Economists, Dictators, and the Rights of the Poor

The Leonard Lopate Show | May 22, 2014

Economist William Easterly traces the history of the fight against global poverty, arguing that too often, experts recommend solutions that fix immediate problems without addressing the systemic political factors that created them in the first place. In The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor, Easterly shows that these short-term solutions to eradicate poverty have trampled the individual freedom of the world’s poor and have suppressed a vital debate about an alternative approach to solving poverty: freedom.

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