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Jeffrey Sachs Discusses New Book: Common Wealth
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Jeffrey Sachs
Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet
Tuesday, April 08, 2008, 1:00 PM
Book Passage Bookstore, Corte Madera
Jeffrey Sachs talks about Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet. Economist Sachs offers a clear and vivid map of the road to sustainable and equitable global prosperity and a warning of the economic collapse that lies ahead if we don’t follow it. Sachs is also the author of the acclaimed book The End of Poverty.
Praise for Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet:
"Common Wealth explains the most basic economic reckoning that the world faces. We can address poverty, climate change, and environmental destruction at a very modest cost today with huge benefits for shared and sustainable prosperity and peace in the future, or we can duck the issues today and risk a potentially costly reckoning in later years. 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."
-Al Gore, Winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and Former Vice President of the United States
"Jeffrey Sachs never disappoints. With powerful illustrations and moving words, he describes what humanity must do if we are to share a common future on this planet. By making sense of economics as it affects the lives of people, this book is an excellent resource for all those who want to understand what changes the 21st century may bring."
-Kofi Annan, winner of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize and former secretary-general of the United Nations
Comments (1 - 12 of 12)
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Brilliant idea with the live blogging Mike !
I'd have to second Jon on the "caution needed" though. I've read JS's "the End of Poverty" and love how he try to employ existing means within the current economic system to alleviate poverty, but felt a bit disappointed for a lack of proposal in the systemic changes department (notice how he still use the word "economic growth" in the conventional sense here and there?). So, imho, he's good enough to take things one or a few steps further, but not enough to take us to where we really need to go. I still however, aplaud his effort to do all within his power to help solve the crisis. P.S. I need to read this new book from him though, to know whether my assumptions still stand true or not. |
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Thanks for this report, Michael, which is an interesting update on JS's current thinking. Jeffrey Sachs is interesting, and a much needed blast of hot air in this area of discussion. But I would prefer a breath of fresh air. I would not place him in the same league as Paul. Why not? Well, I listened with a mixture of fascination and frustration to his Reith Lectures last year and finally 'got' what was driving me crazy. As a holistic economist, I then even got halfway through an article analyzing them, but other events overtook it, and I never finished and published it.
Remember the old Einstein quote "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness with which we created them"? My concerns about Sachs stem from the observation that, over and over again, he is recognising crucial problems, but then approaching them with the same consciousness that created them. Despite his claims to thinking new thoughts, to seeing the world in a different way, his lectures remained deeply anthropocentric, gender blind and steeped in the rhetoric and thinking of the new right. His heart is in the right place, but he is working with an entirely inapppropriate toolkit for creating a sustainable future. As I say, he is very good at recognizing problems and, inevitably, arrives at some sustainable suggested solutions... and some deeply unsustainable ones. Even more important, they are unlikely to succeed by being partial -- in both senses of the word. Given the issues with his framework, I would personally want to look very carefully indeed at any policy proposals he puts forward for unexamined assumptions and inappropriate modes of thinking that stem from ideologies that not longer serve us (if they ever did!) I wasn't present at the bookstore, nor have I read this latest book (yet - though I shall probably do so now!) My opinions on his work and thinking are based on the 2007 Reith Lectures and some articles and interviews since -- and so far remain the same: "two cautious cheers for brilliant rhetorician Jeffrey". But the Paul Hawken of Poverty? Sorry Michael, but no, I can't go there! |
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...and number 10:
The US needs to turn away from its militarized approach and put the UN Milenium Goals at the center of its foriegn policy. The US govt sends in the military when a place is deemed unstable instead of dealing directly with the underlying problems of hunger, joblessness, disease, lack of dignity, etc. As Mike said below: "Food riots are happening in Egypt, Cameroon, Mozambique...'one can watch the world lightup he's saying..not because they hate our freedom...but because they're hungry'. " Further aggrevating American militarism is the current notion that has equated "talking" or negotiating with "surrender". |
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Awesome! I like this live blogging. We should do this at more of our outreach events!
