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[Jeffrey D. Sachs, THE END OF POVERTY: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Penguin Press. 396pp. $27.95; George B. N. Ayittey, AFRICA UNCHAINED: The Blueprint for Africaï¿½s Future, Palegrave (Macmillan). 483pp. $35.00

I. INTRODUCTION

I start this criticism and commentary by quoting Miguel De Unamuno, ï¿½A human soul is worth all the universe, someoneï¿½I know not whomï¿½has said and said magnificently. A human soul, mind you! Not a human life. Not this life. And it happens that the less a man believes in the soulï¿½that is to say in his conscious immortality, personal and concreteï¿½the more he will exaggerate the worth of this poor transitory life. This is the source from which springs all that effeminate, sentimental ebullition against war.ï¿½ [Unamuno, TRAGIC SENSE OF LIFE, Trans. J. E. Crawford Flitch, New York: Dover Publications, 1954, 108.] The original of the first sentence of the quoted material above is attributed by some to Seneca, a Stoic philosopher and Neroï¿½s teacher, a fellow Spaniard/Basque. Whatever the source is, I believe the quotation encapsulates our human concern on moral grounds, not just a ï¿½speciesistï¿½ reaction, to the primacy of our conscience and mind and not just our continued existence in the Universe be it corporeal or spiritual.

Two very important books are out in the market enriching the ongoing heated debate and discourse on economic development. The first one by Jeffrey D. Sachs, THE END OF POVERTY: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, [hereafter referred to as ï¿½Sachsï¿½] came out with great fanfare and coverage by major news magazines including a cover story in Time magazine of 15 March 2005. The other book by George B. N. Ayittey, AFRICA UNCHAINED: The Blueprint for Africaï¿½s Future, was quietly placed, without a ripple anywhere, on shelves and tables of bookstores at beginning of the year. Sachsï¿½s book is global and panoramic in its scope, short on details, but long on vision. By contrast, Ayitteyï¿½s book is focused and limited to one Continent, and combative in its approach and indignant in its disposition. The authors are from different backgrounds too: Sachs is an American, and Ayittey is a Ghanaian. Both are distinguished economists and educators. Even though the two books are profoundly different in content, nevertheless, they are both a testament of great hope for a suffering humanity. Between the two books, I believe, we are served immensely, and our money is well spent.

I have read several of Jeffery Sachsï¿½s articles and books in the past as part of my research project on globalization for a lecture I gave a few years back at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. In the book that evolved out of that presentation, I had dismissed Sachs, prematurely I must add, as one of those do-gooders Westerners, who say much about development without wisdom or understanding of the depth of the problem in developing countries. [See Tecola Hagos, DEMYSTIFYING POLITICAL THOUGHT, POWER, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, Khepera Publications, 1999, p.115 n44] And then, I read Sachs articles, ï¿½Weapons of Mass Salvationï¿½ ECONOMIST, October 24, 2002; and ï¿½Barbarous Thinking Comes Easilyï¿½ published by the Miami Herald on June 10, 2004, which completely changed my views about Sachs and his effort. It was a moment of great revelation to me that I found in Sachs, despite his privileged Western life, a brother and a fellow traveler with whom any person of conscience could identify and stand with at the very front on war against poverty and injustice in this new Century. Sadly, the new Century has started out with the wrong foot first as graphically illustrated in the horrendous violence and utter brutality of the last five years in Iraq and elsewhere. Sachsï¿½s book is another matter.

I realize that Sachs is not some such a person that one can easily dispose off on grounds of his lack of real-life experience in a world of poverty and relentless oppression because he grew up shielded as a child of privilege and a product of Western (United States) wealthy and exploitative society. I had read, and watched on television interviews and panel discussions by many academicians of Sachsï¿½ stature and notoriety who either evaded or compromised their statements against the policy of George Bush for going to war with Iraq, setting conditions by way of ï¿½justificationï¿½ of the type that infuriated me to no end. Even the venerable Slaughter who was first in challenging Bushï¿½s policy would end up ever since back paddling her initial steps in challenging the war with Iraq.

Sachs writes with great courage and compassion as evidenced in several of his articles on Bushï¿½s war with Iraq. As far back, in 2002 he wrote,

ï¿½The great leaders of the second world war alliance, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, understood the twin sides of destruction and salvation. Their war aims were not only to defeat fascism, but to create a world of shared prosperity. Roosevelt talked not only about Freedom from Fear but also Freedom from Want. One of the reasons why the Bush administration is losing the battle for the world's hearts and minds is precisely that it fights only the war on terror, while turning a cold and steely eye away from the millions dying of hunger and disease. When is the last time anybody heard Vice-President Dick Cheney even feign a word of concern for the world's poor?ï¿½ [Jeffery Sachs, ï¿½Weapons of Mass Salvationï¿½ ECONOMIST, October 24, 2002]

Such remarks are of a true believer, a crusader, if you want, a warrior of a different sort, which makes it awfully difficult for me to criticize other aspects of his thinking and writings, especially his economic views and political judgments on a number of national leaders in Africa.

Sachs uncompromising statements are good examples of his unusual depth of understanding and singular empathy with a suffering humankind. For someone still in his early fifties, with a family (a wife and three children) and a bright career, he is taking tremendous risk writing such a book (THE END OF POVERTY). Making such principled stand does not ender him with the powerful and the king-makers of the United States government or other governments elsewhere in the Western World. At times, as I was reading his book, and considering the tremendous task he had set for himself, Sachs reminds me of Don Quixote, a fictional character who was moved to take up arms for justice and for good manners in a world that had become too materialistic and vulgar with greed and self-love. Is Sachs our Twenty-First Century version of that grand old man of great valor from the Fifteenth Century who tilted his spear at windmills mistaking them for giants? Maybe he is in character, but the giants of our time are hundred percent real, the greedy and destructive Western Governments and violent leaders of so called developing countries. Moreover, Sachs is not some over imaginative old man with delusional suffering from a Messiah syndrome, but a man moved by the suffering he saw in a world divided by race, wealth, and military might. We can appreciate the humanity of Sachs the man by drawing a contrasting profile between him and his contemporary and competition, Lawrence Summers, the current President of Harvard University.

By looking at the career path of those two high achievers [Sachs and Summers] and by observing how they relate to their fellow man, one can truly appreciate the compassion, seriousness, and commitment of Jeffery Sachs to bring about a better world, even without the support of his current book. By contrast, we all know how Summers from the moment he assumed the Presidency of Harvard went on a rampage, with his first victim being Cornell West. He continued such disruptive action with a public statement claiming that for anyone criticizing Israel is tantamount to being an anti-Semitic, which statement took some working to quell the tsunami of protest that followed shaking the Harvard community. And recently he was caught again making sexist remarks questioning whether women by ï¿½natureï¿½ (reviving Galtonï¿½s eugenics) were inferior to men in the sciences (mathematics), which statement should never have been uttered even as hypothetical question by a person of Summersï¿½s responsibility and already frayed reputation. On the other hand, we find Sachs, in the same time-period, traveling tens of thousands of miles to the humblest of homes in the world sharing in the suffering of the poor, the disfranchised, and the oppressed in Africa and elsewhere in the world. A school never produced such diametrically opposed individuals as we can observe in the lives of Harvardï¿½s two famous graduates. It is only proper that Harvard was too small to be a stomping ground for such giants that Sachs has to move to occupy his own Empire created for him at Columbia.

