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Book Review - Common Wealth - Jeffery Sachs

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So this poverty and all the poor youth it creates leads to "state failure". But now look at the main failed states that are presented: Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan...oh my gosh...all the countries that have been invaded, attacked, occupied, and otherwise abused by the United States and earlier imperial powers! For ending the poverty trap he then has the audacity to use Afghanistan as the example, as it "exemplifies the end of the line for desperately poor countries when poverty, overpopulation, and environmental degradation are allowed unchecked for decades."



For a supposedly intelligent man, this is an incredibly stupid statement!!!



What does he not see? I guess the British and Russian excursions into Afghanistan count for nothing, the American manipulation of the Pakistanis by the Americans to create the Taliban to get rid of the Russians in Afghanistan counts for nothing, the ongoing American led NATO occupation counts for nothing...no, it is there own fault for having too many kids!! Incredibly, incredibly ignorant! How many exclamation points am I allowed to use? Should I write it all in capital letters? No, I guess the correct academic word would be exasperation that someone who should know better can make such clearly misleading statements.



Other problems arise within the book as well. There is no recognition of tariff barriers as fully described by other authors as significant factors in a developing countries successful progress by keeping out undesirable foreign competition – predation might be a more accurate word. [2] Japan maintained tariff barriers against foreign products after WW II to protect its renewing economy. Korea did the same as to protect its re-established and new industries. The same applies to all other wealthy countries at the beginning of their rise to power/wealth (the U.S. and Britain included) – the protection of local industry by using tariffs, export taxes, and subsidies for protection.



Accompanying this is the lack of democracy in many of these state enterprises. Sachs does provide a one liner in support of the neoliberal ideal that wealthy countries are democratic and then do not go to war with each other. Except that Korea was a dictatorship up into the 1980s. Britain and the U.S. were democracies but in the very limited sense of early forms that disenfranchised nearly everyone but the wealthy landowners. Further, all empires have never hesitated to support non-democratic autocratic, dictatorial, monarchical states as long as those states remained within their economic-ideological range otherwise.



The biggest avoidance of democracy arises from the very omission of the WTO, IMF, and World Bank, all directed by corporate personnel of some kind. Corporations themselves are not democratic, and the global governance bodies created by them are definitely not democratic, especially considering they have described themselves previously as "colluding" to form a new world governance.



Anything good?



To counter that with a positive note, Sachs almost redeems himself in a chapter discussing social welfare, or the welfare state. Previous to this point there are many ideas presented to assist the poor achieve some form of wealth, many of which, while coming under the social welfare rubric, are not described as such: education, health, worker safety, working conditions, agricultural training, empowerment of women through education and financial support. All these are part and parcel of a true 'social democracy' a true socialism. Somehow Sachs cannot quite admit to himself or his compatriots that his arguments are very much socialistic.



In Chapter 11, "Economic Security in a Changing World," Sachs examines several levels of social democracy, starting with the Scandinavian countries (that are conveniently forgotten in most economic treatises trying to debunk socialism), passing through the slightly less socialist levels of Europe (called 'mixed economies'), to those of us on the right that are mainly 'free market', at least at the government-corporate level if not at the level of the people. His conclusion is clear: "...uniquely among the world's high-income countries [the U.S.] has carried on a decades-long assault on social insurance in a manner contrary to the evidence, and with increasingly adverse results." In other words, democratic socialist policies do provide benefits to the poor and the over-all economy of the countries they live in.



Almost redeems himself, but not quite, as he then turns to "Rethinking Foreign Policy" and on into "Achieving Global Goals" where – although some of his ideas are sound – there again is no recognition of militarism and corporate power. Without addressing those problems, the other ideas and proposed solutions are purely academic.



This is a very frustrating work as it could have so much more potential. Jeffery Sachs sits on the edge of the truth, never quite wanting – or able - to identify it for what it is, except for the one quick chapter on social welfare, not quite willing for some reason to look at the complete picture that includes the military-corporate ties, keeping blinders on that prevent a truly global view of Common Wealth. Because his writing and arguments are clearly presented as far as they go, I would hope that he re-addresses these issues in light of the above arguments. While everyone has biases of interpretation, there cannot be a bias on something that is simply omitted – it is just not there - and because of that, the work fails.



[1] There are many works on this topic, far too many to list here, but among the main authors to review are Andrew Bacevich, Chalmers Johnson, James Carroll, Joseph Stiglitz, Howard Zinn, Alex Cockburn, William Blum, Greg Grandin, Amy Chua, William Greider, Noam Chomsky.



[2] some of the note [1] authors cover this especially Stiglitz, but see also Walden Bello, Bruce Cumings, and Ha-Joon Chang.

 

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Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and analyst who examines the world through a syncretic lens. His analysis of international and domestic geopolitical ideas and actions incorporates a lifetime of interest in current events, a desire to (more...)
 

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