The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
by William Easterly
List Price:
Our Price: $9.42
You Save: $7.58 (45%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $6.30 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: William EasterlyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-02-27
ISBN: 0143038826
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780143038825
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
Book Review: How Global Aid became a Cash Laden Cow instead of a Thoroughbred Racehorse (or Bureaucracies eat oats too, don't they?)
Summary: 5 Stars
Here, William Easterly lifts the veil of fog and proceeds to make a big dent in our collective ignorance about the "ways of global poverty" and in the process tells us what "not to do" in trying to surmount it. His trenchant critique gives a whole new meaning to the biblical philosophy: Give a man a fish and you feed him for one day, but teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime," as well as to the well-worn adage that "the road to hell many times has been paved with good intentions."
Always sharp, relevant, wise and delivered with the authority of a man who has "been there, done that, and bought the tee shirt," This is the testimony of a man who has wrestled in the trenches with the problem of global poverty and lost so many times that he has now figured out what he and everyone else have been doing wrong. He is like the "Archie Moore of Global Aid programs." And at least in principle Easterly now knows the score and what needs to be done to get global poverty right. His experience, his logic, his tenacity, the crispness but lightness of his writing, and his bravery in taking on the conventional wisdom (and all of its embedded sacred cows), convinces me that Easterly is the real deal; and that if he does not know what he is talking about then no one does.
His story has the full ring of truth. It is one born both out of compassion and frustration. He is tactful, and gingerly tips around the currently reigning gurus and heroes of the global poverty fight, and here I mean such heroes as Jeffery Sachs, Gordon Brown and even Madonna and Bono. His story can be summarized somewhat as follows:
While beautiful heartfelt and compassionate ideas coupled with a plan and money (so far the West has spent more than $2.3 trillion with minimal results), does indeed constitute a "valid" global poverty eradication program, it does not in fact constitute a "viable" one. And here is the twist: The difference between "valid" and "viable" is not just semantic or symbolic fluff, but the difference between success and failure. The presently used "so-called" valid formulas have been tried and have failed so often that they have long since passed the point of violating Einstein's maxim of how insanity is defined: "repeatedly trying the same old techniques and expecting a different result."
The reason this formula may be "valid" but not "viable" is that unlike the distribution system that got nine million copies of JK Rowley's book "Harry Potter" into the hand of kids in less than a week, once the boxcars of food are dropped off in some godforsaken Third world desert, there is no well-oiled, well-motivated distribution system available to see that they then get to the needy. Most of those in need have no way of knowing that aid is available, and because of poor infrastructure, could not get to it even if they did.
The incentive under such circumstances is for the lucky handful to use the "the White Man's" largesse either for the benefit of the immediately available and powerful few, or as a basis to begin the process of bureaucratization, which in the end amounts to the same thing. But Easterly knows as well as the rest of us, that even under the best of conditions, and even in the First World, bureaucracies exist only to siphon-off the resources to better perpetuate their own existence, and not to service their client, the poor, or to end poverty.
It is the author's repeated and vivid analogies that drive home all of his key points. For instance, one of the reasons his "motivated middleman strategy" seems to work when bureaucracies do not, is that middlemen "gets paid" only after the end product is delivered to the recipient - whether that product is drugs, prostitution, Harry Potter Books, or poverty eradication. On the other hand, "poverty bureaucrats" (in the U.S. we call them poverty pimps) get paid "up front" for merely showing up on the job. There is no accountability or follow-up or even penalties for undelivered products, and thus they remain unmotivated to get the products out to the recipient. When this disincentive is coupled with local obstacles, such as lack of distribution infrastructure, ignorance or local politics, then it is easy to see why poverty aid has become a magnet for bureaucratic corruption and political machinations rather than for the eradication of poverty.
According to the author, we allow our poverty fighting institutions (from the UN Relief agencies to ad hoc AIDs groups) to get caught-up in this bureaucratic trap by asking the wrong question: "What can foreign aid do for poverty?" -- rather than the proper one: "What can foreign aid do for poor people?" In his most colorful analogy, Easterly compares setting goals and sending money and food before this question is answered to sending a cow to the Kentucky Derby and expecting that by properly training and grooming it, it will compete successfully against thoroughbred racehorses. No matter how well the cow is groomed, trained or how many oats you feed it, the cow has no chance of winning. So too is true for poverty eradication programs that rely only on top-heavy bureaucracies. (Bureaucracies eat oats too, don't they?)
What is the solution to Global Poverty?
Easterly thinks that grandiose goals must first be tapered or given up altogether: Ending global poverty is not going to happen any time soon, if ever. And "having ending it" as an immediate goal is impractical and ultimately self-defeating.
