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From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States Can Change the World (Paperback)

by Duncan Green (Author), Mark Fried (Editor)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 540 pages
  • Publisher: Oxfam Publishing; Pap/Cdr edition (1 Jun 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0855985933
  • ISBN-13: 978-0855985936
  • Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.5 x 3.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 202,800 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Review

In telling us what can be achieved by ordinary people through organised action, this book generates hope even as it enhances understanding of what is involved in the removal of poverty --Amartya Sen

A tour de force... At once shocking, realistic and radical, this book takes us further on the road to understanding the challenges of development and what needs to be done... It should inform and inspire all who are committed to policy and practice for a better world. --Robert Chambers

From Poverty to Power is an illuminating survey of global poverty today. As Green says, the old ways of low intensity democracy, trickle down economics, dirty growth, and inept global government have been found wanting. This book is a very useful contribution to the quest for the new tools and concepts we will need to navigate the 21st century --Bob Geldof


Robert Chambers, Institute of Development Studies, author of Whose reality counts?: putting the last first

"a tour de force... From Poverty to Power should have many readers, especially policy-makers in governments and aid agencies, concerned citizens, academics, activists, and students and teachers. As a text for development courses, a source of reference, and a treasury of ideas and striking examples of successes, it should inform and inspire all who are committed to policy and practice for a better world."
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars This book exemplifies 'excessive reformism without politics or history', 23 Mar 2009
By William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
Duncan Green, who works for Oxfam International, recommends cooperation, active citizenship and organisation. He writes that the key to development is an active, national developmental state - "there are no shortcuts, and neither aid nor NGOs can take its place; the road to development lies through the state."

Only the state can provide free access to primary health care, education, clean water and sanitation, the free public services that emancipate women. Countries need `massive and long-term investment in public health services'.

But the IMF still forces privatisation and liberalisation on countries wanting loans. Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Debt Reduction Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative, developing countries must implement Structural Adjustment Programmes for decades, to get the debt cancellation promised as the swift solution to their urgent problems.

Africa has 24% of the world's disease burden, but only 3% of the world's health workers, too many of whom migrate to the West. Poorer countries give the West $500 million a year in health workers. Jamaica and Grenada train five doctors for every one that stays. Yet Green writes, "Increasing the quantity and quality of migration is one of the most effective ways to tackle global poverty and inequality." But increasing the supply of labour cuts its price - which increases poverty.

He reminds us that profits taken from developing countries rose from $17 billion in 1990 to $169 billion in 2005. The banks profit from every debt crisis, while the crises have cost the developing countries a quarter of their output in the last 25 years. As NatWest boasts, "Currency and interest rate volatility provided significant trading opportunities."

Green then says that powerful states and corporations must stop doing harm. Indeed, that would be nice. He admits, "the private sector on its own has never achieved growth with equity", but he says this is because we haven't understood markets properly.

He notes that reform proposals are blocked by `powerful governments and financial interests', that "Powerful interests profit from the lack of regulation ... global institutions are weak or are dominated by governments in thrall to those vested interests" and that `local elites' violently oppose land reform. He observes, "To curb the extreme volatility of capital flows will be politically difficult, as volatility has acquired its own constituency in the shape of powerful financial institutions which profit from the daily surges of capital markets. But the alternative is that an increasingly uncontrollable world of international finance will destabilise governments, drive up inequality, and precipitate deeper and more frequent financial crises."

After all this, he writes, "Sustainable growth means ... acknowledging that the private sector and trade ... are the ultimate drivers of the economy, and it means supporting them with policies, investment, and institutions." That will make them change their spots! He admits the flaws in development thinking, chiefly `excessive reformism without politics or history' - which this book exemplifies.

Green observes, "the misguided actions of global institutions and the short-sighted policies of wealthy countries often pose threats to development." But is the problem really a lack of knowledge and of vision, to be put right by Oxfam's wisdom? This is the academics' fallacy, that if only our rulers knew better, they would do better.

Does Oxfam really think anyone can persuade the world's capitalist classes to act against their own interests? We need the world's working classes to act in their own interests, to get rid of this failed, destructive system.

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