Throughout this paper I am going to summarize Paul Colliers’s book, “The Bottom Billion”. Next, I will relate Collier’s argument to three key concepts; failed/failing states, Globalization, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Secondly, I will critically evaluate three of the Collier’s weaknesses in his book. The first critique I have is his disbelief that democracy could fix the problem of corrupt governing in the bottom billion countries. The second critique that I have is his idea that military intervention is a necessity in order to get the bottom billion countries flourishing. My last critique is about his idea that the bottom billion countries constantly declining will directly correlate with our children in the United States facing an alarmingly divided world and all its consequences. Finally, I will conclude the book review and why I think his conclusion may be volatile. Collier’s thesis is basically why poor countries are poor and what can first world countries as in the United States do about it. He breaks the book into five parts. The first part deals with defining what the actual issue is and he labels it “Falling Behind and Falling Apart”. The second part is talking about four traps that keep the bottom billion in their dilemma. He breaks it down with the conflict trap, the natural resource trap, the landlocked with bad neighbors trap, and the bad governance in a small country trap. The third part talks about globalization. Collier believes that Globalization is part of the reason why the bottom billion countries are continuing to sink. Part four of the book deals with strategies that he believes will help fix the major problems of the bottom billion. Collier breaks this into four topics: Aid to the rescue, ... ... middle of paper ... ...ve significant trading agreements that the United States desperately depends on. Collier completely underestimates the United States with this belief that this country depends on the flourishing of the bottom billion countries. In conclusion, Collier thoroughly explains his reasons behind why the bottom billion countries are poor. His arguments covered a variety of the course concepts like internationalism, failed state, Globalization, and economic forces. However, after critical evaluation, it is clear that Collier ignored and underestimated several of these concepts. Works Cited Boyer, Mark A., Natalie Florea. Hudson, and Michael J. Butler. Global Politics: Engaging a Complex World. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Print. Collier, Paul. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are failing and What Can Be Done about It. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.
One of the most pressing matters the world is facing today is the problem of poverty. There are many things that should be done about poverty, yet much of the world is split, on one side people wanting to help and on the other side people not knowing how to go about it. In Garrett Hardin’s “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor,” Hardin present this case to us using the lifeboat as an analogy for nations on earth. Hardin asserts that all nations on earth are viewed as a series of lifeboats adrift at sea. Each lifeboat has a Foreign limited carrying capacity and limited resources. The richer lifeboats have more capacity, more resources, are better managed, and are self-sufficient. Whereas the poorer lifeboats are overcrowded, and their resources are overburdened, so much so that passengers are abandoning poor lifeboats in hopes of being rescued by the richer lifeboats or at least to be aided threw handouts. With limited resources, and very little capacity, what are the passengers on the rich lifeboats to do? Morally, the just thing to do would come to the aid of the passengers in the water and allow them to board the
Smith, Stephen C. Ending Global Poverty: A Guide to What Works. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Print.
Sachs tackles the different kinds of poverty around the world. The book covers some reasons that there are some countries continue to prosper economically than the other because of their “social, political and geographical advantages like Britain” (Sachs, 2005. p35). Other countries failed to flourish because of pandemic diseases like malaria, small
To understand the developing countries and their aim of identification, it can be mentioned that “The great battleground for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe, the lands of the rising peoples. Their revolution is the greatest in human history. They seek an end to injustice, tyranny and exploitation. More than an end, they seek a beginning” John F. Kennedy 1961. The south or third world countries are; “group of countries which have colonial histories and which are in the process of developing economically and socially from a status characterized by low incomes , dependence on agriculture, weakness in trading relations, social deprivation for large segments of society, and restricted political and civil liberties” (Smith, 1996, p:1). Nevertheless, third world countries can be considered the developing countries regarding the influences and affects that have been made to them and their nation by the greater power that they were ruled by.
The Bottom Billion: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it talks heavily on world poverty. A great deal of research is provided throughout the entirety of the book to illustrate that change must come from those countries who are recently at the bottom of the pyramid in order to make a change and a difference in society. The world consists of 5 billion people well off or rapidly getting there and 1 billion people falling further behind (Collier). Collier’s thesis explores the reasons why improvised countries fail to progress despite aid and support and why many countries occupants have experienced subpar financial stability and growth over the latter years. As a result, the author wrote this book to state the obvious that lower developed countries are experiencing a downfall due to increased poverty from economical defects.
Why do nations fail? This is a topic of popular debate with many economists and a question many scholars have struggled to find an answer to. Global poverty is an issue that economists Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson investigate and provide an alternative insight for in their book: ‘Why Nations Fail’. Acemoglu and Robinson investigate inequalities that exist across countries and why nations are an epitome of success and others, failure. They come up with an alternative explanation for why standards of living differ across countries, and why a gap exists between the rich and poor. The book introduces an example of two cities that are separated by a border: Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora. On the American side of the border, the income of the average household is $30,000, the population is relatively healthy, and the citizens live prosperously (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2012). On the opposite side of the border in Mexico, majority of the population do not own a high school degree, poor health conditions exist, poor infrastructure and unfortunately, high infant mortality rates (Acemoglu & Robinson 2012). How can situations on opposite borders be so different? The basis for Acemoglu and Robison’ s thesis for this phenomenon is that of institutions. They propose that that there is a strong correlation between economic and political institutions. That is, inclusive political institutions support inclusive economic institutions, and extractive political institutions support extractive economic institutions (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2012). Democratic institutions generally allow opportunities for the majority, leading to positive economic growth. Political institutions that look after a narrow elite is reinforced with stag...
