In contrast to the image that the title of this book brings about and the prejudiced idea in our mind about how it is overwhelmingly difficult to end poverty in the distant or near future, Jeffrey Sachs’s The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time provides an honest, uncomplicated strategy for ending poverty that is appealing to both common sense and logic. Sachs provides conclusive proof that in our time, poverty can only be alleviated through a major shift in assistance policy. Yet, in contrast to many who think it is impossible to solve the challenges in Asia and particularly in Africa, an impressive agenda of feasible solutions is provided by Sachs through which the Millennial Goals of diminishing poverty can be fulfilled. Sachs also elaborates his scheme to get less developed countries to reach the “first rung of the ladder of economic development” (Sachs) in order to put an end to excessive poverty by the year 2025.
Unlike relative or moderate poverty, excessive poverty is when households are unable to meet the basic needs to survive, where each person earns an income of $1 per day, according to the World Bank. Sachs provides a lengthy explanation to develop his argument that “economic development is not a zero sum game; this game is one which everyone can win” (Sachs). To assure the reader of the soundness of his scholarship, Sachs not only provides adequate historical outlook on poverty in general, but also provides background on particular country case studies. He refers to Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren written by John Maynard Keynes during the Great Depression in 1930 and his vision regarding the end of poverty by the end of the 20th century in various industrialized countries, especially Britain. Similarly, the developed is able to act in the benefit of the developing world because of the resources it has.
What makes The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time a really compelling book for those who have an interest in productive approaches to development and solving poverty is that Sachs has such a strong grasp of environmental and agricultural issues acquired through comprehensive economic research. Sachs also chronicles the importance of history through the past two formative centuries, during which a large inequality of power and wealth developed. Generally, before this time, people were equally poor in almost every part of the world, apart from the small elite. Sachs analyzes how the highly developed cultures of India and China became victims of lack of internal unity, limited foresight and their own parochial decisions while the global trade was taken over the economies of Western Europe. Colonies were established that instead of focusing on education and local developed, emphasized on extraction, and until today, the legacy continues in great differences in access to resources and wealth.
The theme of “clinical economics’’ is further expanded in the book and is carefully analyzed in a series of chapters devoted to particular national situations in Bolivia, China, India, Poland, Russia, and also, several countries in sub-Saharan Africa. These are steadfast displays of the unique challenges that societies with different histories, feasible access to global trade and political natural resource have to face. The book become seven more fascinating to read because Sachs himself was involved and he describes the leaders with whom he has counseled, and a majority of readers will recognize events and names because most of this occurred in the past few decades. Sachs tells the stories in first person, providing an interesting and readable text. However, while grinding through the pages of the author’s personal exploits and influence on the course of economic development, the reader might get distracted by his ego.
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time really surpasses in the last eight chapters, where Sachs lays out a clear path to development. Sachs modestly names it and describes as his “Big Plan” for development, the solutions appropriate emphasize on integrated activities on various fonts in the battle against poverty. According to his claims, development cannot be significantly impacted by gradual, scrappy approaches that focus on single factors in national economy. However, he admits that some interventions can help people toward increased agricultural production and better health, such as infusion of chemical fertilizers and oral rehydration therapy. Economists might not be aware of this, but it is not news to agronomists and ecologists that all these things are connected. They know that a change will not occur by simply tweaking a part of the system. Regardless of the shortcomings, the book does not detract the reader from its central message.
Sachs provides vast evidence that there is hope to move towards solutions to poverty rather than absolute despair. The general reader might find it slightly difficult to understand the economic arguments and details, some simplified examples at the village and family members are provided by the author that clearly proves that a significant difference can be made in human well being and incomes through outside investment. In very accessible language, Sachs outlines the things that need to be done, and compares the necessary financing on a global scale to what is currently invested in military adventurism and equipment that could use for a better cause, such as the improvement of human condition. The way the author assess the fixation of the United States government with national security and odd military solutions to assure a global economy by stabilizing the world seems to be quite unforgiving.
Thus, another shortcoming in the “Big Plan” is introduced here. Although, in comparison to the simplistic efforts made in the past by foreign development assistance, it is framed in a reformist context, but it guarantees progress for everyone through an over-reliance on develop of free trade and neo-classic economics. The great differences in wealth that have evolved over the past couple of years because of rise of multinational corporations and uncontrolled capitalism are correctly described by the author. However, Sachs pays little attention to productive alternatives at the community, family and landscape level. Sachs emphasizes that a strategy is required not only to scale up the investments that will put an end to poverty, but also for a system of government that would hold the poor accountable while impoverishing them. Impoverished countries around the world would get the tools for sustainable development through such a strategy by specifying financing mechanisms, plans and systems need to achieve this goal effectively.
For Sachs, there is no other economy, for instance based on carbon balance, energy, metrics of global climate change or water, and the same is for other economists as well. Of course, they are realists since our societies are not adequately education to accept or understand the actual constraints in the long term: diminishing supplies of fresh water and fossil fuels, loss of farmland to development, among others. We also do not have the tools and the will so that any other long-term measure of sustainability can be developed and engaged. As he wraps up the book, Sachs discusses our generation’s challenge. According to him, if the developed world starts looking beyond their noses and sincerely tries to meet basic human needs on a global scale, by 2025 it will be realistically possible to envision a world without extreme poverty. The sentiment is indeed praiseworthy, the question now remains whether or not it will get implemented in its right vein!
With that said, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time by Jeffrey Sachs is quite a provocative book but for anyone who seriously understands the importance of role of rich countries in international development and is concerned about it, it is an essential read. It can be said that we are all connected, and that our survival in the long-term is dependent on the fortunes of those in the poorest countries and also the lack of fairness in income in developed countries. For our own survival, we must work within carrying Earth’s capacity, stabilize population and recognize the necessity of biodiversity. We must also accept that we are subject to the same natural laws like other species. We can only truly discover global stability and an end to poverty by combining the above with a rational approach to capitalism and economics. This book by Jeffrey Sachs takes the arguments toward extensive and sweeping reforms of development aid much further, while raising questions about how this should come about at the community level.
Work Cited
Sachs, Jeffrey. The end of poverty: Economic possibilities for our time. Reprint edition. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2006. Print.
