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JFK’s Enduring Legacy in Peacemaking: Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 05:33:27 +0000

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Many consider hatred and conflict inevitable, owing to a fundamental clash of values and interests. Fifty years ago, U.S. President J.F. Kennedy showed that peace could be achieved even in the most difficult circumstances. His courage, vision, eloquence, and political skills are an affirmation that the path to peace must always be preferred to the dead end of war.

NEW YORK – Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy did the seemingly impossible. At the height of the Cold War, he moved the two nuclear superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, toward peace. The lessons of Kennedy’s act of leadership – one of the greatest of modern times – are directly relevant today.

I recount this remarkable story in a new book, To Move the World. To many, war between the two superpowers seemed inevitable. The Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 created a global air of fear and pessimism, and certainly the belief that the US and the Soviet Union could not be reconciled.

Kennedy knew better. He understood that much of the dangerous tension stemmed from each side’s hardliners, who acted as if peace were impossible. Their actions on one side would provoke the other side’s hardline response, fueling an upward spiral of distrust that strengthened the extremes in both camps.

The “experts” of that era spoke of the balance of nuclear power. They believed that neither side would use nuclear weapons, owing to the fear of retaliation. But Kennedy recognized something far more dangerous: Accidents, misjudgments, bluffs, provocation by hardliners, or tactical mistakes could easily throw either side into panic. In the Cuban missile crisis, the US and the Soviet Union stumbled to the precipice of nuclear war, not because of any desire for one (except among a few hothead extremists), but because of a series of miscalculations and pressure exerted by hardliners.

Following the crisis, Kennedy was determined to pull back from the precipice for good. In his extraordinary “Peace Speech” of June 10, 1963, he suggested to Americans that there was a way to make peace with the Soviet Union. Rather than issuing a list of demands, Kennedy did something far more interesting and unusual: he called upon Americans to reconsider their own attitudes about war and peace.

“First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself,” Kennedy said. “Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is doomed, that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man.”

Kennedy diagnosed the problem succinctly:

[quote] We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counter-weapons. [/quote]

And his assessment of its solvability was equally concise: “[B]oth the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race.”

Kennedy’s speech provoked a highly positive response from his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, who called in the US envoy and told him that the speech was the finest by any American president since Franklin Roosevelt. Within a few weeks, both sides had agreed to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Five years later, the first treaty led to a second, and even more important, agreement: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Kennedy had proved a powerful truth. “[H]istory teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever,” he said. “However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.

That lesson applies powerfully today. The US is again caught in a spiral of distrust and uncertainty with other countries (and the same is true of countless conflicts around the world that do not involve the US). America’s conflict with Iran is one such powerful case; others include its conflicts with Cuba and North Korea, and also the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which the US is deeply engaged as a supporter of Israel.

In all of these cases, many people consider hatred and conflict inevitable, owing to a fundamental clash of values and interests. But this is rarely the case. Even though the US and Iran are in a spiral of distrust, for example, there could be grounds for reestablishing a far healthier bilateral relationship.

To be sure, the two sides are now dangerously divided. Their conflict has spilled over into Syria, where the US is now planning to arm the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad in no small part because his regime is aligned with Iran. Syria’s civil war is therefore increasingly a proxy fight between Iran and the US (and other anti-Iranian countries), with Syrians dying in massive numbers as victims of somebody else’s conflict.

Now that the Iranian people have elected a new president, Hassan Rowhani, the opportunity for a new peace overture is at hand. Yes, there are important matters to discuss, notably Iran’s nuclear ambitions; but several countries in Iran’s neighborhood already possess nuclear weapons, threatening the entire region.

US President Barack Obama should take the next steps, both with Iran and with other countries (including North Korea and Cuba). A decade of US secret and not-so-secret wars, drone attacks, and covert operations is enough. We now urgently need US leadership that envisions peace rather than war as the solution.

Fifty years ago, Kennedy showed that peace could be achieved even in the most difficult circumstances. His courage, vision, eloquence, and political skills provide a model and inspiration for the US and other countries today. Then, as now, the path to peace must always be preferred to the dead end of war.

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

Copyright: Project-Syndicate, 2013

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a Professor of Economics and the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also a Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals, as well as being the founder and co-President of the Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty and hunger. Sachs has authored numerous books, including The End of Poverty and Common Wealth. In 2004 and 2005, He was named among Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World”.

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Why The World Must Learn From Turkey’s Economic Miracle: Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs — Tue, 28 May 2013 08:21:25 +0000

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After a sharp downturn in 1999-2001, Turkey’s economy managed to grow by 5 percent per year on average from 2002 to 2012 – despite global and regional crises. There is however nothing flashy about the country’s rise; its success was simply based on getting the fundamentals right, like rebuilding the banking sector, getting the budget under control, and investing heavily where it counts: infrastructure, education, health, and technology.

NEW YORK – A recent visit to Turkey reminded me of its enormous economic successes during the last decade. The economy has grown rapidly, inequality is declining, and innovation is on the rise.

Turkey’s achievements are all the more remarkable when one considers its neighbourhood. Its neighbours to the west, Cyprus and Greece, are at the epicentre of the eurozone crisis. To the southeast is war-torn Syria, which has already disgorged almost 400,000 refugees into Turkey. To the east lie Iraq and Iran. And to the northeast lie Armenia and Georgia. If there is a more complicated neighbourhood in the world, it would be difficult to find it.

Yet Turkey has made remarkable strides in the midst of regional upheavals. After a sharp downturn in 1999-2001, the economy grew by 5 percent per year on average from 2002 to 2012. It has remained at peace, despite regional wars. Its banks avoided the boom-bust cycle of the past decade, having learned from the banking collapse in 2000-2001. Inequality has been falling. And the government has won three consecutive general elections, each time with a greater share of the popular vote.

