Who’s Jeffrey Sachs?
Leading American development economist and United Nations adviser, Sachs is broadly on the left of the political spectrum. His most famous book is The End of Poverty.
What’s the book about?
Another analysis of the current financial crisis, the book is a mixture of diagnosis and prescription, focusing on America.
What are his big ideas?
Sachs is no Keynesian, calling the idea to solve the crisis with more government borrowing “a magical argument without any empirical support”.
He thinks the US urgently needs to stabilise its national debt, for reasons both economic and moral.
In order to do this, he proposes raising taxes sharply, and not just on high earners: he suggests the US raise its federal sales taxes to European levels.
What are people saying about it?
In his Sunday Times review, Dominic Lawson warned that Sachs’ mantra of taxing the rich to fund more ‘investment’ might give British readers horrible flashbacks of Gordon Brown. Despite this, he thought Sachs had a point: “On the fundamental fiscal issue, he is spot on. The proportion of national income taken in taxes in America has fallen steadily over the past 30 years, while public expenditure’s share has not.”
Writing in the Guardian, keeper of Keynes’ flame, Robert Skidelsky, was slightly disappointed by what he described as “a millennium manifesto for the Democratic party.”
Although he said this was “one of the best” books about the world economic crisis, Skidelsky identified three major flaws in Sachs’ diagnosis:
1) “…he ignores the role of inadequate demand in causing the current high level of unemployment … treating it purely as a supply-side problem.”
2) “[The book] understates the deleterious effect of globalisation … He doesn’t question the economics or morality of offshoring American production abroad”
3) “Sachs … has an inadequate grasp of social health or ‘wellbeing’”
The Financial Times’ economics leader writer, Martin Sandbu, was more impressed, describing The Price of Civilization as “an important book”. Sandbu enjoyed Sachs’ optimism and was blown away by the “sheer sweep of his analysis, which flouts the boundaries of economics to encompass politics, psychology and moral philosophy.” He did add, however, that “his use of data sometimes falls short of the scholarly.”
Across the pond, The Wall Street Journal thought it would be fun to get the Republican Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan, to review Sachs’ book. Not surprisingly, he wasn’t convinced.
“One need not look far to find the inspiration for the America that Mr. Sachs seeks. He is explicit about his ideal, and it is Europe … [This] seems particularly ill-advised at the moment, given the current state of affairs across the Atlantic.”
According to Ryan, the book’s proposals “lay bare the real agenda of those who wish us to abandon the American idea and consign our nation to the irrevocable path of decline.”
So what’s the verdict?
Sachs is always worth listening to, but although this latest book has some useful ideas it does not appear to be the “masterful roadmap” its publishers, and Sachs, think it is.
Where can I find out more?
Read an extract from the book
Watch Jeffrey Sachs being interviewed about the book on American TV (above)
The Price of Civilization: Economics and Ethics After the Fall is published by The Bodley Head at £20
Anna Baddeley is editor of The Omnivore, which rounds up press reviews of books, films and plays.
Comments