physicians.  Economic emergencies require experts that can examine a country, develop a diagnosis and apply a specific treatment plan for the country.  He outlines how this model was used with success during the Bolivian tin crisis and in Poland during the fall of the Soviet Union.


While my optimistic/pragmatic side agrees with many of Sachs' assertions and his overall plan, I must confess that his relentless industrial capitalism is a bit concerning.  My thoughts immediately return to the voice of Wendell Berry:

"We must see that the standardless aims of industrial communism and industrial capitalism equally have failed. The aims of productivity, profitability, efficiency, limitless growth, limitless wealth, limitless power, limitless mechanization and automation can enrich and the empower the few (for a while), but they will sooner or later ruin us all. The gross national product and the corporate bottom line are utterly meaningless measures of the prosperity or health of the country."

Despite my fondest affections for philosophy of Berry, I will admit that his calls to agrarianism are, unfortunately, unrealistic.  But I do believe his call to reflection is a critical component of any plan for development.  Sachs' unashamed cry that capitalism holds the answers left me uncomfortable throughout the book.  Over the years, he has been a voice crying for justice, fighting against the structures and powers of oppression.  And while his plans couple the words development and sustainable, I question whether the marriage between the two are realistic.  I think the fundamental question lies at how one defines development in the first place.


All in all, the book is challenging and encouraging, and despite my mistrust of some of his underlying premises, I believe he raises important issues and calls for movement in a necessary direction.  What say you?