As wide-eyed as this sounds: I feel like Jeffrey Sachs lacks the love, patience, and compassion that are necessary when looking to have an affect on an entire people of an entire nation. Like Bryson suggested, his efforts have become more ego-satisfying than he realizes; The Savior of Africa. Wouldn't that be nice? Sach's perspective does have paternalistic arrogance. To be condescending in something as complex as the elimination of poverty does not come from a place of love, and will most likely end up frustrating the effected more than anything.
Sachs critique aside, I really enjoyed the perspective of Dr. Fawson. I've typically had an aversion to any agenda that begs the total transformation of an institution, but the idea of not so much transforming the institutions but "solving" them really rings true to me. The institutions in many of these impoverished countries restrict the assets that generate opportunity to the political elite. The reallocation of opportunity is more or less the problem in solving world poverty. Identifying the common purpose within a society and effectively implementing a program to maximize a positive outcome of that purpose is what we should be working toward. These efforts will have to elicit a relationship between the populace and the institution that offers a mutual exchange, and will take the perspective of someone entirely more inspired than myself, but I do support the idea of it.
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Carly, this is a fascinating post, and I'm sure Sachs would take issue with it. He would see himself as working earnestly in the greatest cause in the world - ending poverty.
ReplyDeleteLet me get to the point: maybe love isn't sustainable on a macro scale. Also, maybe love isn't possible if we think the love one "needs" us to survive. On a micro scale (loving individuals), power asymmetry warps love into something else - maybe a Messiah complex in Sachs' case.
This seems a little off-topic, but I think it's a good check for those of us who want to work in development in the future. We want to be motivated by love, goodness, and compassion; it's going to take regular self-checking and introspection to make sure those are still our motivations - that we're dedicated to the individuals we've learned to love instead of the cause that we've created.