There is nothing flashy about Turkey’s rise, which has been based on fundamentals, rather than bubbles or resource discoveries. Indeed, Turkey lacks its neighbours’ oil and gas resources, but it compensates for this with the competitiveness of its industry and services. Tourism alone attracted more than 36 million visitors in 2012, making Turkey one of the world’s top destinations.

Even a short stay in Ankara allows one to see these underlying strengths. The airport, highways, and other infrastructure are first class, and a high-speed intercity rail network links Ankara with other parts of the country. Much of the advanced engineering is home-grown. Turkish construction firms are internationally competitive and increasingly win bids throughout the Middle East and Africa.

Turkey’s universities are rising as well. Ankara has become a hub of higher education, attracting students from Africa and Asia. Many top programs are in English, ensuring that Turkey will attract an increasing number of international students. And the country’s universities are increasingly spinning off high-tech companies in avionics, information technology, and advanced electronics, among other areas.

To its credit, Turkey has begun to invest heavily in sustainable technologies. The country is rich in wind, geothermal, and other renewable energy, and will most likely become a global exporter of advanced green innovations.

Waste-treatment facilities are not typically tourist attractions, but Ankara’s novel integrated urban waste-management system has rightly attracted global attention. Until a few years ago, the waste was dumped into a fetid, stinking, noxious landfill. Now, with cutting-edge technology, the landfill has been turned into a green zone.

The private waste-management company ITC receives thousands of tons of solid municipal waste each day. The waste is separated into recyclable materials (plastics, metals) and organic waste. The organic waste is processed in a fermentation plant, producing compost and methane, which is used to produce electricity in a 25-megawatt power plant. The electricity is returned to the city’s power grid, while the heat exhaust is piped to the facility’s greenhouses, which produce tomatoes, strawberries, and orchids.

Turkey’s diversified, innovative base of industry, construction, and services serves it well in a world in which market opportunities are shifting from the United States and Western Europe to Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Turkey has been deft in seizing these new opportunities, with exports increasingly headed south and east to the emerging economies, rather than west to high-income markets. This trend will continue, as Africa and Asia become robust markets for Turkey’s construction firms, information technology, and green innovations.

[quote]So, how did Turkey do it? Most important, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan and his economics team, led by Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, have stuck to basics and looked to the long term. [/quote]

ErdoÄŸan came to power in 2003, after years of short-term instability and banking crises. The International Monetary Fund had been called in for an emergency rescue. Step by step, the ErdoÄŸan-Babacan strategy was to rebuild the banking sector, get the budget under control, and invest heavily and consistently where it counts: infrastructure, education, health, and technology.

Smart diplomacy has also helped. Turkey has remained a staunchly moderate voice in a region of extremes. It has kept an open door and balanced diplomacy (to the extent possible) with the major powers in its neighbourhood. This has helped Turkey not only to maintain its own internal balance, but also to win markets and keep friends without the heavy baggage and risks of divisive geopolitics.

No doubt, Turkey’s ability to continue on a rapid growth trajectory remains uncertain. Any combination of crises – the eurozone, Syria, Iraq, Iran, or world oil prices – could create instability. Another global financial crisis could disrupt short-term capital inflows. A dangerous neighbourhood means inescapable risks, though Turkey has demonstrated a remarkable capacity during the last decade to surmount them.

Moreover, the challenge of raising educational quality and attainment, especially of girls and women, remains a priority. Fortunately, the government has clearly acknowledged the education challenge and is pursuing it through school reforms, increased investments, and the introduction of new information technologies in the classroom.

Turkey’s successes have deep roots in governmental capacity and its people’s skills, reflecting decades of investment and centuries of history dating back to Ottoman times. Other countries cannot simply copy these achievements; but they can still learn the main lesson that is too often forgotten in a world of “stimulus,” bubbles, and short-term thinking. Long-term growth stems from prudent monetary and fiscal policies, the political will to regulate banks, and a combination of bold public and private investments in infrastructure, skills, and cutting-edge technologies.

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

Copyright: Project-Syndicate, 2013

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Why Economies Must Invest In Equal Opportunities For All Children: Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 07:18:21 +0000

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Children are every country’s most vital resource; yet even high national incomes do not guarantee children’s well-being. According to a new UNICEF study, societies that have a strong commitment to equal opportunity for all of their children – and that are prepared to invest public funds on their behalf – tend to end up with the highest economic returns.

NEW YORK – Children are every country’s most vital resource. This is true not just morally, but also economically. Investing in the health, education, and skills of children offers the highest economic returns to a country. A new study by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) shows which high-income countries are doing well when it comes to making these investments – and which are doing poorly.

The report, Child Well-Being in Rich Countries, takes a holistic view of the conditions of children in the United States, Canada, and Europe – 29 countries in all. The top-ranked countries, where children are best off, are the social democracies of Western Europe. The Netherlands heads the list, followed by Norway, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, and Germany.

At the bottom one finds a major surprise: the U.S., the richest large economy in the world, is in 26th place, followed by three much poorer countries: Lithuania, Latvia, and Romania. France and the United Kingdom are ranked in the middle.

The study assesses children’s well-being in terms of material conditions (related to household-income levels); health and safety; education; risky behavior (such as excessive alcohol consumption); and physical environment, including housing conditions. Although the study is limited to high-income countries, national governments – and even cities – in other parts of the world should replicate it to analyze their own children’s well-being.

The gaps between the northern European countries and the U.S. are the most telling. Northern European countries generally provide cash support to families to ensure that all children are raised in decent conditions, and they undertake ambitious social programs to provide high-quality day care, pre-school, and primary and secondary education. Moreover, all children are well covered by effective health-care systems.

