Accountable To No One: The White Man as Burden

Abstract

The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill And So Little Good. By William Easterly. New York: Penguin Press, 2006. 448 pp., cloth $27.95 cloth (ISBN: 1-594-20037-3), $16.00 paper (ISBN: 0-143-03882-5). In The White Man's Burden , William Easterly examines the motivations and effectiveness of past efforts by the rich nations to reduce the suffering and eliminate the extreme poverty of the poor. Many books have addressed the tragedy of extreme poverty. A recent and most notable example is The End of Poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs (2005), which delivers an intricate and detailed plan to defeat extreme poverty. Easterly, however, addresses a second, less acknowledged dimension of this tragedy, namely, that despite five decades of rhetoric and intricate plans by intelligent people with noble intentions, and despite $2.3 trillion in donor aid, extreme poverty persists. The White Man's Burden usefully contributes to the debate regarding the efficacy of the most recent such plan, which is designed to achieve the United Nations sponsored Millennium Development Goals. Practitioners and students alike will benefit from Easterly's thorough presentation of relevant historical events; his thoughtful examination of economic, political, social, and cultural issues; and his efficient integration of scholarly research. All readers will enjoy Easterly's trademark humor, which highlights many of the absurdities in past policies that were necessary for five decades of effort to yield less than optimal results. To make his point, Easterly distinguishes between “planners” and “searchers.” He asserts that a bottom-up strategy, which relies on the proximity of searchers to the poor, is likely to produce superior programs and results in comparison with those achieved during the …