Consider, for example, the following statement, among several other statements, Sachs had written without equivocation condemning Bushï¿½s war with Iraq:

ï¿½One consequence of the Iraq war is to expose (once again) the false divide between ï¿½civilizedï¿½ and ï¿½barbarousï¿½ nations. The United States seems as capable of barbarism as anyone else, as the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison make clear. There seem to be two common characteristics for a country to descend into barbarism. The first is the relentless human tendency to classify the world as ï¿½usï¿½ versus ï¿½them,ï¿½ and then to reduce ï¿½themï¿½ to sub-human status. Such classifications probably evolved because they strengthened the cohesion of the ï¿½inï¿½ group.ï¿½ [Sachs, ï¿½Barbarous Thinking Comes Easilyï¿½ the MIAMI HERALD on June 10, 2004.]

There is no way that I would overlook such manifest principled stand against an out of control and vicious administration in formulating my views on Sachs, after all the author of a book that outlines how to solve poverty and injustice in the world. The mistake of Sachs mainly is in the mistaken judgment and about African leaders and his very personalized evaluation of such leaders. There must be a major shift of paradigm from the solipsism (personal) to the objective before anything worthwhile can be discussed with some degree of intelligence dealing with development and the reduction of suffering and poverty in Africa or elsewhere. Despite his many mistakes from the Russian debacle of the 1990s to his friendship with unsavory leaders, such as Meles Zenawi, Jeffery Sachs, at the very least, is worthy of our respect if not our great admiration. Hence, my review of his Book, with a heavy heart because of the risk of offending a good man, currently sold all over the World.

I am not very familiar with George Ayittey work and affiliations as I am with that of Jeffery Sachs, except that I have read a couple of other books by Ayittey other than the one under review. I find his thesis of globalization very interesting, but not in accord with my anti-globalization sentiments. The books I read [1) AFRICA IN CHAOS. New York: St. Martin Press, 1998; 2) AFRICA BETRAYED. St. Martins Press, 1992; and portions of INDIGENOUS AFRICAN INSTITUTIONS. New York: Transnational Publishers, Inc., 1991.] show great mastery of research tools and disciplined inferences. His latest book AFRICA UNCHAINED is an excellent book that should bring us down to Earth after our arterial flight with Sachsï¿½ book. I shall discuss that book in Part Two. Having said that, I want it to be absolutely clear to anyone reading this article that my only reason in writing it is to promote the cause of Ethiopiaï¿½s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and dignity. Thus, by necessity the tone of this article carries that underlying interest.

PART ONE: JEFFREY SACHS AND HIS BOOK

II. Courage of Many Faces

Courage comes in all kinds of sizes. The schoolchild who sits at his desk and tries to add or subtract simple numbers shows courage; the farmer who disperses his precious seeds on his freshly furrowed farm shows courage; an old man who plants pine seedlings shows courage; a teacher who faces her first grade class shows courage et cetera, et cetera. What is common in all these people has to do with their hope in the future, and the implied rejection of the status quo or the tyranny of current conditions. They are all individuals with faith in their individual life pursuit.

For all of my adult life, I have lived hoping for better days. It did not happen, why should it? The fallacy of our expectations is a result of our misunderstanding of our place in the larger scheme of things. There is no metaphysical reason why our future has to be better than our past. As a matter of empirical data, entropy dictates that in a closed system, as is the case with our physical world, we observe increased decay and deterioration all around us. Why should it be any different in our human world? I wonder. In fact, it seems that things have grown worse than better even in my limited life-time. Our time is now marked with famine, war, genocide, violence et cetera. It is precisely this type of condition that creates prophets and gods to counter periods of great turmoil.

I see in Sachs a new kind of courage, helpful, concerned, but still naive about the ways of the world especially when it comes to identifying the real culprit of the problems facing the millions of people in Africa. Despite the fact that he claimed to have learned his lesson over a period of twenty years, Sachs is still thinking in terms of personal relationships with leaders as his main tool of advancing his ideas. With such old-fashioned approach, I doubt whether he will ever convince people to take him seriously. He needs this last additional courage to accept the fact that a prophet has no friends, but only disciples and followers. And thus, he need not worry too much how his views are going to be accepted by all these peasant-turned-dictators mushrooming all over Africa again and again since the days of the independence movement of the late 1950s. Sachsï¿½s heart is in the right place. He wrote, ï¿½It is no good to lecture the dying that they should have done better with their lot in life. Rather, it is our task to help them onto the ladder of development, at least to gain a foothold on the bottom rung, from which they can then proceed to climb on their own.ï¿½ [Sachs, 2] How could anyone would be able criticize a person with such wonderful sentiment? Thus, my criticism of Sachs is a reluctant one, and done for our sake with the greatest of hope of correcting some of his unsavory relationship with brutal dictatorial leaders and to encourage him to be his own man and a prophet to the poor and the disfranchised.

III.. General Perspective

Jeffery Sachsï¿½s book, THE END OF POVERTY, is not a hard book to read. It is written with simplicity and directness that only someone eager to share a certain profound truth could muster (the faculty of rendition or expression). There is nothing pretentious or unduly literate about the language or style of writing. In fact, it is an eloquently written book. However, it gives the reader a feeling of being on a roller coaster ride without the jarring twists and turns. It is a book of large brush strokes with sharply stated goals not necessarily supported or carried by the arguments and explanations offered. Because of the enormity of its goals, it feels rather hurried despite its four hundred pages. It is written in the first person; an alternate title such as ï¿½a narrative of the travel of Jeffery Sachs through out the world fixing the problems of developing nations with all kinds of economic problems,ï¿½ would have fitted just as well. Of course, the book is one of a kind in its scope and ambition to transform the world in less than twenty-five years. Whether it is well argued or convincing is another matter.

The book is divided into eighteen chapters. Some chapters lack direct relevance or are repetitious and need not have been included in the book. For example, Chapter 11 is a repeat of ideas elsewhere discussed, and especially the section on 9/11 has no relevance in the manner it is discussed in the book. Chapters 17 and 18 are simply repetitious of ideas fully discussed elsewhere and a mirror image of each other. Most of Sachs ideas are fully developed and discussed in the first half of the book, which renders the rest of the book a summation of sort. In regard with the statistical tables offered by Sachs to support his arguments and explanations, he could have been served better had he picked much more original (primary) source material than relay on data collected and analyzed by such self serving groups of ï¿½expertsï¿½ employed by the World Bank and related agencies.