The U.S., with its individualist, free-market ideology, is very different. There is little cash support for families. Government programs supposedly provide a social safety net, but politicians are, in fact, largely indifferent to the well-being of the poor, because poor voters turn out in lower numbers and do not finance America’s expensive election campaigns. Indeed, the evidence strongly suggests that U.S. politicians tend to listen and respond only to their richer constituents. The so-called safety net has suffered accordingly, as have America’s poor.

[quote]The differences between the social democracies and the U.S. show up strongly in category after category. In the social democracies, less than 10 percent of children grow up in relative poverty (meaning households with less than half of the country’s median income). In the U.S., the rate of relative poverty exceeds 20 percent.[/quote]

American children suffer far more from low birth weight (a major danger signal for later life); being overweight at ages 11, 13, and 15; and very high rates of teenage fertility. There are around 35 births for every 1,000 girls aged 15-19, compared to fewer than ten per thousand in the northern European countries.

Likewise, U.S. children face considerably more violence in society than children in other high-income countries do. That may not be surprising, but it is deeply troubling, because children’s exposure to violence is a major threat to their physical, emotional, and cognitive development. Homicide rates in the U.S. are roughly five times higher than in northern Europe.

One fascinating aspect of the UNICEF study is its use of what is now called “subjective well-being.” This means asking a person directly about his or her life satisfaction. There have been many recent studies of the subjective well-being of adults around the world. But I know of no comparable research in which children were asked directly about their sense of well-being – a very smart question indeed.

Here, the evidence suggests that northern Europe’s children generally appreciate their remarkable advantages. The children were asked to rate their “life satisfaction” on an 11-step ladder. In the Netherlands, a remarkable 95 percent of children set their rating at six or higher. In the U.S., the proportion is much lower, at around 84 percent. These subjective rankings also correlate highly with the children’s reported quality of interactions with their peers and parents. Some 80 percent of Dutch children report their classmates to be “kind and helpful,” compared to just 56 percent of American children.

The costs to the U.S. of allowing so many of its children to grow up in poverty, poor health, poor schools, and poor housing are staggering. A shocking proportion ends up serving time in prison – especially in the case of non-white poor children. Even those fortunate not to fall into the trap of America’s vast prison system often end up unemployed and even unemployable, without the skills needed to obtain and keep a decent job.

Americans have been blinded to these calamitous mistakes partly by a long history of racism, as well as by a misplaced faith in “rugged individualism.” For example, some white families have opposed public financing for education, because they believe that their tax money goes disproportionately to help poorer non-white students.

[quote]The result, however, is that everybody loses. Schools underperform; poverty remains high; and the resulting high rates of unemployment and crime impose huge financial and social costs on U.S. society.[/quote]

The UNICEF findings are powerful. High national incomes are not enough to ensure children’s well-being. Societies that have a strong commitment to equal opportunity for all of their children – and that are prepared to invest public funds on their behalf – end up with much better outcomes.

Every country should compare the conditions of its young people with those reported by UNICEF, and use the results to help guide expanded investment in their children’s well-being. Nothing could be more important for any society’s future health and prosperity.

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

Copyright: Project-Syndicate, 2013

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France & Germany – Building A Path To A Low-Carbon Future: Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 07:56:22 +0000

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The surest bet on the future of energy is the need for low-carbon energy supplies; And while early movers, such as France & Germany, may pay a slightly higher price today for these strategies, they and the world will reap long-term economic and environmental benefits.

NEW YORK – The surest bet on the future of energy is the need for low-carbon energy supplies. Around 80 percent of the world’s primary energy today is carbon based: coal, oil, and gas. We will need to shift to no- or low-carbon energy by mid-century. The big questions are how and when.

Low-carbon primary energy means three options: renewable energy, including wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, and biomass; nuclear energy; and carbon capture and sequestration, which means using fossil fuels to create energy, but trapping the CO₂emissions that result and storing the carbon safely underground.

There are three compelling reasons for the world to make the shift to low-carbon energy. First, higher levels of CO₂ are making the world’s oceans acidic. If we continue with business as usual, we will end up destroying a vast amount of marine life, severely damaging the food chains on which we rely.

Second, CO₂ is dangerously changing the world’s climate, even if many Big Oil interests would have us believe otherwise. (So, too, did the tobacco companies spend vast sums on political lobbying and bogus science to deny the links between smoking and lung cancer.)

Third, we face steeply rising prices for fossil fuels, as developing countries’ growth drives up demand and conventional supplies of coal, oil, and gas are depleted. Sure, we can find more fossil fuels, but at much higher cost and at much greater environmental risk from industrial spills, waste products, leaks, and other damage.

[quote]Even the much-heralded shale-gas revolution is a lot of hype – similar to the gold rushes and stock bubbles of the past. Shale-gas wells deplete far more rapidly than conventional fields do. And they are environmentally dirty to boot.[/quote]

The United States has developed many new low-carbon energy technologies, but other countries are currently far more intent, far-sighted, and decisive than the US to put these technologies to large-scale use. Politically, America is still the land of Big Oil. Americans are bombarded by industry-funded media downplaying climate change, while countries that are much poorer in fossil fuels are already making the necessary transition to a low-carbon future.

Paths To Sustainable Power

Two neighbors in Europe, Germany and France, are showing the way forward – or, more precisely, the alternative ways forward – to a low-carbon future. They are going about it in ways that reflect their different resource endowments, industrial histories, and political pressures.

Germany is undertaking the Energiewende, or transition to sustainable energy – a remarkable effort (indeed, unprecedented for a large advanced economy) to meet the country’s entire energy demand with renewable energy, especially solar and wind power. Meanwhile, France relies heavily on low-carbon nuclear power, and is switching rapidly to electric vehicles, such as the pioneering Renault-Nissan Leaf.

