Jeffrey Sachs: The Strange Case of Dr. Shock and Mr. Aid

173 Pages·2014·1.24 MB·English

by  Sachs

JAPHY WILSON is Lecturer in International Political Economy at the
University of Manchester. He has published in the fields of political economy,
human geography, and development studies. He is co-editor with Erik
Swyngedouw of The Post-Political and Its Discontents: Spaces of
Depoliticization, Spectres of Radical Politics (Edinburgh University Press,
2014).
COUNTERBLASTS
COUNTERBLASTS is a series of short, polemical titles that aims to revive a
tradition inaugurated by Puritan and Leveller pamphleteers in the seventeenth
century, when, in the words of one of their number, Gerard Winstanley, the old
world was ‘running up like parchment in the fire’. From 1640 to 1663, a leading
bookseller and publisher, George Thomason, recorded that his collection alone
contained over twenty thousand pamphlets. Such polemics reappeared both
before and during the French, Russian, Chinese and Cuban revolutions of the last
century.
In a period where politicians, media barons and their ideological hirelings
rarely challenge the basis of existing society, it is time to revive the tradition.
Verso’s Counterblasts will challenge the apologists of Empire and Capital.
Jeffrey Sachs:
The Strange Case of
Dr Shock and Mr Aid
Japhy Wilson

First published by Verso 2014
© Japhy Wilson 2014
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the author have been asserted 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Verso
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Verso is the imprint of New Left Books ISBN-13: 978-1-78168-329-3 (PBK)
eISBN-13: 978-1-78168-330-9 (US)
eISBN-13: 978-1-78168-660-7 (UK) British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue
record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data Wilson, Japhy.
Jeffrey Sachs : the strange case of Dr. Shock and Mr. Aid / Japhy Wilson.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-78168-329-3 (pbk.) – ISBN 978-1-78168-330-9 (e-book) 1. Sachs, Jeffrey. 2. Economists–
United States–Biography. 3. Neoliberalism–Developing countries. 4. Economic development–Philosophy.
5. Economic development–Developing countries. 6. Developing countries–Economic conditions. 7.
Millennium Villages Project. 8. Poverty–Developing countries.
9. Development economics. I. Title.
HB119.S24W55 2014
330.092–dc23
[B]
2013043817
Typeset in Minion Pro by MJ & N Gavan, Truro, Cornwall
Printed in the US by Maple Press
The doom and burthen of our life is bound forever on man’s shoulders, and when the attempt is made to
cast it off, it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
CONTENTS
Introduction: The Sachs Conundrum
1 The Rise of Dr Shock
2 Russia
3 The Magnificent Mr Aid
4 Development Dreamland
5 The Village That Sachs Built
6 The World Falls Apart
Conclusion: The Neoliberal Neurosis
Acknowledgements
Notes
INTRODUCTION: THE SACHS CONUNDRUM
The fifteenth of October 2011 was a global Day of Rage. In 950 cities around the
world, people took to the streets to protest against rising inequality, endless
austerity, and the unbridled power of investment banks and multinational
corporations. This was the legacy of three decades of economic reforms
dominated by the ‘neoliberal’ principles of privatization, deregulation, and the
dismantling of the welfare state. These reforms were supposed to deliver society
from the dead hand of the state, in the name of individual freedom. First
implemented by Augusto Pinochet in Chile in the 1970s, and driven forward by
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, the free market revolution
had swept across the entire planet. Its vanguard promised rapid economic growth
and the opportunity for everyone to improve their personal circumstances
through hard work and private initiative. As long as there was free competition
in all dimensions of economic life, the ‘invisible hand of the market’ would
ensure the best of all possible outcomes. Yet, in contrast to this utopian vision,
the outcome had been persistent poverty, economic oligarchy, and a whirlwind
of financial crises that had spiralled around the world before finally entering the
heartlands of global capitalism with the financial crash of 2008 and the ensuing
‘Great Recession’. Neoliberalism was in crisis, and the people were on the
streets demanding radical change.
The epicentre of these protests was Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park, at
the heart of New York’s financial district. At some point around midday, a
clean-cut middle-aged man arrived in the park, and began to address the crowd.
He started by criticizing the Wall Street Journal for its dismissal of the Occupy
movement, before attacking hedge fund managers, businessmen, and a series of
banks and corporations. The crowd amplified him with the ‘people’s mic.’,
chanting each sentence in response, waving their hands in agreement, and
spontaneously bursting into applause. As they cheered him on, the man became
increasingly agitated, gesticulating violently, his voice shaking with emotion:
This is a democracy! We are the 99 per cent! We have the votes! You [the corporations and the hedge
funds] may have the money, but we have the votes … And across America they’re hearing this
message. And around the world today they’re hearing this message. This is the beginning of change
long overdue! Ronald Reagan put us on a path of disaster thirty years ago. He said ‘Cut the taxes’,
‘Squeeze the poor’, ‘Throw people out of health’, ‘Don’t educate the children’. And every president
since then has followed the same path. Because the big money pays them! And they sup with the rich
and the billionaires! And it’s over now! We need a new direction for this country!1
These words might seem unremarkable on a global Day of Rage. Similar things
must have been shouted at many protest sites that day. Yet this man was not a
typical grassroots agitator. This was Jeffrey Sachs – development guru and ‘rock
star economist’. Sachs has advised the governments of over 140 countries, and
has been a tireless campaigner for the expansion of international aid in the name
of ‘the end of poverty’. He is special advisor to the secretary general of the
United Nations, director of the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions
Network, and has chaired prominent UN commissions on health, development,
and happiness. He is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, with
over 850 academic staff and an US$87 million annual research budget. His
Millennium Villages Project is being rolled out across ten countries in sub-
Saharan Africa, and is among the most high-profile development projects in the
world. He is a friend of the stars, accompanying Bono, Madonna, and Angelina
Jolie on high-profile journeys to Africa to publicize the plight of the continent.
He has authored bestselling books on poverty alleviation, sustainable
development, and the global economic crisis. He regularly provides his opinions
on news channels such as CNN and the BBC, and makes frequent contributions
to periodicals including the Financial Times and the Guardian. Time ranked him
among the hundred most influential people in the world in 2004, and again in
2005, and the New York Times has described him as ‘probably the most
important economist in the world’.2
In short, Jeffrey Sachs is a man of considerable power and influence on the
world stage. It was therefore rather surprising to find him making such a radical
and impassioned speech at Occupy Wall Street. Surprising, you might say, but
was it not all the more commendable for that? How uplifting, in these cynical
times, to see a person of such status who is unafraid to take a principled stand.
Perhaps … yet something doesn’t quite ring true. In the first place, Sachs’s claim
to represent the 99 per cent sounds rather strange, given that he earns over