Caught in Sachs-contradiction
Rav Casley Gera, over at an admirable quest for knowledge he calls African Development for the Completely Bloody Ignorant, is currently working on Jeffrey Sachs and his much-publicised plans to end poverty. By 2025. It’s high-minded stuff indeed, and interesting, but after reading Gera’s summary I’m left with more questions than answers.
Sachs raves about anti-globalisation, saying “Before Seattle…. there was little said about the world’s poor.” I’m sure Bob Geldof would have something to say about that; not to mention the rich-country taxpayers who’ve been spending billions on foreign aid for the last half-century and have very little, if anything, to show for their generosity. Before long, however, he’s on the other side of the argument, saying, “By now the antiglobalisation movement should see that globalisation, more than anything else, has reduced the numbers of extreme poor in India by two hundred million and in China by three hundred million since 1990.”
So, which is it, Mr Sachs? Globalisation, or anti-globalisation? Or anti-globalisation-inspired globalisation?
He invokes Adam Smith, but in the same breath calls for making good on promises to spend 0.7% of rich-country GDP on foreign aid in an effort to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals.
Which is it, Mr Sachs? Free-market capitalism, or tax-funded bureaucratic socialism? Or tax-funded bureaucratic market capitalism?
I guess that’s the problem when high-minded do-goodery meets the facts on the ground. Your head can’t argue with the facts, yet your heart can’t let go of the altruism that motivates you. So you come up with a confused mish-mash of ideas. My concern is not only that Sach’s self-contradictions cannot be resolved on an intellectual level, but that by insisting on having it both ways, government-run foreign-aid bureaucracies will only end up undermining the success Sachs notes can be (and has already been) achieved by global free trade and economic liberty.
Sachs and his friends in the foreign aid movement, noted economists like Angelina Jolie and U2’s Bono, are nice guys, no question about it. They mean well. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, they say, and nice guys finish last.