Like all great people of vision and compassion, Sachs wrote without being self-conscious of the enormity of the task that he is setting himself and all others who are supportive of him. The message of the book is startling for its boldness and great expectations even if the aim of the author is not that original, but wonderfully recycled. Never mind whether such fabulous ideas can be carried out, the point is that Sachs provided us hope in our abilities that invariably starts with such dreams of breath-taking possibilities. Reading the book, I simply could not help being moved by the underlying passion of the author for justice and for humane treatment of fellow human beings, overlooking several of the bookï¿½s shortcomings. In a way, the book has a childlike innocence and charm bordering the prophetic.

The first sentence in the ï¿½Introductionï¿½ of the book reads, ï¿½This book is about ending poverty in our time.ï¿½ Nothing can be plainer than that stating the theme of a book; however, the task to achieve such lofty goal is full of pitfalls and difficulties. At any rate, Sachs has overcome the first and most difficult hurdle, which had hitherto tripped very many well-intentioned reformers, by recognizing the talent and abilities of the poor people of Africa. He wrote on the question of the ability of Africans: ï¿½The talent[s] of a poor rural farmer in Africa today, or in Scotland at the time of Adam Smith, are truly marvelous.[s] These farmers typically know how to build their own houses, grow and cook food, tend to animals, and make their own clothing. They are, therefore, construction workers, veterinarians and agronomists, and apparel manufacturers. They do it all, and their abilities are deeply impressive. [Sachs, 37] One more starry-eyed ï¿½prophet of hopeï¿½ is not going to escalate or diminish our level of pain to any perceptible degree: Africa remains a broken Continent. So, let us give Sachs a chance to explain his vision and passion for justice and improved life condition for millions of human beings.

IV. The Corrupt Economic and Political Structure: Personalizing Political Process

Sachsï¿½s first gross error is to be found in his acknowledgement of oppressive leaders such as Meles Zenawi, at the very beginning of the book, as examples of enlightened leadership in Africa. It is a shock to me, as it is to most Ethiopians I know, that Sachs would dare write such statement that slabs an entire nation right in the face with its platitude and insensitivity not to mention inaccuracy. Sachs wrote in his Acknowledgment, at the very beginning of his book, ï¿½My ardent hopes for Africa are fueled by the powerful and visionary leadership that I have seen in abundance throughout the Continent, in contrast to the typical uninformed American view about Africaï¿½s governance.ï¿½ [Sachs, x, emphasis added] Who are we kidding here? Does Sachs really believe his own statement, or are we living in different planets? Furthermore, he identified his special leaders, which strangely does not include Yoweri Museveni who should have been in the same boat as the others, thus, ï¿½In particular I would like to thank Africaï¿½s new generation of democratic leaders who are pointing the way, including ï¿½ Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia.ï¿½ [Sachs, x, emphasis added] Democratic leaders, Ha?

In bestowing such accolade on brutal leaders, Sachs is no different from a number of Western government leaders such as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair who blurted out their admiration of Meles Zenawi in most unbecoming manner in 1998 and after. The statements of those politicians should not be surprising to us because Meles has acted as their majordomo totally subordinating the interest of Ethiopia to the dictates of such Western leaders. The problem with such perception of Meles as a good leader is that it contradicts the findings of the reports of the security and foreign relations agencies of such Western governments. Since 1992, i.e., starting a year after the EPRDF took over the Ethiopian Government under the leadership of Meles Zenawi, all of the annual Reports of the State Department on human rights in Ethiopia have consistently pointed out gross human rights violations by the government of Meles Zenawi. Such findings of human rights violations have been corroborated by independent non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Africa Watch for the last fourteen years. The 2004 report of the Department of State has not changed its assessment of the human rights condition in Ethiopia. With such prolonged violations of human rights by the Ethiopian government and its functionaries that have been universally exposed, it is beyond reason to defend or applaud Meles Zenawi and his government for anything by anybody let alone by a world-renowned personality such as Sachs.

Far more extensive incidents of the brutality of the Government of Meles Zenawi have been reported by the Ethiopian Human Rights Council. The Council Members were also victimized by the Government of Meles Zenawi, such as Asefa Maru who was murdered by the Government Security Forces, and others such as the respected educator Mesfin Woldemariam were repeatedly detained, harassed, and threatened by the Government of Meles Zenawi. University Students, both in Addis Ababa and Jimma, and later in Mekele, were brutalized some even murdered, and hundreds disbanded by the Government of Meles Zenawi, where they had to flee the country to save their lives. Candidates from opposition groups and their supporters and their campaign workers have been repeatedly harassed, detained, even murdered, all over Ethiopia, and as recently as a few weeks back in Gojjam Seven Campaign workers were murdered by Government security forces. It is obvious that Sachs has turned a blind eye and has simply ignored such disturbing and serious facts of the violent nature of Meles Zenawi and his government in expressing his admiration to a person some even consider worse than Mengistu Hailemariam.

Meles Zenawiï¿½s government is run through conspiracy, intimidation, lies, violence, murder, kidnappings, detentions and secretiveness like a medieval court. The court of Cesare Borgia pales by comparison. [Cesare Borgia (1476-1507) was the son of Pope Alexander VI by Vanozza dei Cattanei born out of wedlock. He was born at Rome while his father was a cardinal. He had committed numerous murders, and was also suspected in the murder of his own brother, Giovanni, for inheritance of power and family wealth.] Ethiopian leaders never lacked craftiness and ability to mold the views of Western leaders or scholars. It is not the first time Western scholars have succumbed to the charm and flattery of Ethiopian leaders. Self-interest and even overwhelming desire to be helpful may blind such foreigners from seeing the truth about particular Ethiopian leaders with whom they come in contact with. Even the most brutal leader, Mengistu Hailemariam, smelled like a rose to some Western scholars. Because of the fact that Sachs has honorable intentions and great compassion for the poor of the World, I have decided to share with him a thing or two on Ethiopian politics rather than condemn him, in order to save him from continuing his mistaken belief in the ï¿½democraticï¿½ leadership of Meles Zenawi and other brutal African leaders whose hands are drenched with the blood of their respective citizens.

