END OF POVERTY- By Jeffrey D Sachs
Jeffrey Sachs provides a critical analysis of current failed development aid policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the eastern block and the Third World. The book talks about the different issues related to poverty in the third world countries and methods for encountering the same. It also guides how China and India struggled in making rational decisions due to lack of unity, limited foresight and slow pace of economic development. JEFFREY D. SACHS makes a bold declaration in ''The End of Poverty.'' He argues that if the wealthy countries of the world were to increase their combined foreign aid budgets to between $135 billion and $195 billion for the next decade, and properly allocate that money, extreme global poverty - defined by the World Bank as an income of less than a dollar a day -- could be eliminated by 2025. Mr. Sachs provides enough historical perspective on poverty in general as well as background on the specific country case studies to convince the readers of the soundness of his scholarship. But still Sachs is no armchair academic. The author knows first-hand the challenges that face the poor from his visits to villages and families in impoverished areas of many places like India, Malawi and Ethiopia .We start by talking about guns, germs and steel and how economies prosperity is achieved. It puts light on the private accumulation of the Capital that creates social distress amongst the people. Situations in nationals such as Poland, China, Russia, India, Bolivia and Sub Saharan Africa faced challenges in terms of trade and political imbalances. Dr. Sachs describes his “Big Plan” in his last eight chapters where he speaks about laying down the path for development for the final outcome that needs to be concluded upon i:e End of Poverty. He also points out how investments in development of humans and well being of people. Rather than investing in military equipments the same could be used in improvement of livelihood of people for a better standard of living. Rise in disparities grew over time due to uncontrolled capitalism and unequal share of wealth. Our societies are not well enough educated to understand or accept the real constraints in the long term: declining supplies of fossil fuels and fresh water, loss of farmland to development, unrestrained competition within and among countries, among others. We also lack the tools and the will to develop and engage in any other long-term measure of sustainability . The book also highlights the major reforms and developments in the developing countiries and how can they be enhanced through alleviation of poverty. The heart of the book is Sachs's forceful analysis of the causes of extreme global poverty, his proposed solutions and his peroration on why his plan should be carried out. Boiled down to its essentials, the argument is simple. Too much of the globe is ensnared in a ''poverty trap.'' A combination of poor geography, poor infrastructure and poor health care renders some societies incapable of generating any economic surplus for the future. These places cannot afford investments that would boost their economies over the long term when bare subsistence is the short-term goal. Intuitively, this makes sense; a Kenyan village struggling with AIDS, malaria, inadequate drinking water and a lack of electricity cannot grow out of poverty unless its health care system and physical infrastructure improve. Sachs says the first step should be to increase foreign aid in a way that would provide a greater return to private investment. Once these investments are made, private entrepreneurs will be earning a greater rate of return on their businesses, triggering market-led economic growth. He details a multidimensional plan for international intervention that goes beyond simple market economics -- involving human capital, business capital, natural capital, public institutional capital, knowledge capital and infrastructure. Drawing an analogy to the field of medicine, Sachs likens this conventional approach to nineteenth century doctoring when, no matter what the malady was, the treatment offered was likely to be a generous dose. In these pages Sachs's technocratic enthusiasm bubbles over. At one point he writes that all of the challenges of extreme poverty ''can be met, with known, proven, reliable and appropriate technologies and interventions.'' He makes a powerful case: the kinds of technologies he calls for include fertilizers, cell phones, antiretroviral AIDS drugs and ant malarial bed nets. In order to tackle poverty, Sachs proposes that the direct assistance from rich counties to poor countries needs to dramatically increase and move away from the current model we have, in which poor counties pretend to reform whilst rich countries pretend to help them. He identifies six keys areas where investment is needed but emphasises that economists will need to examine each nation so that the plan and investments matches the country’s needs. As a result of the poverty trap the village faces under investment in the following five areas Agriculture, Health, Education, Power, transport and communications infrastructure, Sanitation and water. Sachs does not believe that supercharged globalization will automatically end extreme forms of economic deprivation. In fact, if badly guided, globalization can exacerbate problems, causing more economic upheaval than is necessary, failing to alleviate the pain that often accompanies rapid economic change, and turning a blind eye to deep-rooted stagnation. Thus, while Sachs embraces globalization, he is definitely not among those who offer unqualified applause for the rapidly globalizing economy. Globalization will either be kind or cruel to the worst-off, depending on the policies and values of those who are prosperous. For about 20years now, the west’s standard s been the market friendly policies stimulated greater economic growth and in turn reduce poverty. Sachs does not disagree with the view so much as declared it incomplete: “Market focuses, as powerful as they are, has identifiable limitations, including they posed by adverse geography.” For conventional economists and the policymakers they advise, the task is simple. Economically distressed people must be thrown into the marketplace to compete and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Therefore, is to employ a one-size-fits-all policy which encourages (and even compels) austerity, small government, and as close a condition as one can get to the abstract marketplace described in freshman economics courses. This is where Sachs’s notion of clinical economics comes in. Even if “The End Of Poverty” is half right, the playoffs would be enormous. Sachs hasn’t found a sure thing but that doesn’t mean his bet should not be made.
GROUP NUMBER 9
Utsav Shukla (MBA INFRASTRUCTURE)
Spandan Kumar Sarma (MBA INFRASTRUCTURE)
Rohan Sharma (MBA INFRASTRUCTURE)
Nalin Bhati (MBA INFRASTRUCTURE)
Gaurav Chauhan (MBA BUSINESS & SUSTAINABILITY)

