The Real End of Poverty

This is an incredible book written by an incredible person. Jeffery Sachs completely altered my view of the world and what is being done to change it as well as stretched my notions of what one man can do far beyond the limitations I had once thought existed.

However, I don't think he has the solution. Sachs main point is that there is no magic bullet, no simple solution to the problem. The only way to end poverty is to do the things we have been doing--sending aid as both private donations as well as ODA, targeting structural issues, putting capital into the hands of those who need it, etc--but better, much better, and more of it, a lot more. This has to be done just enough to get poor nations onto the first rung of the development ladder. Once this is accomplished, market forces as well as good governance will lift allow the country to lift itself up the rest of the way. This is an incredibly down-to-earth strategy that makes sense on face-value.

But here's what I think: it don't think it's enough to push at the margins until something clicks and countries can lift themselves out of poverty. I think what's needed is total system restructure. I think the problem is capitalism itself and the way the free market works in the real world. It's not enough to keep adjusting the system, to somehow tweak it enough so it fits truly just resource allocation. Instead, we've got to find a new way, a new system that works better than capitalism and doesn't result in millions of people starving in some countries while in others obesity and overeating as national health crises.

The case is strong enough against communism and other forms of socialism. Any more about it and I would already be belaboring the point. But perhaps we should explore other socio-economic structures rather than continuing to struggle within our current framework. There must be something out there that, if we set our minds in the right direction, we could discover and solve all our problems. A system with such horrendous inequalities cannot possibly be the best one. Or maybe it is.