This is a big year for the development industry. In September, the world’s heads of state will gather in New York City to decide on the new sustainable development goals (SDGs), which will replace the millennium development goals as they expire. This process might sound mundane and wonky to people who don’t follow the development…
International development is dying; people just don’t buy it anymore. The West has been engaged in the project for more than six decades now, but the number of poor people in the world is growing, not shrinking, and inequality between rich and poor continues to widen instead of narrow. People know this, and they are…
The received wisdom comes to us from every direction: poverty rates are declining and extreme poverty will soon be eradicated from the face of the earth. This narrative is delivered by the World Bank, the governments of rich countries, and – most importantly – the UN Millennium Development campaign. Relax, they tell us. The world…
It is always a bit surprising to hear an economist described as a “rock star” in the media, but Thomas Piketty has been collecting this accolade in spades since the publication of his runaway bestseller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. It surely says something interesting about our times that this 700-page tome packed with dense…
One of the problems with neoliberal economic policy is that it’s tough to get countries to agree to it; especially democratic ones. It has often required quite extreme measures, such as invasion — the classic example being the US-backed coup against Chile’s democratically elected president — or debt bondage and structural adjustment led by the…
April 27 marks the 20th anniversary of South Africa’s first democratic elections. Most of us remember those iconic images of citizens queuing up in long, snaking lines to vote Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) into power. It was an extraordinary moment, replete with hope and pregnant with expectation, enough to supply years’…
Transparency International recently published their latest annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), laid out in an eye-catching map of the world with the least corrupt nations coded in happy yellow and the most corrupt nations smeared in stigmatising red. The CPI defines corruption as “the misuse of public power for private benefit,” and draws its data…
“Free trade”. The term itself is a trap — a brilliant framing device that neatly neutralises opposition. If you take a stand against free trade you appear to be taking a stand against freedom itself, which is clearly not a tenable position. In fact, in recent decades the term “free trade” has become very closely…
The idea of international development aid lies at the heart of a tremendously successful PR campaign. The narrative we have been sold claims that aid has been effective at reducing global poverty. Here I will argue that there are three problems with this narrative. First, poverty is not disappearing, despite what we have been told…
Last month the Associated Press reported that the income gap in the United States broke a new record in 2012, with the 1% grabbing a greater share of total household wealth than ever before in history. This news follows on the heels of the fact that the 1% not only captured all of the income…