This is not to deny the fact that Sachs had ample notice to recognize the serious defects of Meles Zenawi as a leader. One example of such notice that Sachs himself reported in his book is an incident in 2003 that took place at a function co-hosted by Sachs and Meles in Added Ababa. The answer given by Meles when asked by a journalist on the lack of Melesï¿½s government initiative on question of public health in Ethiopia, especially considering the devastation of the country by AIDS and other infectious diseases, tells us a lot about what a cold-blooded individual Meles is. According to Sachs, Meles responded to such a question, ï¿½I am Afraid that health care is going to take more time. We will be able to expand health care only later, once we are richer.ï¿½ [Sachs, 267] Sachs, further reported that he expressed his disagreement to Meles about that response. And he described the reaction of Meles as follows: ï¿½He [Meles] looked back at me plaintively and agreed. But then he told me that IMF officials had recently told him ï¿½Thereï¿½s no more money available for health.ï¿½ï¿½ [Sachs, 267] The question that comes to mind is that how any leader could accept the suffering and possible death of millions of his people just because a lending bank official informed him that there is no money? A responsible leader would turn Heaven and Earth upside-down to find the means to help his people survive such calamity rather than nonchalantly wave aside legitimate inquiry about what his Government is doing to solve such catastrophe of biblical proportion.

V. Syndicalism - TPLF, an Economic Giant

The great Adam Smith disapproved of the mixing of political power with ï¿½trade.ï¿½ He wrote, ï¿½No two characters seem more inconsistent than those of trader and sovereign. If the trading spirit of the English East India Company renders them very bad sovereigns; the spirit of sovereignty seems to have rendered them equally bad traders.ï¿½ [Adam Smith, IV, ii, 448] These words seem to have been lost on Meles Zenawi who is both the political leader and the controlling power as the real ï¿½Chairman and CEOï¿½ of numerous enterprises under nominal share-ownership registered under the names of different interconnected individuals who are loyal members of TPLF. Since the time the ill-conceived privatization of state owned companies was undertaken by TPLF controlled Government of Ethiopia on the insistence of the World Bank and pressure by the United States government, the lives of millions of Ethiopians have deteriorated considerably. The hundreds of millions of dollars of new loans and as much debt forgiveness had not helped to improve the situation.

Sachs in his book has repeatedly stated that poor governance to be one of the reasons for the economic underdevelopment of African nations. However, Sachs never truly developed that thesis properly. He tempered his statement on poor governance with the idea that the ï¿½poverty trapï¿½ is the overriding reason that African nations and other poor nations remained underdeveloped. He wrote, ï¿½the more I saw, the more I realized that although predatory governance can soundly trounce economic development, good governance and market reforms are not sufficient to guarantee growth if the country is in a poverty trap.ï¿½ [Sachs, 195] I cannot believe that Sachs is giving only lip service to such profound insight. I believe he is simply looking at the problem through a different lens that focused more on the asymmetrical relationship between the consequences of good governance and poor governance.

The TPLF, the core political power of the current Ethiopian government, has transformed the Ethiopian economy from State ownership to the private ownership by political parties, mainly the TPLF, by buying investment assets formerly owned by the government of Ethiopia, as prescribed by the World Bank Report and political coercion by the United States Government. At the same time, the TPLF has also started a huge investment program of its own through sham corporate structures. For example, the TPLF controlled Endowment Fund of Rehabilitation of Tygreai (EFORT) is a conglomerate with an asset estimated well over a billion Ethiopian Birr involved in business investment in all aspect of the Ethiopian economy. It is reported that the following companies are already in place:

i) Almeda Textiles - 180 million birr,
(ii) Beruh Chemicals - 29 million birr,
(iii) Hiwot Agricultural Mechanization - 25 million birr,
(iv) Mesfin Industrial Engineering - 10 million birr,
(v) Mesebo Building Materials - 240 million birr, and
(vi) Trans-Ethiopia - 100 million birr.

[See INDIAN OCEAN NEWSLETTER, January 20, 1996. Reported in ETHIOPIAN REVIEW, February 1996. 16. see also Assefa Negash, THE PILLAGE OF ETHIOPIA BY ERITREANS AND THEIR TIGREAN SURROGATES, Los Angeles: Adey Publishing Company, 1996.] Of course, this is a very limited list of the investment asset controlled by the TPLF, moreover, there is a much more extensive list cited below..

Most of the above named enterprises are huge and grandiose projects compared to other projects elsewhere in Ethiopia. They are also situated in places from where particular TPLF leaders came from irrespective of business and economic consideration. The development of textile agro-industries are particularly inappropriate in a region where the population is perpetually in shortage of food. The effect of export oriented agricultural project has been a cause for negative development in almost every Third World country in the world for the last thirty years. I do not see why the case of Tygreai could be any different from what experience has confirmed about the effect of export oriented investment projects on the development of food production for local consumption unless Tygreai is considering the rest of Ethiopia to act as a bread-basket during the period of its industrialization.

The list of major EPRDF companies as indicated is illustrative how the Ethiopian economy has been corrupted by the hidden monopoly structure under the control of Meles Zenawi and associates. Only few of such companies are outside of the direct control of Meles Zenawi. I doubt whether Sachs is aware of the extent of the monopolistic control of the Ethiopian economy by the current political leaders through the following major business enterprises. One would assume that Sachs would have learned a valuable lesson from his Russian blunder, which he has admitted in his book. However, by his repeated approval and admiration of Meles Zenawi, Sachs cuts a rather pathetic figure compromising his own set standard and previous admission of error concerning the Russian corruption.

The above list of corporations and business interests were copied from a book in print in Addis Ababa and further verified by individuals who have access to such information. I cannot authenticate every single entity in the list, but most are genuine business enterprises under the control of the leaders of the TPLF.

The control of vast business interest by a political organization will certainly lead to criminal syndicalism. Since the TPLF is the dominant political organization that controls the government of the current Ethiopian government, it promotes its business interest over and against the few privately held large businesses creating a monopoly situation in the country. Furthermore, the control of such vast business and investment interest by a political organization will stunt the development of independent trade (labor) unions. The implication of this type of involvement in business and investment by political organizations is that the economic condition in Ethiopia is bleak. Other political organizations such as OPDO (in the Oromo region), ANDM (in the Amhara region) which are affiliated with the TPLF as members of the front organization, EPRDF, do have also similar control of investment, however the conglomerates controlled by such political organizations have much smaller equity base compared to those of the TPLF.

As indicated above, the new conglomerate is not the only investment controlled by the TPLF, there are also companies bought or established in foreign nations in the name of private individuals pausing as straw men and fronting for the TPLF. There is also some form of conspiratorial cooperation with the Alamudi controlled companies and the TPLF that are allegedly seen to work in collusion with the conglomerate controlled by Meles Zenawi and close associates there by dividing up the commerce of the nation between the two groups. To add insult to an injury, a number of import-export companies for coffee and hide (the two backbones of Ethiopia's economy) are also controlled through Tygrean straw men whose connection with the leadership of the TPLF is cemented by close personal blood relation or commercial interest. These allegations made by a number of individuals and journal articles are very difficult to detect because of the nature of the secretive business practices prevalent in Ethiopia. At any rate, the very fact of the existence of such business atmosphere is bad in itself. Whether it is Sachs or anybody else should bite his tongue and refrain from making such outrageous statements of admiration of African leaders such as Meles Zenawi in haste.

