The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little GoodAn informed and excoriating attack on the tragic waste, futility, and hubris of the West's efforts to date to improve the lot of the so-called developing world, with constructive suggestions on how to move forward. William Easterly's The White Man's Burden is about what its author calls the twin tragedies of global poverty. The first, of course, is that so many are seemingly fated to live horribly stunted, miserable lives and die such early deaths. The second is that after fifty years and more than $2.3 trillion in aid from the West to address the first tragedy, it has shockingly little to show for it. We'll never solve the first tragedy, Easterly argues, unless we figure out the second. The ironies are many: We preach a gospel of freedom and individual accountability, yet we intrude in the inner workings of other countries through bloated aid bureaucracies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank that are accountable to no one for the effects of their prescriptions. We take credit for the economic success stories of the last fifty years, like South Korea and Taiwan, when in fact we deserve very little. However, we reject all accountability for pouring more than half a trillion dollars into Africa and other regions and trying one "big new idea" after another, to no avail. Most of the places in which we've meddled are in fact no better off or are even worse off than they were before. Could it be that we don't know as much as we think we do about the magic spells that will open the door to the road to wealth? Absolutely, William Easterly thunders in this angry, irreverent, and important book. He contrasts two approaches: (1) the ineffective planners' approach to development-never able to marshal enough knowledge or motivation to get the overambitious plans implemented to attain the plan's arbitrary targets and (2) a more constructive searchers' approach-always on the lookout for piecemeal improvements to poor peoples' well-being, with a system to get more aid resources to those who find things that work. Once we shift power and money from planners to searchers, there's much we can do that's focused and pragmatic to improve the lot of millions, such as public health, sanitation, education, roads, and nutrition initiatives. We need to face our own history of ineptitude and learn our lessons, especially at a time when the question of our ability to "build democracy," to transplant the institutions of our civil society into foreign soil so that they take root, has become one of the most pressing we face. |
Contents
CHAPTER ONE Planners Versus Searchers | 3 |
CHAPTER TWO The Legend of the Big Push | 37 |
CHAPTER THREE You Cant Plan a Market | 60 |
CHAPTER FOUR Planners and Gangsters | 112 |
CHAPTER FIVE The Rich Have Markets the Poor | 165 |
CHAPTER SIX Bailing Out the Poor | 210 |
Triumph and Tragedy | 238 |
Other editions - View all
The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So ... William Easterly No preview available - 2007 |
The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So ... William Easterly No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
accountable adjustment Africa aid agencies already American bad government Bangladesh better British bureaucracy called capita cause central chapter civil colonial corruption cost democracy democratic dollars donors economic effect efforts ethnic European evaluation example failed financing force foreign aid Fund give goals growth hold income increase independence India institutions interventions keep land later less lives loans markets ment military million official percent Planners plans political poor countries population poverty prevent problem produce reach reforms Rest rich roads rule Searchers social societies South Korea spending success things tion trade treatment United University village West Western White World Bank