Okay, I would most likely never have read this book anyway, but chapter 3 of Mexico Unconquered begins with some of Sachs' ideas and basically says how far off base he is, so I'm going to quote/summarize some of John Gibler's comments from Mexico Unconquered.

Gibler quotes Sachs: "Let me dispose of one idea right from the start. Many people assume that the rich have gotten rich because the poor have gotten poor. In other words, they assume that Europe and the United States used military force and political strength during and after the era of colonialism to extract wealth from the poorest regions, and thereby to grow rich" (89). Gibler points out Sachs' immediate dismissal of this idea ("Let me dispose of one idea right from the start"), without even considering it or having a thought-out argument about it, as if "the idea has no basis in historical reality" (90). Strike one. Strike two: please prove to me that's wrong. If you're going to say that this is an unworthy view, tell me why it's not. Because, really, they did, right? Europe and the U.S. *did* use military force and political strength to extract wealth from areas and people who couldn't stand up to them.

Next: Sachs also says "The key fact of modern times is not the transfer of income from one region to another, by force or otherwise, but rather the overall increase in world income, but at a different rate in different regions" (qtd. p. 89). Gibler responds by saying that Sachs is basically considering enslavement, slaughter, land theft, and genocide as a "transfer of economic goods" (91). So, okay, you consider slave labor, land theft, etc., as a simple "transfer of income...by force," an "Oopsie, maybe they had to get rough a little." Also, an "increase in world income, but at a different rate in different regions" -- could those be the natives the Europeans took the land from, and the enslaved people they brought to work their ("their") new (Newly found! Look ma, I was just walking along, and tripped over this land that didn't belong to anyone! Can I keep it?) land? That's definitely a different rate in income: the natives and slaves had a rate of 0 (more like a rate of a negative number, what with their own resources and land being taken away from them), while the Europeans had an actual positive rate, and both situations have continued.

Gibler later quotes Sachs as saying "The Americans, for example, believe that they earned their wealth all by themselves. They forget that they inherited a vast continent rich in natural resources..." (92). Sachs seems to believe that the Americans inherited their land and resources. He forgets that the European explorers came over and forcibly took the land and resources away from the people who were living here, forced them off their home lands, forced people from other continents to come to this land and work the natural resources, and neglected to let them be free or own their own land, which, for both of these non-European groups, led to them living -- and continuing to live, thanks to years and years of systemic racism -- in poverty.

Sachs also says that the "white man's burden" was "the right and obligation of European and European-descended whites to rule the lives of others..." (qtd. p. 92-93). Now, Gibler takes offense to a different part of the quote, which I haven't included, and at first, I did, too, but on re-reading, I wonder if Sachs is actually making the same point Gibler is, but not as strongly. Still, my problem is with the white man's burden being "the right and obligation" of the white men. Not *perceived* right and obligation, or "they saw it as their right and obligation"; Sachs uses no language to imply or state that this was *their* view; he makes it sound like he's right there with them that The White Man's Burden Is To Civilize Everyone Else, And That's Just HOW IT IS. True, Sachs calls The White Man's Burden "infamous," but ... can we throw a qualifier like "perceived" or "they thought" or "they felt like" in there?

Based on just these few passages that Gibler quotes, as well as his overall summary of Sachs' book and the fantasy world he seems to be living in, I can't imagine what other tripe is in Sachs' arguments.

With convincing maps, graphs, and tables of real numbers, Jeffrey Sachs, although a bit of a know-it-all makes a compelling argument why many people today are suffering in a destitute-poverty trap, which need not be the case. Lots of interesting tidbits like the fallacy of saying corruption is the reason why African economies haven't taken off and why arguments concluding that cultural heritage has vast economic consequences don't hold weight. Here's a quote on that last: "Early in the twentieth century, sociological theories in the tradition of Max Weber tried to explain the lower incomes of Southern Europe and Ireland relative to Northern Europe on the basis of supposedly static values of Catholicism versus entrepreneurial values of Protestantism. After midcentury, the Catholic countries began to grow very rapidly especially after malaria was controlled" (316 [my underline]).

