Basically misguided


The Attack on World Poverty: going back to basics Benny Dembitzer


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to see why. After spending his working life in the field of overseas development, the author has come to the conclusion that the current system is intrinsically flawed. The book makes some trenchant attacks on the current system that will be familiar to those with an interest in the subject. It argues that while it is true that more and more money is being allocated in aid, the lot of the world’s poorest people in what it calls “the South” is actually getting worse. Essentially the problem is twofold. First, governments talk aid but actually mean trade, in many cases arms exports, which of course do nothing to help the poorest. Secondly, it claims that this “development” industry is spending more and more of the


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he Attack on World Poverty comes across as an angry book. It is not hard


A young Chinese mother watches her child in front of a sign


reading “birth control is a basic state policy of our country” in Beijing. Photo: Reuters


global aid budget on university courses and big conferences in the North where experts talk to each other in comfort, what is described as “the quicksand of bureaucracy”.


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extremely wide field. Its first part, called “Poverty: the intractable problem”, examines a variety of physical and social constraints including the impact of global warming, food scarcity, and the growing problem of potable water scarcity in the South. Its second section looks at the current model of development, including governments, the private sector and voluntary agencies, and makes the point that, in much of the South, government is a “Kafkaesque” entity for the poor. However, the book’s sheer breadth can make it difficult for the reader to draw clear conclusions. Many experts would agree with the author that the current development model has failed the poorest of the poor, but many of them, by no means all from the right of the political spectrum, also contend that the proven way to lift people out of poverty is by focusing on economic growth, a good example being William Easterly’s recent book The Elusive Quest for Growth. Easterly, who worked for the World Bank, is no free-market ideologue, but an economist whose book tries to explain why growth has taken off spectacularly well in some places, and not in others. Dembitzer’s book barely mentions this important question, and the only country whose growth model gets its seal of approval is China. I must admit to being shocked by the book’s insouciance about the latter’s human-rights record:


The one-child policy of China is unpalatable to many Westerners, but it has been one of the key elements in raising living standards across China and has liberated women by enabling them to enter the workforce … It could be argued that the approach China has taken, of attacking development priorities at a purely instrumental level, with total insensitivity to human-rights issues, has been a plus in its economic development strategy.


Personally I don’t see how forced


abortion and female infanticide in China can possibly “liberate women”. Dembitzer is also simply wrong about the positive economic effects of China’s one-child policy which started in the 1970s, though growth only really took off in the 1990s following Deng Xiaoping’s pro-market reforms. Indeed, there is a strong Malthusian tendency to this book, i.e. a fear about the over-breeding of the poor. Again, many experts reject such an approach, Lyla Mehta being a good example. She argues forcefully that the poor suffer not because of physical shortages, but because of the way vested interests misappropriate resources.


I also doubt the book’s statement that people in the South “lack the knowledge or the means to limit the number of children produced”. This is one of the great red herrings of development studies, and one that was rebutted as long as 50 years ago by one of the pioneers of the subject, Barbara Ward. As Ward pointed out, there is no


evidence that the availability of birth control itself can limit overpopulation, as the fear of hardship encourages people to have large families as a kind of social safety net. Once living standards rise, population growth falls back. Ward’s analysis has been repeatedly verified since. For anybody interested, I commend the chapter “Cash for Condoms” in Easterly’s book, which calls development “the best contraceptive”. Russell Sparkes


OUR REVIEWERS


Ernan McMullin, a good friend of, and distinguished contributor to, these pages, sadly died soon after completing this review.


Russell Sparkes is the author ofSocially Responsible Investment.


Clarissa Burden is the editor of theLiterary Review’s poetry anthology.


Mary Blanche Ridge is a freelance writer. Brian Mortonwrites on the arts for The Tablet.


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