Jeffrey D. Sachs is the world’s leading economist and professor of economics at Columbia University. He also serves as the special advisor to the United Nations (UN) on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Sachs has also worked with Islamic Development Bank, to scale up programs related to rural development and sustainable agriculture. In 2015, he published a book titled The age of sustainable development, where he presents a comprehensive framework for global citizens to approach sustainable development in a more holistic way. Sachs has outlined various tools and metrics for every individual (students, activists, environmentalists and policy makers) to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Sachs’ main intention behind the book is not just to promote critical thinking among the readers regarding the topic, but also to inspire and spur action.
The first four chapters of the book gives a detailed overview of the sustainable development in relation to the economic aspect. In the first chapter, Sachs introduces the idea and concept of sustainable development. He emphasizes on the importance of viewing sustainable development through an intellectual pursuit, by making sense of the interactions of three complex systems: the world economy, the global society, and the Earth’s physical environment (pg. 3). Sustainable development recommends a set of goals to the nations around the world to help them achieve social, economic, and environmental development. Sachs adds that apart from these three underlying factors, a fourth aspect is necessary to achieve the goals of SDG, good governance. I completely agree with the author because good governance is important in making laws and policies to protect the environment, and safeguard economic and social rights of people. Along with an analytical approach in defining and understanding sustainable development, it is also important to see it through a normative or ethical lens. The author stresses us to have a holistic approach in envisioning a good society. He writes, “a well- functioning society, one that delivers wellbeing for its citizens today and for future generations” (pg. 11). This approach basically focuses on the overall wellbeing of a society. There are five concerns about the distribution of wellbeing which are: extreme poverty, inequality, social mobility, discrimination, and social cohesion.
Sachs gives us a broad overview on how we can use Gross Development Product (GDP), GDP per capita, Gross National Product (GNP), to measure the economic growth of the people. He also talks about how the agricultural and industrial growth spurred the economic advancements across the globe. However, he mentions that,” the rise in GDP per capita is far from a perfect measure of wellbeing” (pg. 17). I agree with him on this fact. Japan is one of the biggest economies in the world. On the other hand, Japan also has one of the world’s highest suicide rate. According to an article in BBC news, financial pressure, isolation and technology has played a major role in the high suicide rates in the country (Hayes, 2015). Similarly, another research that studied the relationship between workplace social capital and suicidal ideation, concluded that lower workplace capital was associated with an increased risk of suicidal ideation (Hori et. Al, 2019). Thus, GDP fails to acknowledge these factors while measuring the overall well being of a society. Similarly, it ignores other facets that occur outside of the market such as environmental destruction and biodiversity loss.
The author outlines the impacts of rapid urbanization and economic growth on the environment. These large-scale economic activities are changing the Earth’s climate, water cycle, carbon cycle, and even the ocean chemistry. Similarly, these are also driving other species to extinction. He writes that the climate crisis is felt by the poor and rich alike (pg. 34). However, Bjorn Lomborg, a Swedish scientist says that the developed countries are better prepared and resilient to the impact of climate change compared to the underdeveloped countries who are more susceptible to be impacted by the climate change. Sachs also claims in the same section that “Superstorm Sandy wasn’t the only climate-related shock to the United States that year” (pg. 35). However, the UN Climate Panel claims that, “Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century.” Similarly, in an article in New York Post, Lomborg writes that the damages caused by hurricanes are increasing due to increase in the overall population and an increase in the coastal area population. However, there is plenty of data to suggest the loss of bio diversity, depletion of coral regions, and overall impacts on the biogeochemical cycles of the Earth.
In the second chapter, Sachs describes the inequality prevalent in modern society. He uses the GDP and GDP per capita to see how various nations around the globe are performing economically. The World Bank places countries into three main categories: high-income, middle-income, and low-income based on the aforementioned metrices. The UN, sub-divided a certain group from low-income nations as the least-developed countries. These countries are in desperate shape due to extreme poverty, lack of proper health and educational facilities. The data of LDCs (least developed countries) shows that most of these countries are landlocked or small island economies which are quite vulnerable.
Sachs outlines various reasons for the inequality. According to him, some of the main reasons are: history, the rural-urban divide, and discrimination. He writes, “Practicing sustainable development means both understanding the nature and sources of inequality and setting the goal of a high degree of social inclusion in economic development” (pg. 59).
In the third chapter, the author gives us a detailed overview of the history of economic development. He explains about the agricultural and industrial revolution that spurred economic growth throughout the world. Great Britain was the epicenter of the economic revolution. The economic development that started as a local phenomenon in Great Britain then rippled across Europe and the other temperate-zone nations and Japan and almost the entire planet. There are certain countries where modern economic growth hasn’t reached due to geographical difficulties (interior parts of the continents, high in the mountains, isolated distant islands).
In the fourth chapter, Sachs tries to explain the major outlining forces for the inequality among the nations. He explains that economic dynamics is a complex phenomenon. There are various factors at play in limiting the economic growth of a country. He writes, “Factors like economic freedom, political institutions, and corruption may play a role, but they certainly do not play the only role, or even the main role, in many places and times of history” (pg. 102).
Additional resources used
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-33362387
https://nypost.com/2018/09/19/no-global-warming-isnt-causing-worse-hurricanes/
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-7244-9