In the face of media campaigns and political sanctions, the question about whether we owe the global poor assistance and rectification is an appropriate one. Despite television advertisements displaying the condition of the poor and news articles explaining it, the reality is the majority of us, especially in the Western world, are far removed from the poverty that still affects a lot of lives. The debate between Thomas Pogge and Mathias Risse regarding our obligation to the poor questions the very institution we live in. Pogge created a new framework in which the debate developed. He introduced a focus on the design of the institutional global order, and the role it plays in inflicting or at least continuing the severe poverty people are exposed to. Whilst both Mathias Risse and Thomas Pogge believe that the “global order is imperfectly developed. It needs reform rather than revolutionary overthrow”, they differ on whether or not it is just and entitles the global poor to assistance. Pogge believes that the global order is unjust as it “helps to perpetuate extreme poverty, violating our negative duty not to harm others unduly”. Risse believes that the institution is only incompletely just and can be credited to improving lives of the global poor. According to him, these improvements contribute to its justifiability and negate any further obligation we have to the poor. Through assessing their debate, it seems that one’s obligation to the poor depends on one’s conception of duty, their unit of analysis, and whether improvement rectifies injustice. On balance, it seems that we do indeed owe the poor, only we may lack the means to settle it.
Economist Jeffery Sachs says we should think of poverty and development as a ladder, with developing nations at the bottom and wealthy nations at the top. However, far below that ladder is the is a trap, the poverty trap, “any self-reinforcing mechanism which causes poverty to persist” (Azariadis & Stachurski, 2004, p. 33). The trap not just what happens when nations fall into poverty, but rather a cycle where once you fall into deep enough poverty it becomes nearly impossible to climb back out, countries whose resources and GDP are so low and deficiencies are so high they cannot be balanced, without outside aid.
The famous proverb says that by giving a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but by teaching a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. In the case with poor nations it means that if rich countries give food and provision every time the destitute countries ask them for it, it really will not bring productive results. However, if the wealth nations provide poor nations with proper education, accessible medicine and basic technologies, citizens of these countries will start to benefit the government and the whole society – they will be health and educated enough to work, and moreover, they will have the necessary devices (technology) for the productive work. And this is how the further economic growth of the poor countries will be gained, and it will be the wealthy nations’ merits. In turns, it will create a positive image for a wealthy nation, which decided to share its wealth and put the poor nation on its feet: “When wealthy people give away money, we always say that they are doing it to ease their consciences or generate favorable publicity” (Singer “What Should a Billionaire Give – and What Should You?”). That is why sharing of wealth is very important both for developing and developed
Even when poverty is falling overall, there can be regional or sectoral increases about which society needs to be concerned. Over the last century the forces of globalization have been among those that have contributed to a huge improvement in human welfare, including raising countless millions out of poverty. Going forward, these forces have the potential to continue bringing great benefits to the poor, but how strongly they do so will also continue to depend crucially on factors such as the quality of overall macroeconomic policies, the workings of institutions, both formal and informal, the existing structure of assets, and the available resources, among many others. In order to arrive at fair and workable approaches to these very real human needs, government must listen to the voices of all its citizens.
The Globalization of Poverty: Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms, Michel Chossudovsky, (Penang: Third World Network, 1997)
Why nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, is a captivating read for all college economic courses. Coauthored by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, they optimistically attempt to answer the tough question of why some nations are rich and others are poor through political economic theories. They lay it all out in the preface and first chapter. According to Acemoglu and Robinson, the everyday United States citizen obtains more wealth than the every day Mexican, sub-Saharan African, Ethiopian, Mali, Sierra Leonne and Peruvian citizen as well as some Asian countries. The authors strategically arranged each chapter in a way that the reader, whomever he or she is, could easily grasp the following concept. Extractive nations that have political leadership and financial inconsistencies within their institutions are the largest contributor to poverty and despair within most countries. It also states that countries with socioeconomic institutions that work ‘for the people and by the people’, or in other words, focus on the internal agenda of that
Globalization is a cultural and economic trend that seems inevitable and unstoppable, but it is not without problems. In general, economic expansion seeks the lowest costs of raw materials and cheapest labor cost, but it frequently overlooks the broader impact that dynamics of globalizing have on socioeconomic status of developing societies. The countries that adopt policies to facilitate globalization have to consider that integration into a global society is not always painless or smooth. The most common complaints against globalization are that it exacerbates the gap between poor and rich both within and among countries and undermines labor standards (Griswold, 2000). Apter (2002, p.13) stated: “The truth is that if one can’t live with globalization, one can’t live without it either. Its consequences are many and diverse. But the devil is in details”. An analysis of globalization’s impact on economies of developing countries points out that globalization is a negative trend that widens the gap between wealthy and poor, exploits resources, and makes developing countries more depressed and marginalized.
Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. Why nations fail: the origins of power, prosperity, and poverty. New York: Crown Publishers, 2012. Print.
Impoverished nations, typically hold very little power in the international system. Therefore, from the realism viewpoint, they are of little importance. They are not typically a threat militarily or socially. However, there is a strong desire in the realism view for balance and order in the international system and an impoverished nation with an unpredictable economy could be seen as a