The basic idea was that if a country would put its economy as an integrated piece of the world system, that it would benefit from that with economic growth. I concur with that basic view.
Jeffrey SachsObama is already setting a new historic course by reorienting the economy from private consumption to public investments... Rightwing pundits bemoan the evident intention of Obama and team to 'tell us what kind of car to drive'. Yet that is exactly what they intend to do...and rightly so. Free-market ideology is an anachronism in an era of climate change.
Jeffrey SachsWe were proposing, in a sense, that the rest of the world be made safe for American ideas, as they adopted intellectual property rights that gave patent protection to our very innovative economy.
Jeffrey SachsAll of the incessant debate about development assistance, and whether the rich are doing enough to help the poor, actually concerns less than 1% of rich world income. The effort required of the rich is indeed so slight that to do less is to announce brazenly to a large part of the world: 'You count for nothing.' We should not be surprised, then, if in later years the rich reap the whirlwind of that heartless response.
Jeffrey Sachs