This form of manipulation of the economy of the nation by one political organization to the benefit of a discrete group or region is the most cynical and vicious political arrangement that the government of Meles has come up with to the detriment of the rest of Ethiopia. Haile Selassie, a far superior Machiavellian than Meles, used a more subtle form of channeling of economic benefit in favor of a particular region and group of people. For example, he introduced the national 'five years plan' system where real progress is made only in discrete areas although the plan was drawn for the entire country. During Mengistu's government the revenue from government owned enterprises was utilized in the interest of the people of Ethiopia as a whole; at least that was the stated effort of the government. The present economic policy of 'privatization' transferred the control of those government owned enterprises to political parties whose organization is based on regional/ethnic identifications. The negative impact of such arrangement outweighs any possible benefit to be derived from the 'privatization' program suggested by the World Bank.

In the last ten years, an insignificant amount of fund was allocated for public expenditure for the transition period. I am mentioning that obscure incident to illustrate how very little was planned to counter the effect of accelerating the dehumanization of employees because of arbitrary dismissal and removal of employees through early retirements. The problem of unemployment had worsened and the allocation of marginal expenditure for program of social safety net had negligible effect on the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people. [The World Bank, PUBLIC EXPENDITURE POLICY FOR TRANSITION, Vol.II, Report No.12992-ET, October 21, 1994, 36-37. "The only safety net program that remains now is an allocation of 253 million Birr [approx. US $50 Million] mainly for retrenched workers, displaced people and poor farmers." 37. Such appalling allocation of insignificant amount of fund is a sick joke when there are millions of people literally out in the streets without shelter, food and future for a normal life] Moreover, there are very many unwarranted reallocation or elimination of expenditures outlined in the study. [The World Bank, PUBLIC EXPENDITURE POLICY FOR TRANSITION, Vol.II, Report No.12992-ET, October 21, 1994,]

The accelerated demoralization of the Ethiopian population has been going on since the establishment of the military government of Mengistu; the last five years are unparalleled by the number of individuals who have lost their only means of survival through no fault of theirs. For example when the EPLF took control of Eritrea hundreds of thousands of military personnel and civilian employees of the Ethiopian government lost their jobs in Eritrea and were driven out by the new government of Eritrea. The brutality of the expulsion did not even spare Tygreans who had resided in Asmara, Assab, Massawa and other parts of Eritrea for all their lives. The TGE has no contingency plan to contain the convulsion either; it was barely settled as the new government of Ethiopia. The tragic treatment of the Ethiopian civil service by the new Eritrean government has changed the relationship of Eritreans and Ethiopians everywhere.

Any quick-fix system put in place in order to counter a deteriorating and outmoded idea of economic development scheme suggested by the World Bank/IFM, such as the ï¿½structural adjustmentï¿½ and ï¿½stringent ï¿½fiscal disciplineï¿½ programs, which is being enforced on a number of African countries as well as Ethiopia, does not address the chronic problems of poverty of African nations. Structural adjustment programs are designed on the assumption that there are some sectoral productive economic structures within an otherwise inefficient system such that debts owed to the World Bank and other international financiers can be serviced. It is a self serving scheme for the Western nations once again economically control developing nations around the World. There has been sufficient literature on the subject of structural adjustment programs that I need not go into that subject in depth in this article. Suffice it to say, as indicated above, adjustment programs have failed all over the world in every instance of over two hundred projects since its formal implementation in 1974 to date. [See Tecola W.Hagos, DEMOCRATIZATION? ETHIOPIA 1991-1994, 205-8.]

Sachs, as a good student of Adam Smith, has correctly identified the importance of easy access to navigable rivers and extensive coastline and deep natural harbors as the most important factor for economic development. He wrote, ï¿½Many of the worldï¿½s poorest countries are severely hindered by high transport costs because they are landlocked: or lack navigable rivers, long coastline, or good natural harbors. Culture does not explain the persistence of poverty in Bolivia, Ethiopia, Kyrgysten, or Tibet. Look instead to the mountain geography of a landlocked region facing crushing transport costs and economic isolation that stifle almost all forms modern economic activity. Adam Smith was acutely aware of the role of high transport costs in hindering economic development. He stressed, in particular, the advantages of proximity to low-cost, sea-based trade as critical, noting that remote economies would be the last regions to achieve economic development.ï¿½ [Sachs, 57-58, emphasis added] As incredible as it may look, Sachs never once mentioned the land locking of Ethiopia and the war with ï¿½Eritreaï¿½ in his book. It defies logic or common sense to argue on one side that lack of access to the sea as one of the major causes of poverty, but never even once mentioning how Ethiopia was betrayed by a treasonous dictator, Meles Zenawi, and lost her historic territory of the Afar Coastal region and the Territorial waters on the Red Sea.

One of the most insidious and criminal act by Meles Zenawi and his associates was the signing of the Algiers Agreement of 2000 that assured preemptively the ceding of legitimate coastal Territories of Ethiopia and other disputed areas in Kunama and Irob to ï¿½Eritrea.ï¿½ Meles repeatedly in public speeches and interviews has argued the causes of ï¿½Eritreaï¿½ undermining the interest of Ethiopia. In fact, Meles unbeknown to the Ethiopian people and Representatives had agreed prior to becoming Prime Minister while he was the leader of the guerilla movement of the TPLF/EPRDF to such partition. Under well-established principle of international law and practice as codified in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties such action is fraudulent and any such treaty will not be valid or binding on the people of Ethiopia. Nevertheless, knowing fully well the out come of any arbitration based on such fraudulent Treaty, Meles did not even try to put up any decent fight to salvage the situation. Rather, as was indicated sarcastically by the Ethiopia-Eritrea Boundary Commission in its decision of 13 April 2002, he even gave away more land than the Eritrean Government has asked for. Even though there is sufficient evidence to invalidate the decision of the Boundary Commission on the grounds of corruption and conflict of interest, Meles has done nothing. Instead, we see Meles committing further treason against Ethiopia on interviews after interviews defending the most convoluted and absurd justification that Ethiopia does not need its coastal territories and outlet to the Red Sea. [I have written several articles on the 13 April 2002 Decision entered by the Boundary Commission, posted in this Website, www.tecolahagos.com.]

