VABALOG

Kas vaesust on võimalik maailmast hävitada 150 miljardi dollari eest aastas?

Jeffery Sachs on hakkama saanud raamatuga The End of Poverty, milles väidab, et 150 miljardit dollarit aastas võiks koos teiste meetmetega nagu vabakaubanduse ja turumajanduse toetamine, hävitada maailmast vaesuses. Vaesteks klassifitseeritakse üldjuhul aga inimesed, kes peavad hakkama saama vähem kui dollariga päevas ja kõige rohkem leiab neid Aasiast ja Aafrikast. Kuigi 150 miljardit dollarit (1,5 triljonit krooni?) on suur summa ei ole tegu ühekordse kulutusega vaid summaga, mida tuleks vaesematesse piirkondadesse suunata pikema perioodi jooksul.

Seose raamatu müügile jõudmisega avaldas ajakiri Time väljavõtte Sachsi raamatust koos südantlõhestava fotoesseega (PDF), mis tõenäoliselt ei jäta külmaks ühtegi vaatajat. Sachs ei ole väikeste tegude mees vaid pigem suurejooneline visionäär, kes üritab mitte ainult rääkida vaid ka teha – aidata inimesi, kes liiga paljude jaoks pigem labaseks statistikaks.

Ükski suurejooneline plaan ei pääse kriitikata ja Sachsi oma pole erand. Nagu arvata oli, on ka blogosfääris teemast huvitunud sõna võtnud.

Danile Drezner (rahvusvahelised suhted, poliitökonoomika) on skeptiline ning käib välja enda esmamuljed:

1) I very, very much want Sachs to be correct. If $150 billion in rich country donations a year is all it takes to eradicate global poverty, that’s a fantastic rate of return using either an economic or an ethical calcuator;

2) I have a hunch that Sachs is not completely correct. Reading papers like this one makes me wonder just how much of Sachs’ proposal is built on wishful thinking.

3) What I’m still undecided about is whether the investment is worth it even if Sachs is only, say, 50% correct. Would there be any other way of spending $150 billion a year that reduced extreme poverty by more than that amount?

Tyler Cowen (majandusteadlane) on Time’is ilmunud väljavõtte põhjal Sachsi plaani suhtes samuti valmis välja ütlema enda esialgse arvamuse:

My take: No way.

I’ll start with two admissions. I have been an admirer of Sachs, and I don’t think all foreign aid fails. But $150 billion a year won’t get us very far.

Let’s say you had ten years’ worth of contributions upfront, and invested the whole $1500. You would be very very lucky to reap 10% a year. That is a flow of $150 in yearly living standards. It will buy some fertilizer and mosquito nets but it probably won’t up returns above the ten percent level. When the East Asian countries made beneficial social investments they grew at about ten percent per annum and that is a best case scenario.

Then come the traditional problems of foreign aid. Not only is there wastage in aid administration and poor spending patterns, but many essential services simply are not there to be purchased. Infrastructure requires complementary goods — tractors need roads, and vice versa — which means that the early stages of growth are slow and cumbersome. Furthermore very poor communities often try to convert their aid into consumption by refusing to perform maintenance on the new capital stock.

Washington Post’is on ilmunud ka esimene Sachsi raamatu arvustus majandusteadlase poolt, mis ei ole…kuidas seda nüüd viisakalt öelda…eriti “leebe”:

“Success in ending the poverty trap,” Sachs writes, “will be much easier than it appears.” Really? If it’s so easy, why haven’t five decades of effort gotten the job done? Sachs should redirect some of his outrage at the question of why the previous $2.3 trillion didn’t reach the poor so that the next $2.3 trillion does. In fact, ending poverty is not easy at all. In those five decades, poverty researchers have learned a great deal about the complexity of toxic politics, bad history (including exploitative or inept colonialism), ethnic and regional conflicts, elites’ manipulation of politics and institutions, official corruption, dysfunctional public services, malevolent police forces and armies, the difficulty of honoring contracts and property rights, unaccountable and excessively bureaucratic donors and many other issues. Sachs, however, sees these factors as relatively unimportant. Indeed, he seems deaf to the babble and bungling of the U.N. agencies he calls upon to run the Big Plan, not to mention other unaccountable and ineffectual aid agencies.

Kuna raamat pole veel müügile tulnud on ka enamus kommentaare esialgsed, kuid tõenäoliselt annab raamat kriitikutele pigem laskemoona juurde.

Samas tuleb ka eelnevalt tsiteeritud autorite kirjutatust välja, et tegu ei olegi võib-olla niivõrd tõsiselt võetava ettepanekuga, kui katsega rahamasin korralikult ka vaeste jaoks tööle panna – sundida poliitikuid ja arvamusliidreid vaesuse hävitamisele mõtlema.

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