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The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good

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Author: William Easterly
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$27.95~~
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Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.7

Dewey Decimal Number: 338.911713
ASIN: B000R33QOM

Publication Date: March 16, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
BFrom one of the worlds best-known development economistsan excoriating attack on the tragic hubris of the Wests efforts to improve the lot of the so-called developing world/B P In his previous book, IThe Elusive Quest for Growth/I, 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. IThe White Mans Burden/I is his widely anticipated counterpuncha brilliant and blistering indictment of the Wests economic policies for the worlds 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.

Customer Reviews: Read 48 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Review of White Man's Burden October 15, 2008
Well researched and very well written critique of foreign development aid. Very useful in challenging the conventional wisdom of much strategic aid policy

5 out of 5 stars

How Global Aid became a Cash Laden Cow instead of a Thoroughbred Racehorse (or Bureaucracies eat oats too, don't they?) August 11, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

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." br /br /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.br /br /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: br /br /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."br /br /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. br /br /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.br /br /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.br /br /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?)br /br /What is the solution to Global Poverty?br /br /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. br /br /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. br /br /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. br /br /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.br /br /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

5 out of 5 stars

Want to understand the World? June 11, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

I highly reccommend this book to anyone interested in understanding the world as it is. Economic, political, and historic factors make the world we live in, with the sharp contrasts inside and inbetween countries. Easterly efficiently describes why such constrasts exist, and what can be done to reduce inequality, at several levels (e.g. national policies, political programs, local development). For anyone interested in social development, or just in knowing why some people don't have food in their tables everyday, three times a day.br /br /Make yourself conscious of the world you live in, and, even better, take action to modify reality.

2 out of 5 stars

Easterly's usual rant April 9, 2008
9 out of 12 found this review helpful

The main thing I do share with Easterly is his disdain for the rockers and the dreamers.br /br /However, beyond that, the main theme of this book is a simple tautology--if it works according to whatever criteria he stipulates, it's a "Seeker," if it doesn't, it's a "Planner." And lo and behold, the Planners are the bad boys, because they never succeed. There is nary a recognition of the fact that if you want to "seek" to help the poor somewhere, there are always those pesky governments to deal with. Just one example: he argues that the amounts of money that have been spent on roads in developing countries have ultimately had little impact in many situations, because roads deteriorate. So he recommends that donors need to build maintenance into their programs. Alas, in many parts of the world road maintenance is a job for the local government (which he acknowledges by citing how he deals with a pothole in the States). Now is his recommendation tantamount to suggesting that donors build up local government in developing countries, run by -- what, contractors? Interesting concept.br /br /The basic issue remains: the poor tend to be poor on a large scale largely because they live in countries with bad governments at all levels. The Seekers (sometimes known as do-gooders) can help provide bandaids, but lasting solutions depend on ratcheting up government performance in those countries. How to accomplish that? There are some answers to that, but don't turn to Easterly for guidance.

4 out of 5 stars

Despite the title, a little to PC to be effective March 28, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful

Whilte the author has some important and sometimes hard-hitting points to make about foreign aid and its effectiveness (or lack thereof), it's obvious he still wants to get invited to the cool cocktail parties in New York. He correctly focuses on the aid community's penchant for big projects with no specific accountability vs. smaller, user-oriented ones. However, he seems obliged to maintain a veneer of "neutrality" by opposing military operations despite their proven success in cases like Japan and South Korea. He also over-uses statistics in questionable circumstances that make for heavy going and undermine his credibility. It's also a little pathetic that he has to make clear from little family vignettes that he is a vegetarian and imposes an artsy-fartsy lifestyle on his kids. Not a surprise that he's divorced. Still worth the read.

Copyright 2007 White Hat Communications.
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