It is unbelievable that Sachs being a citizen of a country that boasts in one of its national songs of having two coastal territories and unencumbered outlet to two Oceans, ï¿½from sea to shinning sea,ï¿½ was willing to overlook such serious treasonous activities of Meles Zenawi losing Ethiopiaï¿½s only historic outlet to the rest of the World. One must understand that Ethiopia has been surrounded by hostile nations for thousands of years, and has fought numerous wars and battles to preserve its independence and identity as the last Christian hold nation out in that part of the world. Moreover, because of the fact that Ethiopia is the source country for over 85% of the water of the Nile that finally reaches the Mediterranean Sea, successive governments of Egypt, Ottoman Turkey, and Sudan had attempted to destroy Ethiopia. In the last fifty years Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and the many tiny Gulf pseudo-states, in addition to Egypt and Sudan, had either sent military forces to occupy Ethiopia or financed insurgent movements to destroy Ethiopia from within. As we speak Saudi Arabia has been mounting massive amount of Petrodollar in Ethiopia with the idea of converting Ethiopian Christians into Moslems and there by to insure free and unfettered use of the water of the Nile for Egypt and Sudan. A few years back an over ambitious official of the Arab League made a speech that Ethiopia ought to join the Arab League.

It is a matter of recorded fact, starting with Henry Kissinger all the way down to the current State Department officials, unfairly and stupidly, have incubated the racist idea to marginalize the only Black nation in the World that gave the White man a good run for his money and finally allowed the dismemberment and future destruction of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the only nation where religious tolerance is practiced under the guidance of the great Ethiopian Orthodox Church and independent minded Emperors of Ethiopia for a thousand and five hundred years. At this crucial time, the officials of the United States government are simply lying low until the election of Meles Zenawi, the treasonous Prime Minister and their agent, whereby they will spring back and would be tearing down Ethiopia. I have completely lost respect to such leaders and their functionaries; I even question their intelligence and their cognitive capacity after having studied their activities of the last fifty years.

It is obvious that Sachs admires Adam Smith, for he had quoted him exclusively several times. When I consider the complete absence of discussion of the War, and the border dispute, and the land locking of Ethiopia where over a hundred thousand Ethiopians/Eritreans lost their lives, and where Ethiopia is still illegally deprived of its Afar Coastal Territories, I am wondering whether we should listen to Sachs on anything. It is inconceivable to me, to take anyone seriously who is talking about economic development and who is applauding a government leader, who is the direct cause of land locking a nation with its seventy million citizens surrounded by hostile nations.

Sachs blindly asserts that Africa has an abundance of democratic and visionary leaders. Such approach is nothing less than blasphemy and an insult to the millions of African victims of brutal government leaders in every African nation since the period of independence in the late 1950s. When I read such categorical assertions by Sachs, I wonder whether Sachs really knows what he is writing. For example, in one of the most crucial Chapters of his book, Chapter Ten with a catchy caption, ï¿½The Voiceless Dying: Africa and Disease,ï¿½ and under a subsection titled ï¿½Deeper Causes of African Povertyï¿½ he wrote, ï¿½Both the critics of African Governance and the critics of western violence and meddling have it wrong. Politics, at the end of the day, simply cannot explain Africaï¿½s prolonged economic crises. The claim that Africaï¿½s corruption is the basic source of the problem does not withstand experience or serious scrutiny.ï¿½ [Sachs, 190] In support of such claims, Sachs has offered us a table compiled by Transparency International, Global Corruption Report (GCR) 2004, Table 1. However, I do not believe that the Global report is an empirical proof of anything. Even if we go along with Sachs citation, the cited material shows trends to the contrary and not supportive of his thesis.

The Country Report of the GCR 2004 includes only Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia for the Continent of Africa. The basic data collection is extremely limited due to the secretive nature of political corruption under investigation. On the other hand the Global Corruption Barometer for 2004, a survey by polling people in a particular area, on page nine of the report as supported by Table 9 indicates that more than half surveyed in the African countries stated that ï¿½corruptionï¿½ affected political life to a large extent. The group represented is in the 51%-70% range, one of the highest ranges. At any rate, the survey is a simple opinion poll conducted with a limited number [300-1000 individuals] of samples in each subject Country. The number of countries surveyed world wise was only sixty. In Africa, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa were added in the survey. By any standard of research methodology, what is offered as proof does not even begin to address the controversy let alone resolve it in such categorical manner as Sachs would like us to accept. What one must consider is the history of the African Continent in the last fifty years to see how far political corruption is the cause of underdevelopment and poverty in the Continent. .In the GCR 2004 two African leaders are highlighted among some six world's most corrupt leaders: 1) Mobutu Sese Seko President of Zaire (1965-97) stashed more than 5 billion dollar in foreign banks during his Presidency, and Zaire had borrowed about 12 billion dollars from the World Bank during the same period. 2) Sani Abacha, President of Nigeria (1993-98) stashed between 2 to 5 billion dollars in foreign banks, and some of the money is being recovered by the current Nigerian Government. Of course, there are several other African leaders who have embezzled tremendous amount of money of several billions of dollars not yet identified by the GCR.

Other than the showing of past records of the economic corruption of Africa to be due to the greed and hunger of African national leaders for power and money, the ongoing political life in almost all nations of Africa shows marked degree of relapse and deterioration. It is not that long ago we were reading headlines about the atrocities being committed by government troops and contending warlords in Ghana, Mozambique, Sera Leon, Sudan, Zaire, et cetera that it is too early for anyone to be writing about enlightened governance in Africa. Even the newly minted nations have succumbed to such corruption of power. Except may be for Senegal and South Africa, there is not a single democratic country in Africa. The current Ethiopian leaders represent one of the worst autocratic, corrupt, and anti democratic government on the Continent. Meles Zenawiï¿½s government born out of a guerilla movement has failed to shade its militaristic and violent tradition that it acquired as a guerrilla movement over a period of fifteen years in the bush before it toppled the remnant military government after Mengistu abandoned his dying regime in 1991.

The Politburo Members of the TPLF [EPRDF] are part of the new ï¿½elite,ï¿½ the Arradas, who have now replaced both the remnants of Haile Selassie and that of Mengistu Hailemariam. Mostly they are children of well-connected merchants and former officials of Haile Selassie and the feudal order that had oppressed and dehumanized Ethiopians for centuries. Except for few individuals, Ethiopia is back in the hands of its traditional exploitative families and willing facilitators. What is tragic even within a corrupted political process is the systematic elimination of those individuals who are not from the aristocracy or the feudal families of bygone times. The purging of the Twelve Dissenters, former members of the TPLF Central Committee, is one such cleansing process carried out with the help of the Mehale Sefaris against the common person of Ethiopia.

Considering the economic interest and the identity of the people who are in control of the TPLF and that of the Ethiopian government, it is hard to maintain the old adage that holds that Tygreans to be the only beneficiaries of the government of Meles Zenawi. Tygreans just like other Ethiopians are in loggerhead confrontation with Meles and his dictatorial government. Meles Zenawi and associates from Tygrei have long forgotten their constituents except for their own few close relations and business partners. They have joined the parasitic urbanites that have sucked dry the people of Ethiopia fortified within their citadel of exploitation, Addis Ababa, for the last one hundred years. Even though the theme of Sachsï¿½s book is global in scope, I do believe that he is answerable to challenges to his accolade of particular leaders from particular countries. It is in that sense that I raised several questions about the current political and economic situation in Ethiopia and criticized Sachsï¿½s unconditional admiration of Meles Zenawi and other dictators in Africa..

