As someone with a passion for helping the poor, I thought this book would be a worthwhile read. However, I walk away feeling like I listened to a broken record for the entire book.

Sachs' main thesis in my opinion is that poor countries need a fresh start via debt cancellation, coupled with an injection of ODA provided by the world's rich countries. He illustrated this argument 500 times in a variety of ways. His style was too confrontational and "I know best" for my liking. After hearing "me", "my", and "I" more times than I could count in the first half of the book, I was partially turned off.

Not only that, but Sachs managed to condemn more groups and individuals than he praised. Throughout the book, he gave a black eye to America, Americans, President Reagan, President Bush, Christians and other religious folks, the rich, Republicans, neoconservatives, and more. I imagined him coming to my door, punching me in the face, and then asking for my tax and personal dollars like nothing even happened.

My opinions of economists have not improved after reading Antifragile and Think Like a Freak. I sincerely wish the world met his challenge of giving 0.7% of GDP to see whether it would work or not. Economists can make predictions and give advice all they want, but life is not rational, predictable, or linear enough for them to work out a majority of the time.

For a balanced perspective and a book that was critical of Sachs conclusions, try Why Nations Fail. I also found Poor Economics to be much more readable and interesting, with more behavioral economics tie-ins.

The book epitomizes a top-down, experts-know-best approach to international development. Sachs is knowledgeable, but oh so arrogant. Read this in combination with William Easterly's The White Man's Burden, just to get a little balance. Sachs' fawning praise for the celebrities and politicians who either wrote reviews for the book or retain him as an expert consultant is particularly distasteful. That said, it's worth reading.

Towards the End of Poverty: A Manifesto


The difference between a solid policy prescription book and an evocative manifesto is hard to make out if it is an economist writing it. I should have known which side this would fall on once I saw that the introduction was by Bono, but I let the forceful and articulate Bono force me into buying this one. In the store, Bono’s righteous anger was infectious and the book could not be put down. It sounded like a moral obligation:

n  Fifteen thousand people dying needlessly every day from AIDS, TB, and malaria. Mothers, fathers, teachers, farmers, nurses, mechanics, children. This is Africa's crisis.

That it's not on the nightly news, that we do not treat this as an emergency—that's our crisis.n

Sachs has often come into some criticism for advocating a too-simple model. But, perhaps the point is that one has to take his prescriptions as those of a reformist, of an evangelist, of one who is willing to put his reputation on the line to get the ball rolling. He is okay to work out the details later. His prime interest is to convince the world that progress in the fight against poverty is possible, and that depends on giving them a believable model, a get-go plan.

The model he presents is the Ladder of Development. This is the easy and feel-good model, the one for the headlines. The more realistic prescription is hidden inside. It is what he calls ‘Clinical Economics’. This review wont be covering that. Another interesting part of the book is Sachs’ analysis of China. It is an insightful take on why socialism failed in Russia but flourished in China. It is worth a read, but again won’t be covered in this review since it will take away from the forcefulness of the main thrust. The reviewer is determined to be a disciple of Sachs in this respect.

In the simple model, Sachs tells us that there exists a Ladder of Development. It is made of many successive rungs that have to be climbed to reach where the developed world currently is. The Ladder is not a normal ladder, the rungs are not equally spaced - they get closer together as you climb higher. So that it gets easier and easier to climb the higher you are. This is illustrated by countries who were poor only a few decades ago but had so called ‘economic miracles’. To Sachs, there was nothing miraculous about it, it was all about getting high enough in the ladder for the growth to be self-sustaining.

The very hardest part of economic development, according to Sachs, is getting the first foothold on this Ladder. This is so because, true to its peculiar nature, the lowest rung of the Ladder is very high off the ground. Most of the poor countries cannot easily reach there. If only they could, they would then be climbing as if they were born ladder-climbers, Sachs is sure. Economic development works. It can be successful. It tends to build on itself. But it must get started.



This is where the ones on top of the Ladder has to step in. This is where the role of aid, the crux of Sachs’ advocacy, becomes crucial. If the developed nations could just pull these countries on to the First Rung and perhaps even hold their hand for the next few rungs, we could soon be at The End of Poverty.

So, the rich countries should stop obsessing over trivialities (too much economic thinking, Sachs says, has been directed at the wrong question—how to make the poor countries into textbook models of good governance or efficient market economies) and focus on making sure that every country is safely on the Ladder. All the squabbling and fighting happens when they can’t get on it and focus all their abundant energies towards the exciting adventure of climbing it. Once they are on that task, other peripheral aspects of development would follow naturally. So stop breaking your head over it and get on the real task - this is Sachs radioing the world, loud and clear.