I just finished this book and am feeling very conflicted about it, so it’s hard to review. This is my initial impression, but maybe I’ll amend it after I’ve had more time to reflect.

Sachs writes candidly and simply, but he's a bit too self-congratulatory on a few occasions. As a novice on these issues, I especially appreciated the fact that he explains economic concepts clearly but without dumbing them down too much. The case studies in the first half are a bit dry, and the second half is a bit repetitive, but he still kept me interested enough all the way through. I liked his arguments for eliminating poor countries’ debts, his observations about the US’s appalling spending priorities, and his criticisms of the IMF. I also like that he emphasizes that absolute faith in free markets is the wrong approach, and that the private sector needs to be regulated in order to protect people, rather than be given free reign.

I found his discussion of drugs a bit rushed. I was glad he acknowledged that high drug prices contribute to poverty, and that patents are largely to blame for this. However, he basically dealt with this issue by saying that while he was working on the Global Fund to Fight AIDS etc, drug companies just agreed to cut their prices. Huh? Given what I’ve been reading in the papers the last few years, it’s not so easy to just walk up to a drug company and ask it to ‘pretty please’ stop charging monopoly prices. I found this section very interesting—not to mention a key issue in ending poverty—and I wish Sachs had expanded on it more and explained how they went about negotiating lower prices, and if he sees it as a tactic that’s easily repeatable and sustainable enough to rely on as a permanent strategy for getting drugs to people who need them (my gut reaction is that it’s not, but I’d love to be wrong about that).

My biggest problem with the book is the way he dealt with agriculture, and his views on the subject seem inconsistent with his views in other areas. First, I found his portrayal of the Green Revolution highly questionable—his depiction was that the good ol’ Rockefeller Foundation came along and used technology to help Mexico and India feed their people. I’ve got a lot of books on this topic in my “to-read,” but my basic understanding of the GR so far is that US companies wanted to find commercial uses for the chemicals they developed during WWII, so they teamed up with philanthropists to encourage farming methods that required massive amounts of inputs, and in the meantime created huge new markets for US agribusiness firms… and that it raised yields in some cases, but without ending hunger among the poor sectors of society. Many people nowadays credit the GR with benefiting large farmers to the detriment of small ones, wreaking havoc on the environment, being a factor in the farmer suicides in India in recent years, etc, etc. Granted, the GR was a very tiny part of the book—he only mentioned it in passing a few times—but since he repeatedly stresses how important improved agriculture is to ending poverty, it surprised me that he devoted so little attention to investigating what kind of agricultural model would be most beneficial to the world’s poor. Secondly, although he doesn’t directly mention GMOs, I assume that’s what he meant when he repeatedly mentions the need for ‘improved seeds.’ This also struck me as odd, because I don’t see how making poor farmers pay royalties to, and buy inputs from, large agribusiness companies is going to help pull them out of poverty. When discussing drugs, Sachs acknowledges that patents hurt the poor, but he doesn’t do the same for ag/biotech patents. There may be potential benefits—raised yields etc—but, just as is the case with drugs, the poor will be tied to the prices established by the private sector. Along the same lines, when he discusses what kinds of goods & services should be the responsibility of govts and which should be left to the private sector, he puts agriculture largely in the private sector. However, he put other necessities (health, water, transport, etc) in the public sector for various reasons (fear of monopolies and high prices, etc), and he didn’t explain why those reasons don’t also apply to agriculture.

Overall, I felt like he puts too much faith in private philanthropy and governmental donations; he seems to think that rich countries or corporations can “donate away” poverty if they heed his advice on how to go about this. And I agree that that can certainly help, but he didn’t convince me that it’s a permanent solution. I’m also wary of his trust in corporations to be willing to negotiate a drop in profits to benefit the poor.

Basically, I think this the reason Sachs is so popular is because he says what many readers in rich countries want to hear—that with some effort, poverty can be alleviated, without having to make substantial structural changes to our economic system. He did convince me that implementation of his ideas would help alleviate some suffering, but he didn’t sell me on the idea that they would necessarily entail ‘the end of poverty.’ However, much of this is due to my own personal doubts about being able to end poverty within a framework of global capitalism. It doesn’t reflect on his writing, and the book really got me thinking about a lot of different issues, which is why I think it’s 3-star worthy.

Assigned reading for my graduate course in Global Health Development. Dr. Sachs definitely introduces some thought provoking ideas about how to end extreme poverty. Only critique I have is that some of his ideas have never been trailed in a real world situation, but he writes as if they are tried and true methods.

Great book! Easy to read and covers an important topic.

When I first read this book, I jumped on the Jeff Sachs train pretty enthusiastically. At that point, I probably would have rated this book with 5 stars. Now, after spending more time reading about development economics, this work seems less impressive. If you share the view that the only thing that will save poor countries are massive infusions of foreign aid, you will find much to agree with in this book. However, many of the author's conclusions are not based on sound logic. In addition, the notion that all developing country governments are prepared to handle cash injections on the scale of those discussed in this book is a bit delusional. For a good counterpoint to this book, I recommend William Easterly's "The White Man's Burden".