I believe Sachs made serious error of omission by not discussing in depth how Western nations molded newly independent nations in Africa in casts of the security and economic interest of Western nations. For example, rather than discussing at length the 19/11 death and destruction, he would have concentrated on the issue of the involvement of the West in so many destabilizations and overthrow of governments in developing nations. Western colonial masters did not leave their ex-colonies; they simply wore different clothing and called themselves partners with the newly independent national governments in economic and political development programs, and continued their exploitation of such newly independent nations. Within few years, the so-called independent nations had been transformed into security arms of their ex-colonial masters or partners in ï¿½development.ï¿½ National Security States are ï¿½Third Worldï¿½ states within the sphere of influence of the United States, led and controlled by military elites whose ideology combines elements of Nazism with pre-Enlightenment notions of hierarchy and inequality, and implement extreme violence such as torture, murder and disappearances as routine method of suppression of innocent citizens. [See Edward S. Herman, THE REAL TERROR NETWORK: TERRORISM IN FACT AND PROPAGANDA, Boston: South End Press, 1982, 3-5.]

The current Ethiopian government is in the last stage of completely becoming such a NSS client state. These NSS states often led by locally breed thugs and deranged dictators are the West's version of satellite governments comparable to the client states of the former Soviet Union of the Cold War period. "One nation's lunatic fringe is another nation's security police." [Joseph Lelyveld, MOVE YOUR SHADOW: SOUTH AFRICA, BLACK AND WHITE, New York: Time Books, Random house, Inc., 1985, 172.] The sands of history has shifted, and instead of a left oriented revolutionary government, what we have in Ethiopia is a dictatorial rightist government, which came into power camouflaged as a revolutionary movement cashing on its reputation from its pre-1991 earlier life.

The close association of Meles with the British and United States governments had all been destructive to Ethiopia. It created a heightened degree of dependency on foreign subsidies to run a sovereign country. In real value, close to 80% of the budgetary outlay of Ethiopia is underwritten by such foreign funding. Thus, such close association of the current Ethiopian government with the British and United States governments is heading in the direction of national dependency and marginalization of Ethiopians. The security apparatus of the nation was organized with the help of British police and security experts. The Overseas Development Administration (ODA), a counterpart of the United States' AID office, are all involved in the financing and recruiting of people who will be paid by the British or United States governments, but working for the Ethiopian government security apparatus. The degree of intense involvement of these Western countries in the ï¿½internal affairsï¿½ of the Ethiopian State is unnecessary. The United States, the only super power in the area, in a world supposedly moving toward economic cooperation rather than political confrontation is best served by a policy that emphasize the observance of human rights by friendly countries as a precondition of continued cooperation. This is the time for creative thinking and new approach to conflict resolution and the promotion of democracy.

The arrogance of Western intellectuals pontificating on the problems of poor nations around the world is no news; we all suffer their folly everyday in their silly and at times ridicules writings in books, articles, television commentaries et cetera. It is not unusual for a novice graduate from Western universities after spending a few months in the bush in Africa or elsewhere to claim expertise in the economic, political, and cultural needs of such areas. Even though Sachs is by far the most humble Westerner I have encountered through books and articles and especially through his latest writings, nevertheless, some degree of overbearing sentiment has sipped through in some of his chapters. At any rate, I would have been most grateful if Sachs had adequately recognized the great contributions of people like Nobel Lauriat Amartya Sen and Dr. Mohamed Yunis of the Grameen Bank. Sachs has given us a cursory view of Senï¿½s otherwise profound study on the cause of poverty, and even that with a huge caveat. [See Sachs, 175] How could anyone writing on poverty overlook Senï¿½s profound idea of bringing some ï¿½little merciesï¿½ to people who are suffering extreme poverty. Senï¿½s contribution was acknowledged by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' in their citation awarding the 1998 Nobel economics prize to Sen. Among other things the Academy stated the following:

ï¿½Prof Sen's contribution to welfare economics ... (and) applications of his theoretical approach have enhanced our understanding of the economic mechanisms underlying famines. He has made a number of noteworthy contributions to central fields of economic science and opened up new fields of study for subsequent generations of researchers. By combining tools from economics and philosophy, he has restored an ethical dimension to the discussion of vital economic problems. Prof Sen treated problems such as majority rule, individual rights and the availability of information about individual welfare. Almost all of Prof Sen's work deals with development economics, as they are often devoted to the welfare of the poorest people in society. He has also studied actual famines. His best-known work is Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation.ï¿½

The research work of Sen from the 1970s to date is a great source of information and knowledge for anyone interested to bring about lasting improvement in the lives of the poor of the world. Senï¿½s studies gave us far more significant path-breaking understanding of the sources and impacts of poverty on communities and on the lives of individuals caught in such situations. For example, his analysis of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia led him to conclude that it was not the depletion of food stock, but the poverty of the Ethiopian peasants of not having cash to pay for food that resulted in the suffering and death of tens of thousands of Ethiopians.

Sachs mentioned the Grameen Bank in couple of places [Sachs, 13-14; 264-265] referring to the success of the Bank, but did not discuss the mechanism that led to such success. The Grameen Bank and project is a great starting and learning point for all people of conscious. Rather than trying to ï¿½reinvent the wheel,ï¿½ Sachs should have paid close attention to projects already underway by individuals from the developing world. One such program that would have provided excellent starting point for anyone genuinely interested to improve poverty in the world is the Grameen Bank started by Mohamed Yunis some twenty five years ago that has a proven record of great success in Bangladesh. What is strange also is the fact that Sachs for unfathomable reason, did not mention in his book even once Mohamed Yunis, the greatest visionary of our time who used the unheard of trusting of poor people as the corner stone of his microbanking. This is truly the first time anyone ever saw poor people as worthy of business relationship beyond the hiring of their cheap labor. Such are projects that would allow the poorest of the poor to climb on to the ladder of development.

What Sachs failed to appreciate in great depth [he has stated some superficial concern on political reforms] is the fact that democratic political structures are necessary to prevent corruption and abuse of power. It is such well defined political democratic structures that would guarantee the proper use of funds to be invested in the thousands of projects to help the poorest of the poor to get to the first rung of the ladder of economic development. Imagine a situation, if billions of dollars is raised according to Sachs vision, who are the people to administer such fund? By just watching what is going on in the limited operation of the Global Fund and other financing of non-profit organizations of Bill Gates, Ted Turner, George Soros, and several others, it is already clear that such future global project will simple become one more venue to create job opportunities, with inflated salaries, to the children of Western technocrats, bureaucrats, and corporate officials. It is already an established tradition in the World Bank, the IMF et cetera that one has to be a Harvard graduate to get anywhere, and definitely a Westerner. Is this vision of Sachs going to create one more institution for the benefit of those privileged few and continue to draw on the suffering of the poor? I am not suggesting that Sachs has some other agenda in his vision of global economic development, what I am saying is that if such vision is attempted without political reform as the first primary goal on the way to economic development, we will simply repeat the mistakes of the past and the stratification of elitist technocrats and bureaucrats in a global structure.

