William Easterly

Economic development is not really development unless everyone has the right to consent to their own progress. For centuries, the developed Western world has exploited the less-developed “Rest” in the name of progress, conquering the Americas, driving the Atlantic slave trade, and colonizing Africa and Asia. Throughout, the West has justified this global conquest by the alleged material gains it brought to the conquered. But the colonial experiment unintentionally revealed how much of a demand there was for self-determination, and not just for relief from poverty.

All too often, experts recommend solutions that fix immediate problems without addressing the systemic political factors that created them in the first place. Further, they produce an accidental collusion with “benevolent autocrats,” leaving dictators with yet more power to violate the rights of the poor. (2014)

An excoriating attack on the tragic hubris of the West’s efforts to improve the lot of the so-called developing world. (2006)

Since the end of World War II, economists have tried to figure out how poor countries in the tropics could attain standards of living approaching those of countries in Europe and North America. The problem is not the failure of economics, William Easterly argues, but the failure to apply economic principle to practical policy work. (2001)