Of the two approaches, Germany’s is the more unusual bet. After Japan’s nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Germany decided to shut down its entire nuclear power industry and shift entirely to a strategy based on greater energy efficiency (lower energy input per unit of national income) and renewables. There really is no clear roadmap for such a huge energy transformation, and Germany almost surely will need to rely on a European-wide electricity grid to share clean energy, and eventually on imported solar power from North Africa and the Middle East.

France’s bet on nuclear power is a more proven option. After all, most of France’s electricity has come from nuclear power for many years. And, though anti-nuclear sentiment is very strong in Europe – and, increasingly, even in France – nuclear power will remain part of the global energy mix for decades to come, simply because much of Asia (including China, India, South Korea, and Japan) will remain major users of it.

The key point is that France and Germany, and many other European countries – including the Scandinavian countries, with their considerable wind and hydropower potential – are all recognizing that the world as a whole will have to move away from a fossil-fuel-based energy system. That is the right calculation.

Many will no doubt argue about which alternative – France’s bet on nuclear power or Germany’s solar pathway – is wiser. But both strategies are probably correct. Most studies show that deep de-carbonization of the world economy from now to mid-century, a time horizon mandated by environmental realities, will require that all low-carbon options – including greater efficiency and renewables – be scaled up massively.

One of the highest priorities of the new Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which I direct on behalf of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, will be to elaborate alternative pathways to a low-carbon economy, taking into account the specific conditions of countries around the world. Different countries will choose different strategies, but we will all need to get to the same place: a new energy system built on low-carbon sources, electrification of vehicles, and smart, energy-efficient buildings and cities.

[quote]Early movers may pay a slightly higher price today for these strategies, but they and the world will reap long-term economic and environmental benefits. By embracing truly sustainable technologies, France, Germany, and others are creating the energy system that will increasingly support the world economy throughout this century.[/quote]

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

Copyright: Project-Syndicate, 2013

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Towards A Global Carbon Tax – A Better Way To Fight Climate Change?: Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 08:10:01 +0000

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The European Union Emissions Trading System was the world’s first large emissions trading scheme, which required industrial emitters to purchase a permit for each ton of CO₂ emissions. However, with permits’ prices plummeting in the midst of Europe’s economic slowdown, a new global strategy is now required to combat climate change. Each region of the world should introduce a tax on CO₂ emissions that starts low today and increases gradually and predictably in the future.

NEW YORK – Of all major world regions, Europe has worked the hardest to implement policies aimed at countering human-caused climate change. Yet the cornerstone of Europe’s approach – a continent-wide emissions trading system for the greenhouse gases that cause climate change – is in trouble. That experience suggests a better strategy for both Europe and the rest of the world.

The basic story of human-caused climate change is becoming clearer to the global public. Several gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, warm the planet as their concentrations in the atmosphere increase. As the world economy grows, so do emissions of these gases, accelerating the pace of human-caused climate change.

The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. Most CO₂ emissions result from the burning of fossil fuels – coal, oil, and natural gas – for energy, global consumption of which is rising as the world economy grows. As a result, we are on a path to very dangerous levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Twenty years ago, the world agreed to reduce sharply emissions of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, but little progress has been made. Instead, the rapid growth of the emerging economies, especially coal-burning China, has caused global CO₂ emissions to soar.

Dangerous changes in climate have already begun. If the world continues on its current trajectory, global temperatures will eventually rise by several degrees centigrade, causing higher sea levels, mega-storms, severe heat waves, massive crop failures, extreme droughts, heavy flooding, and a sharp loss of biodiversity.

Yet changing the world’s energy system is a daunting challenge, because fossil fuels are so deeply embedded in the workings of the global economy. Oil provides the main fuel for transportation worldwide. Coal and gas are burned in huge and growing amounts to produce electricity and to provide energy for industry. How, then, can we sustain worldwide economic progress while cutting back sharply on carbon emissions?

There are essentially two solutions, but neither has been deployed on a large scale. The first is to shift massively from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, especially wind power and solar power. Some countries will also continue to use nuclear power. (Hydroelectric power generation emits no CO₂, but there are only a few remaining places in the world where it can be expanded without major environmental or social costs.)

The second solution is to capture CO₂ emissions for storage underground. But this technology, called carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), is not yet proven on a large scale. One approach is to capture the CO₂ at the power plant as the coal or gas is burned. Another is to capture it directly from the air using specially designed chemical processes. Either way, CCS will require significant investment in further research and development before it becomes a viable technology.

[quote]The big problem is time. If we had a century to change the world’s energy system, we could feel reasonably secure. Yet we must complete most of the transformation to low-carbon energy by mid-century. This is extraordinarily difficult given the long transition period needed to overhaul the world’s energy infrastructure, including not only power plants, transmission lines, and transport systems, but also homes and commercial buildings.[/quote]

Few economic regions have made much progress in this transformation. In fact, the United States is now investing heavily in natural gas without recognizing or caring that its shale-gas boom, based on new hydraulic-fracturing technology, is likely to make matters worse.

Even if the US economy shifts from coal to natural gas, America’s coal will probably be exported for use elsewhere in the world. In any event, natural gas, though somewhat less carbon-intensive than coal, is a fossil fuel; burning it will cause unacceptable climate damage.

Only Europe has tried to make a serious shift away from carbon emissions, creating a system that requires each industrial emitter to obtain a permit for each ton of CO₂ emissions. Because these permits trade at a market price, companies have an incentive to reduce their emissions, thereby requiring them to buy fewer permits or enabling them to sell excess permits for a profit.

