The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good

In this chapter, Easterly describes the origins of foreign trade and the inspirations and intentions behind the West’s assistance of those who are less fortunate. According to him, many developments have arisen since the 1950s and transformed the world, “[y]et one thing is unchanged: the legend that inspired foreign aid in the 1950s is the same legend that inspires aid today” (37). This is founded on “two main predictions of the poverty trap legend: (1) that growth of the poorest countries is lower than other countries, and (2) that per capita growth of the poorest countries in zero or negative” (40). Easterly argues that this thinking is based on a simplistic idea that poor countries do not have enough income beyond what they consume, preventing them from using extra resources for investment. Therefore, they must rely on foreign aid for finance. Easterly refers to this phenomenon as the “Big Push,” or the idea that only Western assistance can alleviate their development constraints and, ultimately, that aid will no longer be necessary because all problems will be solved once the poor countries achieve stability.

On the contrary, Easterly points out that instead of economic success, countries experience less economic productivity the more aid there is: “There is good data on public investment for twenty-two African countries over the 1970-1994 period. These countries’ governments spent $342 billion on public investment. The donors gave these same countries’ governments $187 billion in aid over that period. Unfortunately, the corresponding ‘step’ increase in productivity, measured as production per person, was zero” (50).

Building upon the poverty trap legend, Easterly examines the other associated fallacies—for instance, not taking into account a bad government as a vital factor in a poor country’s abysmal growth (and just accepting that it is poor) or believing that poor countries are stuck without the big push of Western aid. In addition, for Easterly, there is a significant element that is missing within these Big Push programs, which is the lack of assessment. These programs are difficult they are so hard to evaluate, and he calls for scientific methods to test the effectiveness of these foreign aid initiatives. If not that, at least, as “last resort, which is far from perfect but still provides insight, [one could] simply to describe the results of a program or intervention” (52).

The failure of the Big Push initiatives allowed the West to recognize that the secret of free markets was its “feedback and accountability.” Therefore, the West took on the responsibility of changing the Rest (Easterly’s term for non-Western nations) by advocating for free markets. With this newfound wisdom, the Planners began to create conditions in which aid was only given if the country promised to adopt the free market.

But, according to Easterly, “the free market depends on the bottom-up emergence of complex institutions and social norms that are difficult for outsiders to understand, much less change” (60); therefore, although free markets work, “outsider-imposed free markets” do not (61). The introduction of free markets from a top-down approach did not allow for a free market’s required spontaneity and did not take into account the local histories and traditions.

Thus, the Planners altered their strategy to enable a free market, but these shifts did more harm than good. For instance, Russia’s shock therapy plan or “top-down imposition of markets” was predicted to swiftly ameliorate the country’s economy—it did not, with the country taking up to 13 structural loans and the life expectancy of Russians, especially men, drastically declining after the fall of communism (61). Additionally, the Russian suicide rate increased by 50 percent.

Shock therapy in Russia was the precursor to structural adjustment loans. Thought up by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, these loans are “given to finance imports, and were conditional upon countries adopting free markets” (65). Instead of meeting their intended benefit, many countries became largely dependent on the loans, which meant greater interference of the Western institutions and an overall reduction of growth. Hence, Easterly argues that a market cannot be planned because they are complex. Instead, if needed, Planners should make smaller interventions to prevent massive economic destruction.

Despite its intricacies, the market can work in poor countries through a bottom-up approach cultivated through organic means with monitored intervention. As Easterly explains, “The hope for the poor depends on the same dual forces this book emphasizes throughout: (1) homegrown, market-based development that will lift up both rich and poor […] and (2) Western assistance for meeting the most desperate needs of the poor until homegrown market-based development reaches them.” (77) However, for markets to work there must be an acknowledgement that the local market participants may indulge in “opportunistic behavior more commonly known as stealing” (77). To prevent this, local markets and their social networks must ensure responsible, trusting interaction among businesses and individuals: “The larger the radius of trust, the less you worry about cheating in business” (80).

In examining increasing cell phone usage across Latin America, Africa, and the ex-Communist countries, Easterly shows how mobile phones have played a significant role in the basic function of communities beyond simply serving as consumer pleasures. He sees them as a bottom-up solution: “The explosion of cell phones just shows how much poor people search for new technological opportunities, with no state intervention, with no structural adjustment or shock therapy to promote cell phones” (103). 

In many developing countries, Easterly points out, the government’s inabilities to solve the daily concerns and threats keep the countries in poverty. He argues that poor countries have not only market problems; they also have bad governments with rampant corruption. However, he warns of Western neutrality in these situations: “We don’t do the poor any favors by tenderly respecting the sensitivities of bad rulers who oppress their own people” (116).

Just as outside-imposed free markets proved a failure, so did the West’s next attempt to make these bad governments into good governments by imposing democracy. The imposition of democracy, like free markets, requires feedback and accountability measures, as Easterly notes that democracy “features feedback and accountability, rewarding Searchers, while foreign aid […] does not” (116) and therefore must be a “bottom-up system that rewards local, specialized knowledge” (119).

Easterly outlines the challenges associated with democracy and its limitations by describing the issue’s Achilles’ heel: “any government that is powerful enough to protect citizens against predators is also powerful enough to be a predator itself” (117). Hence, democracy is not the fast answer for poor countries, as it entails more than holding elections and can involve intimidation, support prevailing corruption, and help the majority to repress a minority group.

Aid agencies cannot address the deep-rooted political problems and have no idea where to begin, although donors try to produce change by subjecting the corrupt governments to certain conditions before they offer funding. While Easterly recognizes that there are respectable and responsible bureaucrats working within governments, in the end, giving aid to questionable governments that continually violate guidelines encourages rather than discourages corruption: “Maybe bad government attracts donors who want to reform it just as sinners attract televangelists. However, even if you control for this effect, donors make government worse” (136).

Yet, despite aid agencies being unable to change bad governments, they still need these governments “to fulfill the role of the aid recipient and keep the flow of money” (156). According to Easterly, the West should not manipulate these governments; instead, the focus should be on creating solutions for the poorest and most disadvantaged individuals.