Sachs addressing fertility rates

Of course coming off of last semester's extensive look into fertility rates and population growth, I feel as if we have an unfair advantage in poking holes in Sachs in comparison to his average reader (of course by the same note I guess we could say that about most of the authors we read :). I find Sachs discussion of fertility very familiar from the pro-government policy people we read. However, as a result the same arguments remain. Referring back to Lant Pritchett's paper entitled, Desired Fertility and the Impact of Population Policies, I would like to introduce the most compelling argument in my mind against government fertility policy focused heavily, primarily, or exclusively on the "fertilization" stage of fertility rate. Sachs and other like minded scholars repeatedly bring up accounts of service recipients saying how were it not for the provision of contraceptives they would have an over abundance of children just like their parents (Sachs 181). In response Pritchett provides significant data based evidence showing that mothers consistently bear children at numbers equal to or close to the number of children they desire to have. The failure of government policy programs focusing on contraceptive distribution supports this conclusion well.
All is not lost for Sachs though. He briefly mentions the shift in focus in 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development to more actively promote, and push to the forefront, policies providing an array of sexual and reproductive health services (safe pregnancy, delivery, control of spread of STDs). This push makes perfect sense in the grander scheme of what we actually know to affect fertility rates (by way of affecting desired fertility): decreasing infant mortality. Such health oriented services would surely decrease infant mortality rates thereby causing mothers to have a decreased need for larger broods in the hopes that some make it to adulthood. A look at demographic shifts over the past several centuries supports this logic as Sachs presents such evidence himself. His only failure in this is linking these two explicitly, instead of saying, "oh look so they decided to change their focus and now it's being used in the Millennium Promises, great they are working to do change." I would have liked a further elaboration of the connection between fertility rates and the current and good policies being implemented and how they differ from older ideas.

Agree Purport Motivate Act Change?

Sachs’ dig on Easterly, who makes a “phony” charge, is convincing and harsh. So much of what produces change has to do with the attitude of leaders and how they choose to reflect or inflate or state the facts. It is a clash of attitudes and therefore a difference in reported facts between the two authors which makes for comparing them difficult yet entertaining. By focusing on the successes of foreign aid efforts, Sachs does a necessary good for people who tend to follow examples—which in my opinion is everyone. Though Sachs rejects the market view as being able to solve nagging problems such as carbon emissions, the economist in him is helpful when calculating the numbers to put Easterly’s arguments to shame. Easterly’s arguments are overly Washington-specific. There are examples such as Japan where aid was given and at least small successes took place.
There have been complaints that Sachs’ book lacks the amount of psychological reflection which some think is essentially necessary to discuss and sort of psychological stance it might need in order to make real recommendations for change, but I believe that the psychological aspects are implicit and obviously embedded within his ideas. For example, he has extreme faith in democracy, viewing our leaders as those who follow the citizens in a sort of backwards but sensible manner. He does not underestimate the importance of “public awareness and engagement.”
By focusing on positivism amid what seems like doom, Sachs has done a wonderful job in working toward his positive vision of possibility and future opportunity. Even if on the inside he doesn’t think that we will be able to quell the problems facing humanity today and that the lifeboat we are all in is about to sink taking us all under, at least he purports to follow this line of thought and is consistent in that—trying desperately to creat a self-fulfillling prophecy of attitudes, harking back to Gladwell’s The Tipping Point where there is a point in time where change becomes unstoppable. Can one do that through words? Through motivational stories? Through well-written inspirational books that focus on debunking those of other academics as well as displaying the worries and hopes of our time in a succinct intelligible way? Time will tell us that answer—and there is not point in speculating but rather all our efforts should be in…searching?!

Sachs, the Optimist

I find it interesting that Sachs focuses not on alternative energy sources (he discusses them, of course, saying that there's a "reasonable chance" that we might need solar & nuclear power), but instead on how to use fossil fuels in a better manner. He states, "The challenge for this century will not be in the limited availability of fossil fuels, but in their safe ecological use and in the timely investments needed to ensure that the right kinds of fuels are available at the right times and places" (p44). He emphasizes that we should not be worried about running out of natural resources. Instead, we should shift our focus on how to be able to use fossil fuels in a sustainable manner. The solution? Carbon sequestration, of course! We have all heard about this idea before - storing CO2 underground, so that we can have the luxury of continuing on with the same source of fuel while mitigating the consequences. It sounds almost too good to be true! In fact, it pretty much is at this point.

Sachs' argument on this issue seems to be vulnerable to an Easterly-esque critique: he says, "A fascinating alternative, which could prove to be a breakthrough technology, would be to capture CO2 directly from the air through special chemical processes and then sequester the captured CO2" (p101). I read on, eager to hear of which scientists were on the verge of uncovering a technology that would be such a panacea to our energy problems. Sadly, this never came. Sachs discusses how engineers have pointed out the advantages of capturing CO2 from the air, but progress on the R&D seems to be null. This makes me question the feasibility of this "Planner" argument. We could all name many "fascinating alternatives" to worldly problems - wouldn't it be cool if we came up with a technology that could distribute mosquito nets to those in need in malaria prone regions of Africa? or how about a technology that would get us all jobs/into grad school? Clearly, I do not see the connection between feasibility, or even a hint of practicality, and Sachs' idealism in this case.

However, there are instances that defy Easterly's "planner" critique of Sachs. For instance, I am impressed by the Millenium Village Project- it seems to incorporate a healthy balance of both planner strategy and searcher detail. In particular, the fact that the project chooses villages in part based on how receptive local governments are to the strategy, and then incorporates participation of locals into the project is encouraging.

Positively negative

One of the main things that I liked about Sachs' take on development and global politics is that he hasn't given up on the world like Easterly seems to have done. There is still potential for the world to collaborate and work to find a way to avoid massive climate change and construe a system that will limit all equally to the quantity of carbon emissions. There is hope that we can work together in order to find a better future instead of wasting the money that we set aside as Easterly describes on corrupt governments and projects that fund worthless development efforts.

In some respects Sachs made it sound like it was easy to get all the different nations of the world to hop on board with the idea that we need to band together in order to avert destruction. The sad fact that remains is that we are not necessarily forward looking people, in any nation. If we were, we might have already solved this problem of climate change as well as carbon emissions. If we only would recognize the large hole that we have already dug ourselves in terms of the environment we might not be polluting to the level that we are. But Americans and other nations choose to remain oblivious. We are intelligent enough to recognize that we are making a potentially irreversible stamp on our environment, we just choose to remain oblivious to the efforts that could be made here and now to fix it. It's sad that as forward looking as we claim to be we still neglect the responsibility of advocating sustainable business and industry practices. From here on out we must practice what we preach otherwise we are doomed. Ahh revert back to Easterly because of our history and the fact that history and attitudes are unlikely to change unless we make a serious change, one that is possible but not probable until people feel the threat in their every day lives, aka when it's too late.

Shoulda-Coulda-Woulda: Will Asia Trump the Americas?

Sachs makes an interesting claim in his "The Asian Century": Asia will become the "center of gravity of the world economy" during the 21st century.

He might be onto something... or is he?

Sachs' prediction here is believable (unlike his other doomsday prophecies).  Asia certainly has the potential to be the economic powerhouse of the 21st century: they are liberalizing their markets, they are sustaining high levels of growth, and they have done much in the last 25 years to reduce poverty.  

But Asia (and China in particular) has had a history of falling short of their potential.  The most obvious example: China had the preconditions necessary to have an industrial revolution centuries ago... but they didn't.

Perhaps this century will be different, but Sachs needs to more aware of his (long-term) history before he makes such bold prophecies.