Date: Tue, 6 May 2014 00:19:28 +0200
The Tyranny of Experts review - taking on the development technocrats
A timely book gives both barrels to complacent gurus and governments and
their simplistic, top-down 'solutions' to poverty
* Ian Birrell <http://www.theguardian.com/profile/ian-birrell>
* The Observer <http://observer.guardian.co.uk> , Sunday May 2014
*
<http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/05/the-tyranny-of-experts-william
-easterly-review-development#start-of-comments> Jump to comments (2)
Last year I flew to Kenya to meet an Ethiopian farmer who had been beaten,
tortured and forced off his land in the lush
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambela_Region> Gambela region of his country.
In his sonorous voice, this man told me a sorry tale of armed soldiers
arriving suddenly in his village and wrecking his simple life; he now lives
in the world's biggest refugee camp, separated from his wife and six
children. With him were three friends, one blinded from childhood, who told
similar horror stories of murder, rape and violence.
This gentle farmer is suing Britain for funding the one-party regime behind
a Stalin-style programme of
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/apr/22/ethiopia-villagis
ation-scheme-fails> "villagisation" that is throwing thousands of people off
their traditional lands for redistribution to friends of the government or
sale to foreign investors. The case is a clear example of the blinkered way
an obsession with <http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/aid> aid
and technocratic solutions to poverty can lead democracies and do-gooders to
climb into bed with brutal despots.
So it was not a surprise to meet Mr O - his name kept secret to protect his
family - again in the pages of this impassioned polemic. It takes aim at
misguided governments, myopic global institutions and self-appointed gurus
such as <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/billgates> Bill Gates and
<http://www.theguardian.com/politics/tonyblair> Tony Blair who praise the
progress of autocracies, brushing aside human-rights violations that set
back social and economic advancement. "The dictator who the experts expect
will accomplish the technical fixes to technical problems is not the
solution; he is the problem," writes Easterly.
This critique of what the author, a professor of economics at New York
University, terms "authoritarian development" is correct. He skewers the
failure of technocrats to respect the rights of those they claim to be
saving from poverty as they impose putative remedies, often imported from
abroad with little regard to local conditions. He shows autocracies have a
worse record for economic growth than democracies, and argues civil
liberties are essential to ensure the free exchange of ideas and innovation
that drives success. The word "innovation", he points out, was originally a
term of abuse.
The core argument, indicated by the title and made in slightly laboured
style, is that freedom must be central to the fight against poverty. But for
all its questioning of western arrogance and double-standards, this is not
another critique of aid; that battle is increasingly won in academic
circles. Instead, and far more interestingly, Easterly - a former World Bank
economist - shows off his own expertise as he sweeps through the history of
development and economics.
It is usually assumed development aid began with President Harry S Truman's
inaugural speech in 1945, with its
<http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres53.html> famous pledge to relieve the
suffering of the world's poor. But the author goes back further, tracing its
history to China after the turn of the last century. He blames Britain too,
saying a colonial official named
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Hailey,_1st_Baron_Hailey> Lord Hailey
used technocratic development to replace racism as justification for
colonial rule, amid wartime fears of uprisings from oppressed subjects. This
set the tone for the cold-war support of dictators.
His case is shored up with fascinating examples sprinkled throughout the
book. These range from the unlikely evolution of the Korean car industry
through to the story of Akwapim farmers in 1880s Ghana who discovered by
chance that the best way to grow the imported crop of cocoa was on small
plantations, mixed with food. The British insisted it should be grown on big
plantations, failing to believe that "primitive local farmers" had found the
most efficient means of production; then after independence these
smallholders were almost taxed out of business on the advice of foreign
experts.
Closer to his own home, Easterly tells the story of a block in New York that
shows the power of spontaneous development by individuals. Over three
centuries, it evolved from being a large farm through to homes for the
wealthy, then it was whorehouses, followed by thriving textile factories,
only to be spared demolition and colonised by artists before becoming
apartments for the rich again and upscale stores.
Such examples highlight how development bubbles up best from below,
especially when people are given freedom to challenge conventional wisdoms -
although it would have been good to have seen more positive suggestions for
change beyond his critique. He also demonstrates the amazing historical
legacy of reform, pointing to one study showing Italian cities that retained
freedom in the 12th century remain richer today, and others revealing how
slavery still impacts on happiness, trust and success in
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/africa> Africa. Easterly's own research
claims that 78% of the income differential between Europe and sub-Saharan
Africa can be explained by technologies that were in place by 1500.
This is a provocative book that will rile the development world. But it
deserves to be read by all those technocrats who jet around the planet with
their simplistic top-down solutions, often ignoring rights they themselves
take for granted. Ultimately, it is a timely blast against the complacency
of those who think progress and prosperity can be detached from
<http://www.theguardian.com/books/politics> politics. "We must not let
caring about the material suffering of the poor change the subject from
caring about the rights of the poor," says the author, rightly.
1. The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights
of the Poor
2. by William Easterly
3.
<http://www.guardianbookshop.co.uk/BerteShopWeb/viewProduct.do?ISBN=97804650
31252>
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Books/Pix/covers/2014/4/28/1398701608964
/The-Tyranny-of-Experts-Econo.jpg
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2. Heat and dust: displaced Somalis wait for food at the Badbaado refugee
camp near Mogadishu.
3. Displaced: Somalis wait for food at the Badbaado refugee camp near
Mogadishu. Photograph:AFP/Getty Images
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