The problem is that the permits’ market price has plummeted in the midst of Europe’s economic slowdown. Permits that used to sell for more than $30 per ton before the crisis now trade for under $10. At this low price, companies have little incentive to cut back on their CO₂ emissions – and little faith that a market-based incentive will return. As a result, much of European industry continues on a business-as-usual energy path, even as Europe tries to lead the world in this transformation.

But there is a much better strategy than tradable permits. Each region of the world should introduce a tax on CO₂ emissions that starts low today and increases gradually and predictably in the future.

Part of the tax revenue should be channeled into subsidies for new low-carbon energy sources like wind and solar, and to cover the costs of developing CCS. These subsidies could start fairly high and decline gradually over time, as the tax on CO₂ emissions rises and the costs of new energy technologies fall with more experience and innovation.

[quote]With a long-term and predictable carbon tax and subsidy system, the world would move systematically toward low-carbon energy, greater energy efficiency, and CCS. Time is short. The need for all major world regions to adopt practical and far-sighted energy policies is more urgent than ever.[/quote]

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

Copyright: Project-Syndicate, 2013

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Obama – The Harbinger Of A New Era For Politics In America?: Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 08:11:13 +0000

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At his second inaugural address on January 21, U.S. President Barack Obama promised more progressive politics for America – shifting away from the Reagan-era policies, led by corporate special interests, over the last three decades. And while it is too early to declare the start of a progressive new era for American politics, more government activism may help to address America’s – and the world’s – most urgent challenges, including building the infrastructure for a sustainable future.

NEW YORK – In 1981, US President Ronald Reagan came to office famously declaring that, “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Thirty-two years and four presidents later, Barack Obama’s recent inaugural address, with its ringing endorsement of a larger role for government in addressing America’s – and the world’s – most urgent challenges, looks like it may bring down the curtain on that era.

Reagan’s statement in 1981 was extraordinary. It signaled that America’s new president was less interested in using government to solve society’s problems than he was in cutting taxes, mainly for the benefit of the wealthy. More important, his presidency began a “revolution” from the political right – against the poor, the environment, and science and technology – that lasted for three decades, its tenets upheld, more or less, by all who followed him: George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and, in some respects, by Obama in his first term.

The “Reagan Revolution” had four main components: tax cuts for the rich; spending cuts on education, infrastructure, energy, climate change, and job training; massive growth in the defense budget; and economic deregulation, including privatization of core government functions, like operating military bases and prisons. Billed as a “free-market” revolution, because it promised to reduce the role of government, in practice it was the beginning of an assault on the middle class and the poor by wealthy special interests.

These special interests included Wall Street, Big Oil, the big health insurers, and arms manufacturers. They demanded tax cuts, and got them; they demanded a rollback of environmental protection, and got it; they demanded, and received, the right to attack unions; and they demanded lucrative government contracts, even for paramilitary operations, and got those, too.

For more than three decades, no one really challenged the consequences of turning political power over to the highest bidders.

[quote]In the meantime, America went from being a middle-class society to one increasingly divided between rich and poor. CEOs who were once paid around 30 times what their average workers earned now make around 230 times that amount. Once a world leader in the fight against environmental degradation, America was the last major economy to acknowledge the reality of climate change. Financial deregulation enriched Wall Street, but ended up creating a global economic crisis through fraud, excessive risk-taking, incompetence, and insider dealing.[/quote]

Maybe, just maybe, Obama’s recent address marks not only the end of this destructive agenda, but also the start of a new era. Indeed, he devoted almost the entire speech to the positive role of government in providing education, fighting climate change, rebuilding infrastructure, taking care of the poor and disabled, and generally investing in the future. It was the first inaugural address of its kind since Reagan turned America away from government in 1981.

If Obama’s speech turns out to mark the start of a new era of progressive politics in America, it would fit a pattern explored by one of America’s great historians, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who documented roughly 30-year intervals between periods of what he called “private interest” and “public purpose.”

In the late 1800’s, America had its Gilded Age, with the creation of large new industries by the era’s “robber barons” accompanied by massive inequality and corruption. The subsequent Progressive Era was followed by a temporary return to plutocracy in the 1920’s.

Then came the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, and another 30 years of progressive politics, from the 1930’s to the 1960’s. The 1970’s were a transition period to the Age of Reagan – 30 years of conservative politics led by powerful corporate interests.

[quote]It is certainly time for a rebirth of public purpose and government leadership in the US to fight climate change, help the poor, promote sustainable technologies, and modernize America’s infrastructure. If America realizes these bold steps through purposeful public policies, as Obama outlined, the innovative science, new technology, and powerful demonstration effects that result will benefit countries around the world.[/quote]

It is certainly too early to declare a new Progressive Era in America. Vested interests remain powerful, certainly in Congress – and even within the White House. These wealthy groups and individuals gave billions of dollars to the candidates in the recent election campaign, and they expect their contributions to yield benefits. Moreover, 30 years of tax cutting has left the US government without the financial resources needed to carry out effective programs in key areas such as the transition to low-carbon energy.

Still, Obama has wisely thrown down the gauntlet, calling for a new era of government activism. He is right to do so, because many of today’s crucial challenges – saving the planet from our own excesses; ensuring that technological advances benefit all members of society; and building the new infrastructure that we need nationally and globally for a sustainable future – demand collective solutions.

[quote]Implementation of public policy is just as important to good governance as the vision that underlies it. So the next task is to design wise, innovative, and cost-effective programs to address these challenges. Unfortunately, when it comes to bold and innovative programs to meet critical human needs, America is out of practice. It is time to begin anew, and Obama’s full-throated defense of a progressive vision points the US in the right direction.[/quote]

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

Copyright: Project-Syndicate, 2013

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America’s Real Freedoms: by Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 05:36:23 +0000

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America has now suffered around 30 shooting massacres over the past 30 years, including this year’s deadly dozen; each a gut-wrenching tragedy for many families. Today, America’s real freedoms depend on sane public policy and the bloodbath in Newtown is the latest reminder that it is time to stop feeding the US’ gun frenzy.

