|
TIMEÂ
Embraces Bad Economics That Blame America for World Poverty
By Amy Menefee
March 16, 2005
    TIME Magazine’s March 14 issue
devoted its cover and 11 pages to an economist who says the United
States owes the world – big time – to fight world poverty. The
magazine offered no opposing argument to spending billions of
additional tax dollars.
    Those 11 pages are an excerpt from
economist Jeffrey Sachs’ new book, The End of Poverty, in
which he indicts the United States for supposedly lagging behind
other countries in aid for the poor. He works from the assumption
that billions of dollars in aid should be publicly financed.
    Although they didn’t appear in TIME,
it’s easy to find economists who see flaws in Sachs’ logic.
    Walter Williams, a prominent economist
and a member of the Board of Advisers for the Business & Media Institute,
was blunt in his reply to the Sachs excerpt.
    “Did we become rich by foreign aid? The
answer’s no,” said Williams, a professor of economics at George
Mason University. Noting that all rich countries were once poor,
Williams said that rich countries thrive because of property rights,
limited government and the rule of law.
    Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow in
political economy at The Heritage Foundation, agreed that Sachs’
assertions had no basis in fact.
    “He assumes that more foreign aid will
translate into better economic performance,” Mitchell, also a member
of the BMI advisory board, explained. “There is no evidence for this
assumption.”
Where’s the Critical Eye?
    Sachs is head of the United Nations’
Millennium Development Project, which states as its goal cutting
world poverty in half by 2015. He advocates huge increases in
government spending from rich nations to developing countries to
achieve this goal. After letting him state his position in depth
without question, TIME included a sidebar describing Sachs as
a “rock star” in the field of economics.
    In his letter to readers, TIME Managing Editor
James Kelly wrote of Sachs, “You may not agree with all his
prescriptions, but it is impossible to deny that the needless deaths
of so many people every year call for action on a global scale.”
    Who would deny that? TIME is not wrong to say
its responsibility is to “cast the spotlight on problems that
transcend borders,” as Kelly put it. But offering only one viewpoint
on such a weighty subject is irresponsible journalism. To give it
the heft of a 11-page TIME cover story is wildly unbalanced.
    Star Parker, founder of the Coalition on Urban Renewal
and Education (CURE), was incredulous at the glowing coverage.
    “Tax and spend to end our problems? A new method?”
Parker asked in a March 11 column distributed by Scripps Howard.
“The real question is what is this guy peddling to reporters to
induce their amnesia.”
    CURE works to end poverty with “faith, freedom and
responsibility,” according to its Web site. Parker emphasized that
free people are of utmost importance when it comes to creating
prosperity – and only prosperity can lead to generosity and helping
others.
    “Listening to Sachs, you would think that the United
States, the world’s greatest engine of prosperity, is the most
guilty for current levels of global poverty,” Parker said.
Theory vs. Reality
    The Washington Post is to be
commended for looking at The End of Poverty with a critical
eye. Its March 13 review of Sachs’ book relied on New York
University’s William Easterly, a professor of economics, provided a
realist’s voice to counter Sachs’ “utopian” politics.
    “To Sachs, poverty reduction is mostly a
scientific and technological issue,” Easterly wrote, “in which aid
dollars can buy cheap interventions to fix development problems. But
that’s too neat.” Easterly warned that Sachs’ plan could backfire:
“The danger is that when the utopian dreams fail (as they will
again), the rich-country public will get even more disillusioned
about foreign aid.”
    That disillusionment is already present,
according to Dan Mitchell.
    “Foreign aid has tended to promote bad
economic policy because of the left-wing biases at international aid
organizations,” Mitchell said. “Poor societies are poor and stay
poor because they have high tax rates, excessive regulation, bloated
government sectors and plenty of corruption.”
    Walter Williams said free markets, human
rights and per capita income are intertwined and pointed to divided
postwar countries as examples.
    “People in South Korea are much, much
richer than people in North Korea,” though both were devastated at
the end of the Korean War, he said. Likewise, he applied that
principle to East and West Germany following World War II.
Any of these economists could have added some balance to TIME’s
presentation.
Faulty Analysis
    Other articles about Sachs and his
ideas, such as an extensive November 2004 New York Times Magazine
piece, usually hammer home the fact that the United States spends
“only” about 0.15 percent of its Gross National Product on foreign
aid. The underlying bias in all this coverage is that forced
government spending is the best way to alleviate poverty.
    Carol Adelman, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute
who has worked in foreign aid and development, addressed the 0.15
percent figure in a January 2005 article. She emphasized that the
aid/GNP ratio is government spending and does not include billions
in private donations also flowing from Americans.
    “Hudson Institute research tallied over
$35 billion in private foreign aid for 2000 (the last year such
figures were tabulated),” Adelman wrote. “That's three and one-half
times U.S. government aid for that year. And even this large amount
low-balls American contributions abroad, as it does not include
giving by local U.S. churches or donations by overseas affiliates of
U.S. corporations.”
    Sachs of course encourages giving from
all sectors, but his repeated use of U.S. aid/GNP numbers doesn’t
tell the whole story of U.S. generosity.
    The media should not rely on unbalanced
coverage that blames the United States for world poverty. The
comparisons journalists use must be tested. For example, contrasting
the U.S. government’s foreign aid with military spending –
condemning Americans for not sending as much to other countries as
we spend to protect our own – simply props up Sachs’ numbers and
utopian assumptions. Instead, journalists should look for the agenda
behind the numbers and take a critical look at the economic
principles involved.
Here are some additional resources on this topic:
- “Philanthropy is the best foreign aid,” Star Parker’s
column on Sachs’ book:
http://www.urbancure.org/dev/pagedetails.asp?SubCatID=229
- The Heritage Foundation’s 2005 Index of Economic Freedom
worldwide:
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/index.cfm
- “A Modest Proposal” by William Easterly – review of The End of
Poverty in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25562-2005Mar10.html
- “How the U.S. Shares Its Bounty with Those In Need” by Carol
Adelman, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute:
http.//www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=3581
|