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uh oh battery is running low
5. stop subsidies into ethanol..dont put our food into gas tanks...and its bad for the rest of the world.. 6. committ to convention for biodiversity 7. invite countries in Africa, Mid East to meeting not about Islamic fundamentalism, but water. When violence breaks out, we call it Islamic extremism. Tehran and Phoenix, and even SoCal have similar issues, it'd be itneresting to bring representatives from these areas 8. funding for UN population fund. Family planning services for the world's poor is being cut off. Hopefully world population can stabilize at 8 bill. 9. sustainable development position at cabinet level. US gov does not understand the world. Not pentagon, not diplmats, not USAID |
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we could raise a lot more funds for energy research if we didnt spend so much on the Iraq War...or gave so much tax cuts to the upper class.
He's written a memo to the upcoming president *audience chuckles and gets out their notepads* 1. end the war in iraq immediately, within 6 months -theres nothing in it for us to stay. we will bleed literally and financially. more violence will be provoked. we cannot be an occupying army in the middle east in 2009, because we cannot be an empire, people are literate and want sovereignty. 2. end the bush tax cuts -we need revenues for other things 3. research on sustainable tech 4. president sends climate enjoy to china, india, EU to go back to negotiating table |
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This guy knows his stuff. Is he like an expert on everything? He's not even using notes and has hardly paused.
Carbon dioxide outputs from other countries is due to our consumption and demand for goods. Once again connecting the dots to everything. With the technology we have he's saying we can have 100 mpg cars. In addition to green building, changing our electricity output, we can accomplish a lot within a few decades. He says our objective in the Middle East is to keep our troops there to secure the oil, because its the essence of our security. And that "it's the ignorance side", "predicated on the us vs. them" stance, as though its a way to reconcile our overall consumption of resources, though there are other countries after the same goals. We're spending each year, 1.5 days worth of Pentagon research, for energy research. *audience groans*. |
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As a PHD economist from Harvard, he says he studied hardly anything about natural resources because they were assumed as available. take that Harvard!
Now he's talking about the presidential race. Attacking McCain for saying Islamic terrorism is the issue of our times. That line of thinking he says is wrong, and that we should declare "natural resources"...water..oil...etc as a lead issue. Now he's talking about climate change! This is not easy to follow.. |
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How do we address that 1/6 of the world that is stuck at the bottom? And who are suffering the environental consequences as well? Hm serious questions. They are stuck without the benefits of "growth" and technology that the rest of the world is experiencing.
Food riots are happening in Egypt, Cameroon, Mozambique..."one can watch the world lightup he's saying..not because they hate our freedom...but because they're hungry" haha. |
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He is talking abut China. China's average income and total GDP in the past decade has been doubling like crazy, but that in-person terms, the US will remain much richer.
Now he's connecting the dots with the environment. With China's population there comes enormous consumption and demand ... which means there needs to be more soybeans harvested from the Amazon...to feed the people and the livestock that feed on it. Now he's talking about overpopulation. India! Crisis. Unsustainabile! Economic danger! Sachs is saying that's what is his book, Common Wealth is about. "We cannot solve our problems with military means," he says..."yet we become more and committed to military approaches because we approach the world as one which is hostile...though we know its irrelevant because we cant even hold a few miles in downtown Baghdad..." |
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liveblogging at the Jeffrey Sachs event!
I guess Jeffrey Sachs is to poverty if Paul Hawken is to green business I didnt know how he looked like before but now I do! I am sitting in the second row of a bookstore in Corte Madera with 60+ people, between Kat and Julie. He started out talking about how the US hasn't understood the severity of poverty in the world and that trying to address terrorism was like trying to address very supercial symptoms while ignoring the root problems. I like. Ok more listening and little less blogging... |
1 to 12 of 12 Comments
Thanks for that insight Jon! I have to admit I haven't really studied Jefrey Sachs before so I just made-up the point about him being the "Hawken of poverty" because of his name recognition.
You and Bowo brought up some interesting points...I would be concerned about his toolkit of solutions as well if they were really "steeped in the rhetoric and thinking of the new light". Maybe we could find some good book reviews of his new book...
I was overall blown away by all the problems he talked about in such a short period of time. He literally didn't seem to pause. I definitely appreciated his calls for conventions...on water, biodiversity and for other suggestions for the new US president Perhaps some of these ideas are too optimistic, and that his toolkit is limited to governments can do and what people outside of government can do. But I have to agree with him that compared to other governments, we are spending far too much on war...which we must end if we are too spend more on sustainable development, which we are spending far too little of.