NEW YORK – The brutal murder of 20 children and seven adults in Newtown, Connecticut, shakes us to the core as individuals and requires a response as citizens. The United States seems to reel from one mass gun killing to another – roughly one a month this year alone. Easy access to guns in the US leads to horrific murder rates relative to other highly educated and wealthy societies. America needs to find a better way.

Other countries have done so. Between the mid-1970’s and the mid-1990’s, Australia had several mass shootings. After a particularly horrible massacre in 1996, a new prime minister, John Howard, declared that enough was enough. He instituted a severe crackdown on gun ownership, and forced would-be gun owners to submit to a rigorous application process, and to document why they would need a gun.

Conditions for gun ownership in Australia are now very strict, and the registration and approval process can take a year or more. Howard’s government also implemented a rigorous “buyback” policy, to enable the government to purchase guns already owned by the public.

The policy worked. While violent crime has not ended in Australia, murders are down, and, even more dramatically, there has not been a single mass shooting since 1996 in which three or more people died (the definition used in many studies of mass shootings). Before the crackdown, there had been 13 such massacres in 18 years.

Yet the US still refuses to act, even after this year’s string of shocking incidents: the massacre in a movie theatre in Colorado, an attack on a Sikh community in Milwaukee, another on a shopping mall in Oregon, and many more before the ruthless slaughter of first graders and school staff in Newtown. The gun lobby in the US remains powerful, and politicians are afraid to counter it. Given the shooting of then-Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in 2011, perhaps they even fear that they, too, might be targeted.

[quote] There can be little doubt that some societies are more steeped in violence than others, even controlling for obvious factors like income levels and education. The US homicide rate is roughly four times that of comparable societies in Western Europe, and Latin America’s homicide rates are even higher than in the US (and dramatically higher than Asian countries at roughly the same income level). What accounts for staggeringly high rates in the US and Latin America? [/quote]

American violence is rooted in history. The US and Latin American countries are all “conquest” societies, in which Europeans ruled over multi-racial societies. In many of these countries, including the US, the European conquerors and their descendants nearly wiped out the indigenous populations, partly through disease, but also through war, starvation, death marches, and forced labor.

In the US and many Latin American countries, slaveholding fueled mass violence as well. The slaves – and generations of their descendants – were routinely murdered.

The US also developed a particular populist belief that gun ownership constitutes a vital protection against government tyranny. The US was born in a citizens’ revolt against British imperial power. The right of citizens to organize militias to fight government tyranny was therefore a founding idea of the new country, enshrined in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which declares that, because a country needs a well-regulated militia, the people have the right to bear arms.

Since citizens’ militias are anachronistic, gun owners now use the second amendment merely to defend individual gun ownership, as if that somehow offers protection against tyranny. A reckless, right-wing Supreme Court has agreed with them. As a result, gun ownership has become perversely linked to freedom in the vast gun-owning American sub-culture.

But, instead of protection of freedom, Americans nowadays are getting massive bloodshed and fear. The claim that gun ownership ensures freedom is especially absurd, given that most of the world’s vibrant democracies have long since cracked down on private gun ownership. No tyrant has risen in Australia since Howard’s gun-control reforms.

Simply put, freedom in the twenty-first century does not depend on unregulated gun ownership. Indeed, America’s gun culture is a threat to freedom, after the murder of a president, senator, and other public leaders, and countless assassination attempts against public officials over recent decades.

[quote] Yet US gun culture remains as pervasive as it is unrecorded. America reels from one shooting disaster to the next, and on nearly every occasion, politicians dutifully declare their continued devotion to unregulated gun ownership. Indeed, no one even knows how many guns Americans hold. The number is estimated to be around 270 million, or almost one per person on average. According to one recent poll, 47 percent of households have a gun at home. [/quote]

The shooting in Newtown was not only especially horrific and heartbreaking, but is also part of an increasingly common pattern – a specific kind of murder-suicide that has been carefully studied by psychologists and psychiatrists. Loners, often with paranoid tendencies, commit these heinous acts as part of their own suicide. They use carefully planned and staged mass murders of innocents in order to take revenge on society and to glorify themselves as they take their own lives.

The perpetrators are not hardened criminals; many have no previous criminal record. They are pathetic, deranged, and often have struggled with mental instability for much of their lives. They need help – and society needs to keep guns out of their reach.

America has now suffered around 30 shooting massacres over the past 30 years, including this year’s deadly dozen; each is a gut-wrenching tragedy for many families. And yet, each time, gun owners scream that freedom will be eliminated if they are unable to buy assault weapons and 100-round clips.

The bloodbath in Newtown is the time to stop feeding this gun frenzy. Australia and other countries provide models of how to do it: regulate and limit gun ownership to approved uses. America’s real freedoms depend on sane public policy.

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

Copyright: Project-Syndicate, 2012

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Polluters Must Pay In ‘The New Era Of Responsibility’: Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:49:13 +0000

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In a momentous verdict last week, BP was ordered to pay the largest criminal penalty in U.S. history for its role in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. However, while polluters are increasingly being held accountable for their crimes in the developed world, many global companies continue to enjoy relative impunity for environmental damage caused in poorer countries: as exhibited by the lack of reparation in the Niger Delta.

NEW YORK – When BP and its drilling partners caused the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the United States government demanded that BP finance the cleanup, compensate those who suffered damages, and pay criminal penalties for the violations that led to the disaster. BP has already committed more than $20 billion in remediation and penalties. Based on a settlement last week, BP will now pay the largest criminal penalty in US history – $4.5 billion.