Moreover, without major and necessary political reform, there can be no safe system to insure that funds that maybe contributed to such global economic development projects are properly used, expenses properly accounted for, and projects properly designed for the poor et cetera. It is not simply a matter of hatred or self-interest why a number of Africans are fighting and struggling in order to get rid of despotic and corrupt African leaders, such as Meles Zenawi in case of Ethiopians. The issue of political reform and the establishment of democratically elected governments must be considered as the primary goal in any economic development paradigm. The fact that Sachs did not devote any chapter to the democratization processes, the safeguarding of the human and political rights of citizens of African nations, or types of appropriate political structures that could effectively absorber the flow of new money and the introduction of new projects is a serious oversight that completely renders his entire effort meaningless and worthless.

In Chapter Twelve, Sachs attempted to develop a kind of model development project roughly based on the economic difficulties faced by a Kenyan Village, called Sauri. [Sachs, 227-236] There are no specific economic development programs as such but outlines of services needed by the villagers. The same theme is repeated elsewhere. Sachs main trust is to provide essential services to poor communities, but such approach is simply the creation of a welfare state rather than an economic system with sustainable productive and dynamic system. It would have made a significant difference for people to have something concert to work with had he provided specific projects that could be used as starting points for the goals he outlined. In other words, Sachs should have stated what is to be done in specific communities around the world in order to start the wheel of economic development turning. The examples he provided us, such as the case studies of Bangladesh, Bolivia, China, India, Poland, Russia as examples of successful economic transformation stories, and Malawi that of failure, in no way can be considered as prescriptions or projects for development economies. What the book does is simply argue a case for raising billions of dollars from wealthy nations for yet unspecified economic development programs to benefit unspecified poor communities around the world.

There are very many questions that come to mind when we get down to the business of carrying out Sachsï¿½s vision. Do we start the solution of world-poverty by creating a central planning body for the entire world, or do we leave the detail for the donor nations of the West to come up with their own government-to-government type projects? Do we start with the type of projects that requires micromanagement, as is the case with any project financed by loans from the World Bank, or simply structure programs with personnel drawn from donor nations, and introduce such projects or programs into beneficiary communities as some kind of self-contained economic capsules? As they say the ï¿½the Devil is in the detailï¿½ who is very much absent in the book by Sachs. As is, the Sachs proposal would end up raising billions of dollars on one side without a clear idea what to do with all that money. What is needed is step-by-step concrete suggestion for developing nations to use as part of their economic development strategy. Nebulous idea of ï¿½economic developmentï¿½ without specific programs spelled out in so many words is meaningless. The most important element for any successful economic development proposal is completely missing in Sachsï¿½s bookï¿½a humble starting point!

Sachs's choice of Kant as his philosopher to support his new vision may not be acceptable to a number of people. Kant is very controversial because of his ideas on ï¿½raceï¿½ with a ï¿½whiteï¿½ supremacist notion. The little pamphlet, ï¿½Perpetual Peace,ï¿½ written by Kant may have some lofty ideals, however, it has also a serpent coiled (world-government) at the center of its promised Garden of Eden II. Let me just advise caution dealing with European philosophers this side of the Enlightenment. Although Kant is nowhere as harsh as Hegel is in his treatment of Africans in his writings, he is harsh enough to qualify as a polarizing agent. After all, Kant did write that ï¿½The negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the trifling.ï¿½ [Immanuel Kant, OBSERVATIONS ON THE FEELING OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE SUBLIME, Trans. John T. Goldhwait, Berkely CA: Univ. of California Press, 1991. 110] This caution about Kant is not a personal thing for me, for I have long ago forgiven Kant for his missteps and accepted him as the fourth great philosopher following Parmenides, Socrates/Plato, and Hume. At any rate, a far better choice of a philosopher would have been John Rawls rather than Kant. Rawls with his concept of ï¿½distributive justiceï¿½ under ï¿½the veil of ignoranceï¿½ would fit the theme of Sachsï¿½s book far more effectively than most philosophers.

I question also the elitism that is prevalent in the world, the fact of undue privilege being heaped on individuals for mere attendance of prestigious schools. The overemphasis on formalism at the cost of experience is another problem that pervades very many scholarly books including Sachsï¿½s. ï¿½The rich world dominates the training of PhD economists, and the students of rich-world PhD programs dominate the international institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which have lead in advising poor countries on how to break out of Poverty.ï¿½ [Sachs, 74] We are talking here a period of over fifty years, over half a century. And what do those acclaimed ï¿½expertsï¿½ have to show for their effortsï¿½nothing! If it were otherwise, we will be doing other things at this very moment rather than brooding over the suffering of the majority of the worldï¿½s population under sever poverty. Sachs would have found it necessary neither to write a book to alleviate the suffering of the poor had those acclaimed PhD graduates of his from the rich-nations have done their jobs well.

I even doubt whether the degree of importance given to complex theories and mathematical models is really that necessary compared to actions taken based on common sense sensibility and human compassion. After all, every human being is an awesome package of tremendous abilities and knowledge. Even though I am inclined towards Platonic metaphysics and ontology, I want to quote a decidedly positivist thinker on the issue of the proper provenance of knowledge in our existence. We all can learn and benefit greatly from the insight of Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest scientists of our Century, a man whose life is a testament to the power of the mind even living under most difficult physical challenges, on the proper appreciation and limits to our formalism. He stated, ï¿½I take the positivist viewpoint that a physical theory is just a mathematical model and that it is meaningless to ask whether it corresponds to reality. All that one can ask is that its predictions should be in agreement with observation.ï¿½ [Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, THE NATURE OF SPACE AND TIME, Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2000, 3-4]

Jeffery Sachs is an extremely valuable a person to be wasting his great compassion, talent, and abilities defending and giving credence and comfort to third-rate dictators and corrupt leaders in the developing world. He must learn how to separate his personal friendship with leaders of developing nations, which friendship I find demeaning to such a distinguished and moral person, from overshadowing his objectivity as to the value of the leadership of such leaders to their people and not how agreeable they maybe to Jeffery Sachs or the Western nations. It is a fact that power is seductive not only to those who posses it but even to those who are exposed to itï¿½we all must be on our guard at all times. Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, in 1887, put it succinctly that ï¿½Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.ï¿½

PART TWO: GEORGE B. N. AYITTEY AND HIS BOOK [AFRICA UNCHAINED: The Blueprint for Africaï¿½s Future,]