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Street Smarts
March 18, 2013 | 39 comments
At Large
Here I Come to Save the Day
How I would lead the World Bank.
Recently, Professor Jeffrey Sachs made a public application to be the next president of the World Bank with an op-ed in the Washington Post titled “How I would lead the World Bank.” I was not aware they were taking applications, but since they are, I thought I’d throw my name in the ring.
I must admit that unlike Mr. Sachs I am not on “a quest to end poverty.” It is not that I don’t care — I just lack the self-confidence to believe I have the power to do such a thing. But I am hoping the World Bank presidency might be a good confidence booster. I also confess that until Professor Sachs pointed it out, I didn’t know the World Bank was on 18th and Pennsylvania, but now that I do, I too am eager for this challenge.
But enough about me. Let’s focus on the issue at hand — Why I should run the World Bank:
I don’t seek the presidency because of the World Bank’s track record in “ending poverty.” In fact I don’t place a lot of faith in the World Bank’s ability to solve world poverty. When it comes to alleviating poverty in the developing world, I have a lot more faith in entrepreneurs than I do in internationalista technocrats from the World Bank or any part of the aid industry.
Like Professor Sachs, I am not a Wall Street big player or a Washington insider. But unlike Professor Sachs, I have not spent years at the center of the foreign aid poverty establishment promoting top-down solutions, and advocating for increases in foreign aid despite the evidence that it has not worked. Notwithstanding his self-characterization as an outsider, Professor Sachs was the architect of the UN Millennium Development Goals, which has dominated development policy for the last decade. In this sense, it’s somewhat disingenuous for Professor Sachs to portray himself as an outsider. He is a genuine development celebrity.
But enough of Professor Sachs. Let’s get back to me.
I believe that wealth can be created and poverty can be reduced, but I do not believe that international bureaucrats have much of a role to play in realizing such goals.
I believe that focusing on the causes of poverty is the wrong question — the correct question is what causes wealth?
For this reason, I don’t believe that foreign aid is the solution — or even a solution. It has subsidized corruption and delayed the development of local business. In short, it is generally part of the problem. And I’m not alone in thinking so. There are growing numbers of Africans, Latin Americans, and Asians who are saying no to aid and instead want the chance to have free and fair competition.
I also don’t believe the developing world is a lab for Western scientists and technocrats to test out their various utopian theories on others. When I am president of the World Bank, none of these people would be given support to experiment with the lives of others.
In this connection, I should mention that I don’t believe in a “scientific” solution to poverty. Nor do I believe that I or anyone else can end poverty “forever.” There will always be some poverty because there will always be human weakness, human error. There will always be a need for human love and caring.
I don’t hang out with celebrities and haven’t traveled the world with Bono — not yet at least. (Bono has done much to raise awareness and since I was a fan when I was young and feel some loyalty, I don’t want Bono to be behind the times. I’d be happy to help him re-think his advocacy of big aid.) I do not believe that the poor are a different species; that they are somehow different than us. As Ghanaian entrepreneur, Herman Chinery-Hesse said to me. “The people here are not stupid, they’re just disconnected from global trade, that’s all”
I don’t believe in managerial capitalism, corporate capitalism, Davos Capitalism, state-led industrial policies, big business-big government oligarchies, or big UN plans that have dominated developing economies. I believe in a free economy where everyone, especially the poorest, have a chance to compete without having to rely on favors from the social and political elites. I believe that the locus of power needs to be transferred from governments and big aid to local entrepreneurs and leaders
I do not believe people are problem to be solved. I believe that people are the solution to poverty. I believe that people are created in the image of God with dignity and creative capacity and when given the opportunity will create wealth and produce more than they consume.
But if I want to run the World Bank I should at least tell you what I believe.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (9) | Leave a comment
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Jack in Wi.| 3.20.12 @ 6:37AM
Lets get rid of the World Bank, IMF, Federal Reserve, American foreign aid, and the UN. They have all been money pits and piggy banks for the world's elites. All they do is support a lot of unsustainable ideas, that often make things worse not better.
Bulgaraicus| 3.20.12 @ 7:25AM
Amen! Close it down!
Bob K.| 3.20.12 @ 9:02AM
The only thing Sachs left out of his plan was a Sermon on the Mount to the world and a basket of 5 loaves and 2 fishes!
What do you think of throwing that into your plan, Mr. Miller?
albert constantine jr.| 3.20.12 @ 11:35AM
I think Mr. Miller’s ideas have merit, in that it views the impoverished as individuals who should be given an opportunity to succeed, rather than “masses” in need of care and control.
On the other hand, I don’t think the World Bank should necessarily be closed down; all of the well-meaning, along with technocrats, kleptocrats and poverty pimps would be out of a job, and in danger themselves of being impoverished if they haven’t developed productive skills. I just feel we needn’t fund it.
Theo Prinse| 3.20.12 @ 12:09PM
I know Professor Sachs from CNN European edition. Prof Sachs is more or less for tiers economics. Although Sachs seems to distinguish between the two opposites: crony re-distributive capitalists versus venture innovative capitalism .. but he is not.
Prof. Sachs is for the pseudo small capitalist whether crony or venture .. This approach cannot solve the current worlds economic crisis.
What causes the problem in today's economic crisis is the high energy price in relation to the low supply of energy.
But this worlds energy shortage in connection with US military dependence of Saudi-islam-oil and all its Sunni corrupt Muslim Brotherhood Outreach infiltration of US institutions and Government .. is getting confused with Iran's insinuation of a Gulf regional nuclear arms race and the Pakistani Taliban getting grips of that of Pakistan ... and getting confused with the trillions USD health Care Plan etc ..
The two axes of the current economic crisis are: US-Saudi oil and the US-China's debt dependency ..
Sachs is still confused in Antropogenic Global Warming hypothesis, the lie of Sustainability and the vehement anti-Thorium Nuclear Energy lobby as just merely one of the many linchpins of the Clintons Muslim Outreach, The Cloward–Piven strategy being a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward (1926–2001) and Frances Piven, the Derrick Bell, Rev. Wright, Elena Kazan and Casandra Butts Critical Race Theory and the birth and Osama's death certificate Kenian ...
Westie| 3.20.12 @ 2:04PM
!st choice is to rid the world of all these crony communist one world organizations like the World Bank, IMF and up to the largest cesspool, the UN. If that's not possible then never give Sachs the job.
PJ| 3.20.12 @ 4:39PM
Jeffrey Sachs is a dangerous man. He wants all 1st world countries to be taxed 1% or 2% of their GNP. The proceeds will then go to a World Bank type of place to be distributed to 3rd World countries. Giving other countries' money away to poverty-stricken will not alleviate the problem & it has been proved time & time again.
Either Sachs is naive on how a bloated bureaucracies work or he is scheming to take a cut from the proceeds.
PJ| 3.20.12 @ 4:51PM
Sorry the percent is 0.7%. Friendly to the radicals, Mother Jones, interviewed Sachs: http://motherjones.com/politic.....frey-sachs
POST American| 3.21.12 @ 12:16AM
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WORD of GOD
LAW of MOSES
Demonstrative FIGURE of CHRIST
---Jews ----Muslims ---Christians
'A'-----theists ----take your choice.
Unaccountable, capstone USURY and
its justifications in actuarial psychopathy
-------------------BEGET----------------------
-----------------EUGENICS-------------------.
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1991
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by their people.
-------------YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED-------------