The End of Poverty

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The End of Poverty

The title of Jeffrey Sachs' book, The End of Poverty:  Economic Possibilities for Our Time (New York:  Penguin Books, 2005) can't help but be enticing to anyone concerned about inequities in the world.  The Washington Post (March 13, 2005) was intrigued as well, but gave this mixed review:

"Jeffrey D. Sachs' guided tour to the poorest regions of the Earth is enthralling and maddening at the same time -- enthralling, because his eloquence and compassion make you care about some very desperate people; maddening, because he offers solutions that range all the way from practical to absurd."

Despite the Post's concern, we found the book to be of high value in putting poverty in perspective.  For example, Sachs observes:

"The good news is that well more than half of the world, from the Bangladesh garment worker onward, broadly speaking, is experiencing economic progress.  Not only do they have a foothold on the development ladder, but they are also actually climbing it.  Their climb is evident in rising personal incomes and the acquisition of goods such as cell phones, television sets, and scooters.  Progress is also evident in such crucial determinants of economic well-being as rising life expectancy, falling infant mortality rates, rising educational attainment, increasing access to water and sanitation, and the like.

"The greatest tragedy of our time is that one sixth of humanity is not even on the development ladder.  A large number of the extreme poor are caught in a poverty trap, unable on their own to escape from extreme material deprivation.  They are trapped by disease, physical isolation, climate stress, environmental degradation, and by extreme poverty itself.  Even though life-saving solutions exist to increase their chances for survival -- whether in the form of new farming techniques, or essential medicines, or bed nets that can limit the transmission of malaria -- these families and their governments simply lack the financial means to make these crucial investments.  The world's poor know about the developmental ladder:  they are tantalized by images of affluence from halfway around the world.  But they are not able to get a first foothold on the ladder, and so cannot even begin the climb out of poverty."

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