The End of Poverty

growth followed by decline, rather than sustained economic progress.

The Novelty of Modern Economic Growth



If we are to understand why vast gaps between rich and poor exist today, we need therefore to understand a very recent period of human history during which these vast gaps opened. The past two centuries, since around 1800, constitute a unique era in economic history, a period that the great economic historian Simon Kuznets famously termed the period of Modern Economic Growth, or MEG for short. Before the era of MEG, indeed for thousands of years, there had been virtually no sustained economic growth in the world and only gradual increases in the human population ;

remarkable stories of his own work in Bolivia, Poland, Russia, India, China, and Africa as a way to bring readers to a broad-based understanding of the array of issues countries can face and the way the issues interrelate. He concludes by drawing on everything he has learned to offer an integrated set of solutions to the interwoven economic, political, environmental, and social problems that most frequently hold societies back. In the end, he leaves readers with an understanding, not of how daunting the world's problems are, but how solvable they are-and why making the effort is a matter both of moral obligation and strategic self-interest. A work of profound moral and intellectual vision that grows out of unprecedented real-world experience, The End of Poverty is a road map to a safer, more prosperous future for the world.

On the web: http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/endofpoverty/  

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The path from poverty to development has come incredibly fast in the span of human history. Two hundred years ago, the idea that we could potentially achieve the end of poverty would have been unimaginable. Just about everybody was poor with the exception of a very small minority of royals and landed gentry. Life was as difficult in much of Europe as it was in India or China. With very few exceptions, your great-great-grandparents were poor and most likely living on the farm. One leading economic historian, Angus Maddison, puts the average income per person in Western Europe in 1820 at around 90 percent of the average income of sub-Saharan Africa today. Life expectancy in Western Europe and Japan as of 1800 was probably about forty years.

There was little sense a few centuries ago of vast divides in wealth and poverty around the world. China, India, Europe, and Japan all had similar income levels at the time of European discoveries of the sea routes to Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Marco Polo, of course, marveled at the sumptuous wonders of China, not at its poverty. Cortés and his conquistadores expressed astonishment at the riches of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztecs. The early Portuguese explorers in Africa were impressed with the well-ordered towns in West Africa.

Until the mid-1700s, the world was remarkably poor by any of today’s standards. Life expectancy was extremely low; children died in vast numbers in the now rich countries as well as the poor countries. Disease and epidemics, not just the black death of Europe, but many waves of disease, from smallpox and measles to other epidemics, regularly washed through society and killed mass numbers of people. Episodes of hunger and extreme weather and climate fluctuations sent societies crashing. The rise and fall of the Roman Empire, for Arnold Toynbee, was much like the rise and decline of all other civilizations before and since. Economic history had long been one of ups and downs, growth followed by decline, rather than sustained economic progress.

The Novelty of Modern Economic Growth

If we are to understand why vast gaps between rich and poor exist today, we need therefore to understand a very recent period of human history during which these vast gaps opened. The past two centuries, since around 1800, constitute a unique era in economic history, a period that the great economic historian Simon Kuznets famously termed the period of Modern Economic Growth, or MEG for short. Before the era of MEG, indeed for thousands of years, there had been virtually no sustained economic growth in the world and only gradual increases in the human population…;  

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Acknowledgements   ix

Foreword by Bono   xv

Introduction   1

1. 
   
   Global Family Portrait   5
2. 
   
   The Spread of Economic Prosperity   26
3. 
   
   Why Some Countries Fail to Thrive   51
4. 
   
   Clinical Economics   74
5. 
   
   Bolivia's High-Altitude Hyperinflation   90
6. 
   
   Poland's Return to Europe   109
7. 
   
   Reaping the Whirlwind: Russia's Struggle for Normalcy   131
8. 
   
   China: Catching Up After Half a Millenium   148
9. 
   
   India's Market Reforms: The Triumph of Hope Over Fear   170
10. 
    
    The Voiceless Dying: Africa and Disease   188
11. 
    
    The Millennium, 9/11, and the United Nations   210
12. 
    
    On-the-Ground Solutions for Ending Poverty   226
13. 
    
    Making the Investments Needed to End Poverty   244
14. 
    
    A Global Compact to End Poverty   266
15. 
    
    Can the Rich Afford to Help the Poor?   288
16. 
    
    Myths and Magic Bullets   309
17. 
    
    Why We Should Do It   329
18. 
    
    Our Generation's Challenge   347

Works Cited   369

Further Reading   372

Notes   376

Index   385