The same standards for environmental cleanup need to be applied to global companies operating in poorer countries, where their power has typically been so great relative to that of governments that many act with impunity, wreaking havoc on the environment with little or no accountability. As we enter a new era of sustainable development, impunity must turn to responsibility. Polluters must pay, whether in rich or poor countries. Major companies need to accept responsibility for their actions.

The Niger Delta Crisis

Nigeria has been Exhibit A of corporate environmental impunity. For decades, major oil companies, including Shell, ExxonMobil, and Chevron, have been producing oil in the Niger Delta, an ecologically fragile environment of freshwater swamp forests, mangroves, lowland rainforests, and coastal barrier islands. This rich habitat supports remarkable biodiversity – or did before the oil companies got there – and more than 30 million local inhabitants, who depend on the local ecosystems for their health and livelihoods.

Twenty years ago, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources classified the Niger Delta as a region of high biodiversity of marine and coastal flora and fauna – tree species, fish, birds, and mammals, among other forms of life – and therefore rated it as a very high priority for conservation. Yet it also noted that the region’s biodiversity was under massive threat, with little or no protection.

The global companies operating in the delta have spilled oil and flared natural gas for decades, without regard for the natural environment and the communities impoverished and poisoned by their actions. One estimate puts the cumulative spills over the past 50 years at approximately 10 million barrels – twice the size of the BP spill.

The data are uncertain: there have been many thousands of spills during this period – often poorly documented and their magnitude hidden or simply unmeasured by either the companies or the government. Indeed, just as BP was being hit with new criminal penalties, ExxonMobil announced yet another pipeline leak in the Niger Delta.

The environmental destruction of the delta is part of a larger saga: corrupt companies operating hand in hand with corrupt government officials.

[quote]The companies routinely bribe officials to gain oil leases, lie about output, evade taxes, and dodge responsibility for the environmental damage that they cause. Nigerian officials have become fabulously wealthy, owing to decades of payoffs by international companies that have plundered the delta’s natural wealth. Shell, the largest foreign operator in the Niger Delta, has been criticized repeatedly for its egregious practices and its unwillingness to be held to account.[/quote]

Meanwhile, the local population has remained impoverished and beset by diseases caused by unsafe air, poisoned drinking water, and pollution in the food chain. Local lawlessness has led to gang warfare and persistent illegal tapping into the pipelines to steal oil, leading to further massive oil spills and frequent explosions that kill dozens, including innocent bystanders.

In the colonial era, it was the official purpose of imperial power to extract wealth from the administered territories. In the post-colonial period, the methods are better disguised. When oil companies misbehave in Nigeria or elsewhere, they are protected by the power of their home countries. Don’t mess with the companies, they are told by the United States and Europe. Indeed, one of the largest bribes (a reputed $180 million) paid in recent times in Nigeria was by Halliburton, a company tightly intertwined with US political power. (Dick Cheney went from being Halliburton’s CEO to the US vice presidency.)

Last year, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) issued a remarkable report on Ogoniland, a major ethnic homeland in the Niger Delta that has been at the epicenter of conflict between local communities and international oil. The report was as scathing as it was scientifically clear. Despite many past promises of a cleanup, Ogoniland remains in environmental agony, impoverished and sickened by the oil industry.

A New Era Of Responsibility

UNEP also offered clear and detailed recommendations, including emergency measures to ensure safe drinking water; cleanup activities targeting the mangroves and soils; public-health studies to identify and counteract the consequences of pollution; and a new regulatory framework.

The world’s governments have recently agreed to move to a new framework for sustainable development, declaring their intention to adopt Sustainable Development Goals at the Rio+20 Summit in June. The SDGs offer a critical opportunity for the world to set clear, compelling standards for government and corporate behavior. Many major companies, including in the oil industry, have expressed their readiness to support sustainable development goals.

[quote]Cleaning up the Niger Delta would provide the strongest possible example of a new age of accountability. Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and other major oil companies should step forward and help to fund the necessary cleanup, ushering in a new era of responsibility.[/quote]

The Nigerian government’s own accountability is on the line as well. It is heartening that several Nigerian senators have recently been in the forefront of efforts to strengthen the rule of law in the oil sector.

The cleanup of the Niger Delta provides an ideal opportunity for Nigeria, the oil industry, and the international community to show convincingly that a new age has dawned. From now on, sustainable development must not be a mere slogan, but rather an operational approach to global governance and well-being on a strained and crowded planet.

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

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Breaking the Inter-Generational Poverty Curse: Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 07:48:07 +0000

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To break the cycle of poverty, a country needs to invest in its people. Governments have the unique role to play to ensure that all young members of a generation – the poor children as well as rich ones – have a chance. Yet many societies around the world fail to meet the challenge of ensuring basic health and a decent education for each generation of children.

NEW YORK – A country’s economic success depends on the education, skills, and health of its population. When its young people are healthy and well educated, they can find gainful employment, achieve dignity, and succeed in adjusting to the fluctuations of the global labour market. Businesses invest more, knowing that their workers will be productive. Yet many societies around the world do not meet the challenge of ensuring basic health and a decent education for each generation of children.

Why is the challenge of education unmet in so many countries? Some are simply too poor to provide decent schools. Parents themselves may lack adequate education, leaving them unable to help their own children beyond the first year or two of school, so that illiteracy and innumeracy are transmitted from one generation to the next. The situation is most difficult in large families (say, six or seven children), because parents invest little in the health, nutrition, and education of each child.

Yet rich countries also fail. The United States, for example, cruelly allows its poorest children to suffer. Poor people live in poor neighbourhoods with poor schools. Parents are often unemployed, ill, divorced, or even incarcerated. Children become trapped in a persistent generational cycle of poverty, despite the society’s general affluence. Too often, children growing up in poverty end up as poor adults.