However, if we keep our ears and our aid close to the ground where micro-management is implicit and becomes "built in" rather than explicit, we can make a big dent in poverty by creating opportunities locally where none existed before. When we educate poor kids, especially girls, and otherwise use what people on the ground need and know, we are actually leveraging that knowledge into a force multiplier, that ripples horizontally across the landscapes of the poor, and trickles across rather than telescoping downward as is the case with bureaucratically driven models. In doing so, grassroots approaches have just the opposite effect of getting trapped in cycles of bureaucratic red tape: They tend to maximize the distribution and immediate utilization of scarce resources rather than minimizing and even working against them.
But also implicit philosophy is being "tapped" in Easterly's reasoning. It is the same philosophy that has shown proven results and has been successfully exploited by notables such as the Noble Laureate Muhammad Yunus in his micro-lending programs in Bangladesh. It is a philosophy that is so often ignored that it has become a leitmotif of bureaucratized Aid Relief Programs: People on the ground often know better how they are best to be helped than bureaucrats in capital cities, or those with good intentions writing impersonal checks in far away lands.
What people need is not the equivalent of America's Thanksgiving day handouts of old canned goods, but the dignity and connections that go with being able to create ones own opportunities. It seems that the biblical adage of give a man a fish and feed him for a day, or teach him how to fish and he will feed himself for a life time, works better in the world of global poverty than does Aid bureaucracies.
A valuable addition to the discussions and literature of poverty eradication, and to a potential mid-course correction to those many failing efforts. Five Stars
More The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good reviews:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Summary of The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
From one of the world?s best-known development economists?an excoriating attack on the tragic hubris of the West?s efforts to improve the lot of the so-called developing worldIn his previous book, The Elusive Quest for Growth, William Easterly criticized the utter ineffectiveness of Western organizations to mitigate global poverty, and he was promptly fired by his then-employer, the World Bank. The White Man?s Burden is his widely anticipated counterpunch?a brilliant and blistering indictment of the West?s economic policies for the world?s poor. Sometimes angry, sometimes irreverent, but always clear-eyed and rigorous, Easterly argues that we in the West need to face our own history of ineptitude and draw the proper conclusions, especially at a time when the question of our ability to transplant Western institutions has become one of the most pressing issues we face.
Economics Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Economics Books
The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in Its First Age of Terrorby Beverly Gage
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2009-01-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.33
Price in other shops:
Coal: A Human Historyby Barbara Freese
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2004-01-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Econometric Models and Economic Forecastsby Robert Pindyck, Daniel Rubinfeld, Robert S. Pindyck, Daniel L. Rubinfeld
McGraw-Hill/Irwin; Published: 1997-07-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $88.50
Elements of Dynamic Optimizationby Alpha C. Chiang
Mcgraw-Hill College; Published: 1992-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $375.84
Macroeconomicsby Campbell McConnell, Stanley Brue
McGraw-Hill/Irwin; Published: 2006-10-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $30.00
Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power (P.S.)by John Steele Gordon
Harper Perennial; Published: 2005-10-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.73
Price in other shops:
A Term at the Fed: An Insider's Viewby Laurence H. Meyer
HarperBusiness; Published: 2006-01-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.24
Price in other shops:
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (Harper Business Essentials)by Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras
HarperBusiness; Published: 2002-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.86
Price in other shops:
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisionsby Dan Ariely
Harper; Published: 2009-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.48
Price in other shops:
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000by Paul Kennedy
Harper Collins Publishers; Published: 1989-03-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.08
Similar Books and other products
The Challenge for Africaby Wangari Maathai
Anchor; Published: 2010-10-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.59
Price in other shops:
The No-Nonsense Guide to International Development (No-Nonsense Guides)by Maggie Black
New Internationalist; Published: 2007-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.04
Price in other shops:
Prosperity & Violence: The Political Economy of Development (Second Edition) (The Norton Series in World Politics)by Robert H. Bates
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2009-07-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.95
Understanding Development: Theory and Practice in the Third Worldby John Rapley
Lynne Rienner Pub; Published: 2007-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.56
Price in other shops:
The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropicsby William R. Easterly, William Easterly
The MIT Press; Published: 2002-08-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.95
Price in other shops:
Development as Freedomby Amartya Sen
Anchor; Published: 2000-08-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.96
Price in other shops:
Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Povertyby Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo
PublicAffairs; Published: 2011-04-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.99
Price in other shops:
Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africaby Dambisa Moyo
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 2010-03-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.76
Price in other shops:
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About Itby Paul Collier
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2008-08-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops:
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Timeby Jeffrey Sachs
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2006-02-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.37
Price in other shops: