by Jeffrey D. Sachs

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review by Tricia Gates Brown

AMONG MODERN economists, Jeffrey Sachs ranks near the top. It is all the more impressive, then, that he passionately and consistently calls the rich and powerful to help the poor. For years Sachs has tirelessly challenged financial institutions such as the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank to champion economic justice, despite the fact that he echoes like a voice in the wilderness. Sachs, an educator, earns his right to teach, and those who stay the course through the hefty The End of Poverty will be rewarded. Not only will they be better equipped to assess the economic choices of their government and other governments, but they also will know how to make more responsible economic decisions for themselves. Like all books, Sachs's book has weaknesses. Still, it is well worth the read.

The End of Poverty offers many things. It includes an in-depth explanation of the macroeconomics of different global regions, including graphs, photos, and anecdotes; a brief economic history; memoirs of Sachs's experiences addressing financial crises in Bolivia, Poland, and Russia; and a manifesto/“how-to” on eliminating extreme poverty from the globe by 2025. Throughout the book Sachs dispels myths about why some countries are poor and others are not, and deconstructs economic fallacies like “trickle-down” economics. This comprises the best material.

In his explanation of dynamics that hinder growth, Sachs emphasizes geographic disadvantage, low food-productivity, vulnerability to disease, ethnic and cultural divisions, dependence on volatile industries, and geopolitical factors. He suggests that poverty should be approached the way doctors approach disease, being attuned to a sea of possible causes and asking every possible question in hopes of making an accurate diagnosis. When necessary, a good doctor's diagnosis will be “differential,” addressing a whole plethora of contributors to a problem, not only the obvious causes. In the same way, economists who want to cure economic maladies must use differential diagnoses to identify all the measures necessary to eradicate poverty. The analogy helps Sachs to make a solid point and gets at the heart of why so many economists fail. (Sachs admits his university education did little to render him useful in the real world.) Still, his medical analogy breaks down a little too quickly, since human processes tend to be far less predictable than biological ones.

The final chapters of The End of Poverty emphasize the importance of cultivating all six kinds of capital: business, human, knowledge, infrastructure, natural, and public. Many economists fixate on the first of these—business capital. This, as Sachs shows, widens the gap between rich and poor and disallows many to get a foothold on the ladder of development.

While many of Sachs's ideas are refreshing, his inability to think outside the box of neoliberalism is disappointing. His solutions depend too much on global trade and the affluence of rich countries. Since Western affluence generates jobs for, say, customer-service workers in India and factory workers in China, and since global trade is lifting people in these countries out of poverty, Sachs applauds it unequivocally.

But as I read Sachs's book, one question kept popping into my head: What about the environment? Sachs devotes little time to the question. In a single, short paragraph he mentions that China, as it ascends to greater and greater levels of affluence and consumption, should think hard about the environmental threat this poses. And in the last section, he spends one page on environmental stewardship. But in a book about ending poverty, these lonely paragraphs read as baffling understatements. As trade increases and more and more goods are shipped around the world, the environment will suffer greater and greater strain—strain it cannot bear.

Furthermore, Sachs devotes almost no time to exhorting the world's wealthy citizens to live more simply. Yet as global consumption picks up, and increases occur in fossil fuel use, climate change, and incidences of extreme weather, and as more and more tons of industrial waste and garbage are produced each year, we will see the poverty question as inseparable from the environment question. When the environment is thrown off balance, the poor bear the burden. Hurricane Katrina brought this home for Americans.

Sachs calls for an “enlightened globalization,” and I like his description of what this would be. But by the end of his book I do not feel very hopeful that an enlightened globalization will be achieved by following Sachs's prescriptions. He focuses too much on trade and on governmental aid, which is a feather in the wind for poor countries. Aid is important. Rich countries have an enormous surplus that should be shared. Yet governmental aid is not a sustainable solution to poverty. Aid budgets are unreliable and institutional aid is often administered in paternalistic, unhelpful ways.

I feel far more hopeful reading materials from Heifer Project, or about microfinance enterprises sponsored by groups such as Right Sharing of World Resources or World Vision. Yes, these too are institutions that give aid, but they are not self-serving in the way of governments, who consistently use aid to manipulate policy and promote pet ideologies such as neoliberalism. Groups like Heifer and RSWR empower the poor at the community level—a much different approach. Furthermore, they simultaneously teach the world's wealthiest citizens to simplify their lives. They help all of us see that learning and sharing go both ways. Trade and aid approached with a view to sustainability can be very good. But they are not enough. Poverty cannot be diagnosed and treated without an accompanying diagnosis and treatment of affluenza, the condition of rampant materialism afflicting the rich.

As Sachs says, “Everybody on Earth can and should enjoy basic standards of nutrition, health, water and sanitation, and other minimum needs for survival, well-being, and participation in society” (p. 24). I agree. What I am not sure of is whether urbanization, cell phone usage, and mall hopping will make low-income people happier. It hasn't worked for most people I see, who seem hungry for a little community and a deeper connection to the land.

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