Common Wealth by Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs

Economics for a Crowded Planet.

Apr 6, 2009

Sachs maps the road to sustainable and equitable global prosperity. Powerful technologies are available to break poverty traps. The key is global, political cooperation.

The director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and author of “The End of Poverty,” Sachs is perhaps the best-known economist writing about global problem solving. Our world faces enormous challenges and each of them can be addressed if governments and citizens commit to working together.

Control Climate Change and Stabilize Population Growth

Development economist Jeffrey Sachs names four bold but achievable goals to avert the dangers facing the world:

Published in March 2008 "Common Wealth" could not have come at a more opportune time. As the current worldwide economic crisis and recession unfolds, Sachs pleads for an economic paradigm shift. The alternative is nothing less but a worldwide economic collapse.

The very idea of competing nation-states scrambling for power, resources, and markets will become obsolete in the 21st century. A new kind of global politics must take shape, built not on U.S. or Chinese preeminence, but on global cooperation across regions. The private sector, especially the large multinational companies with access to advanced technology and sophisticated management methods have to be engaged as well. This will take skillful leadership in the private and public sector.

How to End Extreme Poverty

Sachs analyzes economic data, climate change, the expanding water crisis, resource depletion and global population dynamics. He argues that the biggest threat to humanity comes from those living in extreme poverty. Eradicating extreme poverty is no elusive goal. Sachs claims that by investing two to three percent of the world's income, we could save ten million children per year from death while stabilizing the world's population growth, ending extreme poverty, curbing climate change, and developing alternative energy sources.

Critics say that Sachs discounts the frightening trends of ethnic and national groups clinging to differences, as we saw in Tibet, Kosovo and Kenya. Cooperation and good will are rooted in trust, and as long as greed and corruption motivate political leaders, any aid will be wasted (James Pressley for Bloomberg.com).

Nobel Prize Winners, Al Gore (2007) and Kofi Anan (2001) endorse "Common Wealth" without reservations, especially since the action called for is at the core of the Millennium Promises.

"Despite the rearguard opposition of some vested interests, policies to help the world's poor and the global environment are in fact the very best economic bargains on the planet." (Kofi Annan)

The presentation in "Common Wealth" is dense and should be taken as a strong argument for better education in the sciences and statistics. If we don't know what is happening to our planet, we won't be able to make informed decisions. Sachs strongly encourages to educate the public on the Millennium Goals. Citizens and NGOs can make sure that governments follow through with their commitments.

Aid Targeted at Specific Needs Has Enormous Impact

Despite its sobering matter, "Common Wealth" is an inspiring and optimistic read. When asked about his optimism, Sachs points out that his position — more aid directly targeted at specific needs— was widely dismissed at the start by mainstream economists. "Three billion dollars per year for AIDS? A global fund to fight pandemic diseases? A 100 percent cancellation of many Third World debts? A mass distribution of anti-malaria bed nets? A fund for an African Green Revolution? All of these are now in development (Discussion of CW in Slate)." Jeffrey Sachs insists "that much more is achievable much more rapidly than is widely suspected."

The copyright of the article Common Wealth by Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs in Poverty/World Development is owned by Christine Welter. Permission to republish Common Wealth by Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.