Sachs sees the Ladder and knows that a better world is there for the taking. He sees that much of the world is focused on comparatively trivial things when they could be saving lives and ending misery. That is why Sachs is angry. And this book is the result. It leaves little doubt about the duty of this generation. Sachs is supposed to be most important economist of this generation, and based on his results, he might indeed be. There is definitely no doubt that he is the loudest (especially with Bono for company). You can question his approach, but not his passion.

Jeffrey Sachs has more degrees and social achievements in his modest years than most people of that social responsibility crowd achieve in a lifetime. His driving passion is not to achieve an equal distribution of wealth but rather to raise the average wealth of all mankind by helping to bring the poorest of us out of poverty. In this offering he calculates the modest cost (an amount equal to one cup of Starbucks coffee from every American) and the practical application (helping people help themselves) that can achieve this end. This is not utopian dreaming but it fails to account for the greed and lust for power that dominates much of the poorer parts of the world. His ideas if implimented by a trely benevolant despot have a fair chance of working but so long as the free world keeps plundering the resources of the third world and their companions in crime, the private armies and corrupt governements keep looting their nations treasures the cause is close to hopeless. But maybe, just maybe, enough voices like Professor Sachs will awaken the consciouses of enough people a meaningful step toward alleviating poverty may indeed take place.

A well researched book. I must admit that I had come across countless commentaries about the book before reading it, Mostly negative! After reading it, I wonder how many of those commentators actually read Sach's work. He builds a well thought out argument on why the developing world is poor, decisively challenging the common normative positions cited as the reason for Africa's poverty. Instead he looks to empirical factors more specifically economic geography. Morality as grounds for increased aid is a small element of the argument, rather past precedence set after world war II and an assessment of how aid is an investment rather than charity forms a greater basis of his argument. My only disappointment with the book was that while he indicated how the developing world could be assisted to increase its capacity to absorb more aid, he doesn't address how to immediately deal with the restricting impact an influx of aid places upon economic growth. How ever I did feel that the developing world has a true friend in Sach's.

Granted...there were some good tidbits taken from the book. I hadn't thought intensely about how much government running businesses would be apt to hand out as many jobs as possible regardless of the efficiency of this all with the goal of more jobs equaling more votes. Good point. Otherwise, this book was not at all what I expected. Keynesian policies and free market were praised on every page while bashing all other schools of thought. The writing style reminded me of college essay style....it was repetitive, dull, and his whole outlook on economic policy boils down to a one-size-fits-all for all economies even though he explicitly says he isn't doing that. Open your markets to to the world and all will remedy itself. The influx of bananas of all things in Poland was given as an example of progress....smh. Is access to a wide variety of foreign goods really economic success? Is that what we should all be striving for....? Is that really more efficient in the long run? I scanned the last 3 chapters for areas of interest as I had already had enough of this by that time. Ehh. Not on my recommendation list.

Definitely a good read. Sachs is apparently an expert in his field with lots of practical information. About his book writing, I can not say the same. Reader should not expect an easy-flowing story line. Sachs is an economist, not an author. One can actually observe the way he thinks and how complicated and inclusive the subject is. This is reflected on the text and structure. Reading it in 2020, I observe that I have been exposed to these ideas in the meantime, thus, it is nothing new to me.

If someone were to ask me for the list of books that they absolutely need to read, I would put this book on that list. You don't have to agree with all of the conclusions - although Mr. Sachs provides plenty of research and science to back it up - but you should at least consider the ideas. Namely...

1. The end of poverty (extreme, global poverty) is within reach in our generation, and
2. Ending poverty is a winning proposition for everyone.

Jeffrey Sachs is one of the world's most prominent economists, and he has participated as one of the best and the brightest minds to lay out a plan for the end of global poverty. And (according to him and his incredibly compelling research) it is within reach with modest investments by the rich, developed world. Investments that will show returns as disease abates, population growth falls, economies stabilize and the planet is put under less stress.

You don't have to believe it, but I really hope you'll take the time to read it for yourself.

Excellent book that covers more of the macroeconomics behind (extreme) poverty, country-level development, and prescriptions for wealthy nations and individuals alike. The book almost rings of a Jared Diamond like analysis of the situation, with the in-depth dive into the numerous interplaying variables at hand. Happily, the idea of 'clinical economics', as coined here, is something that seems to have already taken hold in the work of many philanthropic organization seeking to alleviate global poverty.

