Lords of Poverty

In response to a piece published in Cato Unbound by Bill Easterly, UCLA economist Deepak Lal wrote in response:

"The unpalatable truth for the many well meaning people who are moved by world poverty and want to do something is that, over the years, alleviating world poverty has become a large international business from which a large number of middle class professionals derive a good living.

They have been aptly described by a former East African correspondent of the Economist as the "Lords of Poverty."[2] Easterly's suggestions for making aid effective will merely provide them a new play! The truth is that aid is not only ineffective; it is actually counterproductive. It will be a cruel joke on the Amaretch's of the world if it is now believed that some bureaucratic fix of the aid machinery will get them to school."

Read the whole thing here.


BTW, Lal has a new book that will come out this year on Classical Liberalism. The cover of the book is shown here.