Aprendi muito!!!
Bem mais técnico do que achei que fosse!
Sacks trouxe o porque de existir a pobreza absoluta em alguns lugares do mundo, e de forma concreta como poderíamos resolver. Trouxe muito da vivência dele como consultor financeiro em países que estavam buscando uma reconstrução econômica (e alguns, política).
Enfim, Sacks é alguém que vale a pena ouvir quando o assunto é o que podemos fazer pra combater a pobreza. Como economista, trabalhou com órgãos importantíssimos (ou que deveriam ser) no combate à pobreza e saúde, educação...então tem conhecimento técnico, empatia, e viveu na prática as dificuldade e as conquistas em muitos lugares do globo!!

Overall, I do recommend this book and think I am better for having read it. I thought it was very informative and prompted a lot of thought as I read it. I think Sachs makes a good argument for market economies and I liked the context that he provides with each country and discussion point that he covers throughout the book. He strongly cautions against isolationism and effectively provides point after point to support his argument that globalization is a positive thing. Reading this with current events in mind is very interesting and much of his cautionary arguments ring extremely true. Sachs did a good job writing to and calling out policymakers to actually follow through on their promises of aid. He wrote it, I think, about as progressively as one could when writing to pro-capitalist and trying to appeal to conservatives and liberals alike.

As a public health student, I gained perspective and appreciation for the interdisciplinary and diverse aspects of my field.

However, it is ironic that Sachs spends the first third or so of his book lauding himself and singing his own accolades to then claim he’s so humble. He is an arrogant man that thinks he is always in the right and knows better than you, highlighted in the way he himself describes his advising and work in developing nations. He refused to collaborate with local leadership and only considers an extremely capitalist perspective. “The world would be so much better had [insert organization or government here] just listened to me!” He implies that colonialism and imperialism didn’t have a huge impact on developing nations, perpetuates the rhetoric that social progress is really only made through nonviolence, and claims to be each country that he’s worked with’s savior. While he criticizes imperialism, his writing and rhetoric is overwhelmingly written with a sense of United States superiority and a vibe of “we have a responsibility to help these poor bastards.” Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about economics to speak critically enough to his approach.

This has been on my list for ages and I'm so glad I finally read it. I do wish there was an updated version (and in fact there might be... just not available at my public library, so I worked with the original) because there's a lot of good data in here but a lot can also change in 15 years. The theories the data supports, however, remain solid and largely untried, and I would love to see a re-issue of this and the effect it could have if thoroughly applied. I really appreciated how Sachs makes the data relatable, especially because it seems like such big numbers are involved in solving these problems. For example, comparing the cost per day for lifting most of the world out of extreme poverty against what we spend on the military or against privately held wealth shows that yes, the number is big - but not nearly as big as the resources we use for far more destructive purposes. I also like how he identified that there is plenty of money to solve dire global problems, it just needs to be re-allocated. A lot of this book is still highly relevant, especially in the age of climate change, and I hope our next president is able to incorporate these principles to restore U.S. diplomacy and soft power abroad, as well as repay some of the many, many moral debts this country owes to the rest of the world.

Very interesting premise. The end of poverty is achievable in our lifetime!

“Currently, there are 8 million people around the world that die each year because they are too poor to stay alive.”

For comparison, the Philippine capital city of Manila has a population of 1.7M.

My #1bookamonth for September is a book that I started reading a few months back during a trip to Japan, and after a regrettably glacial pace, I have decided this month that I should finish it this week. When I find myself stressing out about work, I’ve found it helpful for my sanity to read about bigger issues that would keep my world grounded.

“This book is about ending poverty IN OUR TIME,” says the economic adviser and Special Advisor to the United Nations Jeffrey Sachs, as an optimistic response to John Maynard Keynes’ collection of essays ‘Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren’. Sachs has data showing that the world’s prosperity is in constant progress—from declining poverty rate to increasing access to education and technology, achievement of Millennium Development Goals—and therefore, ending extreme poverty is also extremely possible by 2030. If we work together in doing the right thing . “It’s about making the right choices—choices that can lead to a much safer world based on a true reverence and respect to human life.”

The book is nicely paced, letting the reader in first on the human construct of economics as the foundation framework, before immersing him in the roles of governance, global alliances, United Nations, and the United States. Saachs also gives us case studies of alleviating poverty in Bolivia, Poland, Russia, China, and Africa.

Why do some countries fail to thrive? Why should richer countries help? Why should the middle class bother? These are things I cannot wait to discover in this book.

#JeffreySachs
#TheEndOfPoverty