This book is probably better read before Benerjee's 'Poor Economics', not only for the obvious reason that it was publish half a decade earlier, but because the macro-understanding explicated here grounds much of the case-specific situations discussed by Banerjee in his work.

A combination advocacy, economics, and educational book. Well worth the ready for the conscienstious individual. Sachs gives a palatable explanation of his economic philosophy and recommendations, and describes a number of countries' recent economic evolution. Sachs presents a viable economic diagnois for poverty in our time if the will exists.

Sachs focuses on the plight of the 1 billion people in extreme poverty, of which 20,000 perish each day. The book centers on the idea that we need to help the extreme poor to climb onto the ladder of economic development, which is currently out of their reach. Eight problems are noted that can cause a country to fail: Poverty trap (unable to accumulate capital per person), physical geography, fiscal trap (limited government resources), governance failures, cultural barriers (undermined rights of parts of population), geopolitics (trade barriers), lack of innovation (lack of markets) and demographic trap (high fertility rates). Getting the first foot on the economic development ladder requires six types of capital: human capital (health, nutrition, and skills needed for each person to be economically productive), business capital (the machinery, facilities, motorized transport used in agriculture, industry and services), infrastructure (roads, power, water and sanitation, airports and seaports and telecommunications systems), natural capital (arable land, healthy soils, biodiversity and well functioning ecosystems), public institutional capital (commercial law, judicial systems, government services and policing) and knowledge capital (scientific and technological know-how). Prosperity ultimately spreads when technology and ideas have a foundation to flourish upon.

Like clinical medicine in the treatment of a body, we need to understand how the interrelated facets of a country and region interrelate through a differential and context based diagnosis to solve the extreme poverty problem. Support needs to focus on addressing the interrelated problems concurrently rather than in isolation. This would consist of approximately $60 US of aid per person per year, well within the 0.7% GNP commitment made by all developed countries. The problem is that the true nature of aid is hidden in a sea of numbers. Of the 2002 gross foreign aid of $76b, only $12b went to low income countries in a form deemed to be budgetary support. Viewed specifically in the context of Africa, of the $30 per sub-Saharan African aid contributed by the global community in 2002, $5 went to consultants from donor countries, $3 went to food and emergency aid, $4 went to servicing debts and $5 for debt relief, leaving only $12 to go directly to Africa (the US contribution being $0.06).

We must act upon the injustice of circumstances today to address the problems compounded over centuries. Africa for example has been subjected to three centuries of slave trade (1500-1800s) followed by a century of brutal colonial rule. The colonial era left Africa bereft of educated citizens and leaders, basic infrastructure and public health facilities. The borders of the newly independent states followed arbitrary lines of the former empires dividing ethnic groups, ecosystems, watersheds and resource deposits. After the colonial period Africa became a pawn in the cold war and was frequently manipulated by the West that contributed to a series of political crisis. No culture or society should be destined to perpetual poverty. In the 1870s the Japan Gazette predicted that Japan will never be rich because of their indolence and backward principles.

The book ended with a quote from Robert Kennedy which I liked: "Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills - against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence...Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation...It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

You, being a smart person who is up on contemporary debates in economics and development and/or are a reader of Vanity Fair, probably already know all about Sachs and this book.

Sachs made his name giving “shock therapy” to various third world economies. He recommended they jack up interest rates, and pushed them towards neo-liberal free market structures. His career hit a bit of a bad patch when he was associated with the economic meltdown of the former Soviet Socialist Republic. This book is his recommendations for development in Africa.

Sach’s ideas at base a pretty simple - Sub Saharan Africa needs lots and lots more aid. This aid should be put to use curing easily defeatable diseases and establishing local agrarian and eventually manufacturing economies, and right wing type who say that more aid won’t fix the problem are wrong. That’s about it.

I think Sach’s has this all about half right. More aid is a good idea, but alone, and in the style he suggests, I doubt it will lead to an end to poverty. Paul Collier’s more nuanced book The Bottom Billion, which I just finished, and will review soon, gives a better battle plan for dealing with seriously fucked countries. Sach’s plan is a little too throw-money-at-the-problem for me.

Still, this book is worth a read. If you’re going to talk about world poverty now a days (and I tend to talk about world poverty a lot), you going to have to know what Sach is up to. He is by far the biggest name in the field. He may not always be right, but he’s a player that you need to know about.