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(More customer reviews)Jeffery Sachs' "The End of Poverty" is three books in one: First, it is an exploration of the world, focusing on economics but surveying wide array of topics regarding international relations and politics, and offers a portrait of the planet today. Second, it is a crash course in development economics. Finally, it is an impassioned plea for more western aid to poor countries particularly in Africa.
I know of no better book for understanding the current state of the world. In several brilliant
Chapters, Sachs takes us through the hyperinflation of Bolivia, the post Cold War transition to market economies in Poland, Russia, India and China, and the struggles for existence in Sub Saharan Africa. All these are put into context of International Relations, Economics and Politics, and personified through Sachs' description of his own role in these happenings. It's a tour de force.
The weaknesses here are the complete absence of the Middle East, and Sachs' all-too-human tendency to portray himself as the epicenter of the events he describes, convincing Polish politicians to accept responsibility, and leading the fight against hyper inflation in Bolivia. But his involvement has not necessarily been as influential or beneficial as he portrays it: Bolivia, at least, can hardly be called a success story; Even though Sachs praises both its leaders and its policies, Bolivia is still not up to its 1980 level of GDP per Capita (p. 108).
As a primer on development economics, "The End of Poverty" is a more of a mixed bag. At best, it offers powerful insights, particularly about the importance of Geography to economic development. Although the case has been made before (most famously by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies but also by David Landes and others), Sachs really drives the point home about how close a relationship exists between geography and economic possibilities. Possibly he overstates the case somewhat - based on their geography, Egypt and Panama should have been economic empires - but Sachs truly has opened my eyes to a dimension in the question of economic development which I had barely considered before.
Africa is the chief victim of its geography, Sachs argues. In his view, the solution to Africa's problems is not really economic - it is not a matter of right monetary and fiscal policies but of hospital beds, malaria nets and AIDS treatments - readily available technocratic solutions which are missing for lack of funds only.
On the other hand, some of the chapters of theory are painful to read, particularly the one in which Sachs compares development economics to emergency medicine. His history of the world economy from time immemorial to the present is pedestrian and hardly innovative (it owes much to David Landes' superior The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor . Like Landes, it also owes much to Adam Smith - he is quoted in virtually every chapter of Sachs' book). But development theory - as opposed to technocratic solutions - is ridiculously over simplified (in Sachs' view, it boils down to two words - "foreign aid" pp. 247-250), as William Easterly points out in his review [...]- it's false to think that we know all the answers, and that the UN and other aid agency are sufficiently efficient to carry out the solution even if we had known them. For development economics, Easterly's own The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics is a must read.
As an advocate, Sachs's chief cause is persuading Western governments, and particularly the US, to live up to their obligation of spending 0.7 percent of each nation's GDP on aid. Sachs is an enthusiastic advocate of the Millenium Development Goals - a UN program to half poverty by 2015 - and of UN secretary general Kofi Annan (whom he calls "the world's finest stayrsman" p. 205. For a more balanced - although still highly favourable - view of Annan, see The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power).
Sachs effectively promotes his development goals from challenges left and right; Sachs points out that African Governments are no more corrupt then other governments (pp. 312-314); that "economic freedom" does not guarantee economic growth (p.320), and that reducing Infant Mortality rates coincides with a reduction in birth rates (pp. 324-325). I was also shocked to realize how little the US spends on foreign Aid (I knew it was little, but I didn't know it proportionally less than any Western country save Italy, p. 302) and that the 400 richest Americans are 20% richer than the one hundred and sixty one million, three hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants of Botswana, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda (p. 305). Sachs convincingly argues that America often finds itself militarily involved in economically collapsing states (whether Vietnam, Lebanon, Zaire or Bosnia Herzegovina), and that indeed almost every country in which the US had to intervene suffered "state failure" (p.334). Wouldn't it be better to spend more on preventive medicine instead of risking American troops in the battlefield?
From the left, although Sachs identifies with the motives of the "Seattle Movement", he disagrees with their policy recommendations, calling for more - not less - trade, and for a large role for Multi National Corporations in reducing poverty.
Yet Sachs offers little place for dissenting views? Is the UN really this effective an instrument for poverty reduction? Is money spent in Africa really solving problems? To date, no country has been lifted from poverty via the large scale government sponsored policies Sachs promotes - instead, they have developed through mostly their own efforts with limited amounts of outside help. Africa does need more foreign aid - but maybe it needs more foreign humility, too.
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