A remarkable new documentary film, The House I Live In, shows that America’s story is even sadder and crueller than that, owing to disastrous policies. Starting around 40 years ago, America’s politicians declared a “war on drugs,” ostensibly to fight the use of addictive drugs like cocaine. As the film clearly shows, however, the war on drugs became a war on the poor, especially on poor minority groups.

In fact, the war on drugs led to mass incarceration of poor, minority young men. The US now imprisons around 2.3 million people at any time, a substantial number of whom are poor people who are arrested for selling drugs to support their own addiction. As a result, the US has ended up with the world’s highest incarceration rate – a shocking 743 people per 100,000!

The film depicts a nightmarish world in which poverty in one generation is passed on to the next, with the cruel, costly, and inefficient “war on drugs” facilitating the process. Poor people, often African-Americans, cannot find jobs or have returned from military service without skills or employment contacts. They fall into poverty and turn to drugs.

Instead of receiving social and medical assistance, they are arrested and turned into felons. From that point on, they are in and out of the prison system, and have little chance of ever getting a legal job that enables them to escape poverty. Their children grow up without a parent at home – and without hope and support. The children of drug users often become drug users themselves; they, too, frequently end up in jail or suffer violence or early death.

[quote] What is crazy about this is that the US has missed the obvious point – and has missed it for 40 years. To break the cycle of poverty, a country needs to invest in its children’s future, not in the imprisonment of 2.3 million people a year, many for non-violent crimes that are symptoms of poverty. [/quote]

Many politicians are eager accomplices to this lunacy. They play to the fears of the middle class, especially middle-class fear of minority groups, to perpetuate this misdirection of social efforts and government spending.

The general point is this: Governments have a unique role to play to ensure that all young members of a generation – poor children as well as rich ones – have a chance. A poor kid is unlikely to break free of his or her parents’ poverty without strong and effective government programs that support high-quality education, health care, and decent nutrition.

This is the genius of “social democracy,” the philosophy pioneered in Scandinavia, but also deployed in many developing countries, such as Costa Rica. The idea is simple and powerful: All people deserve a chance, and society needs to help everybody to secure that chance. Most important, families need help to raise healthy, well-nourished, and educated children. Social investments are large, financed by high taxes, which rich people actually pay, rather than evade.

This is the basic method to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. A poor child in Sweden has benefits from the start. The child’s parents have guaranteed maternity/paternity leave to help them nurture the infant. The government then provides high-quality day care, enabling the mother – knowing that the child is in a safe environment – to return to work. The government ensures that all children have a place in preschool, so that they are ready for formal schooling by the age of six. And health care is universal, so the child can grow up healthy.

[quote] A comparison of the US and Sweden is therefore revealing. Using comparable data and definitions provided by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US has a poverty rate of 17.3%, roughly twice Sweden’s poverty rate of 8.4%. And America’s incarceration rate is 10 times Sweden’s rate of 70 people per 100,000. The US is richer on average than Sweden, but the income gap between America’s richest and poorest is vastly wider than it is in Sweden, and the US treats its poor punitively, rather than supportively. [/quote]

One of the shocking realities in recent years is that America now has almost the lowest degree of social mobility of the high-income countries. Children born poor are likely to remain poor; children born into affluence are likely to be affluent adults.

This inter-generational tracking amounts to a profound waste of human talents. America will pay the price in the long term unless it changes course. Investing in its children and young people provides the very highest return that any society can earn, in both economic and human terms.

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a Professor of Economics and the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also a Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals, as well as being the founder and co-President of the Millennium Promise Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty and hunger. Sachs has authored numerous books, including The End of Poverty and Common Wealth. In 2004 and 2005, He was named among Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World”.

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What If The ‘Ideal Economy’ Existed?: Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 09:12:44 +0000

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What if you could create an ‘ideal’ or ‘model’ economy simply by copying and adapting the best economic policies from around the world? Although no country in the world is likely to ever come close to achieving this (in the near future at least), emulating policies that have worked elsewhere and then reconfiguring them for local conditions can see greater sustainable growth – and speed the path to national improvement at home.

NEW YORK – In many of history’s most successful economic reforms, clever countries have learned from the policy successes of others, adapting them to local conditions. In the long history of economic development, eighteenth-century Britain learned from Holland; early nineteenth-century Prussia learned from Britain and France; mid-nineteenth-century Meiji Japan learned from Germany; post-World War II Europe learned from the United States; and Deng Xiaoping’s China learned from Japan.

Through a process of institutional borrowing and creative adaptation, successful economic institutions and cutting-edge technologies spread around the world, and thereby boost global growth. Today, too, there are some great opportunities for this kind of “policy arbitrage,” if more countries would only take the time to learn from other countries’ successes.

Tackling Jobs & Welfare

For example, while many countries are facing a jobs crisis, one part of the capitalist world is doing just fine: northern Europe, including Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. Germany’s unemployment rate this past summer was around 5.5 percent, and its youth unemployment rate was around 8 percent – remarkably low compared with many other high-income economies.

How do northern Europeans do it? All of them use active labour market policies, including flex time, school-to-work apprenticeships (especially Germany), and extensive job training and matching.

Likewise, in an age of chronic budget crises, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland run near-balanced budgets. All three rely on budget rules that call for cyclically adjusted budget balance. And all three take a basic precaution to keep their entitlement spending under control: a retirement age of at least 65. This keeps costs much lower than in France, and Greece, for example, where the retirement age is 60 or below, and where pension outlays are soaring as a result.

In an age of rising health-care costs, most high-income countries – Canada, the European Union’s Western economies, and Japan – manage to keep their total health-care costs below 12 percent of GDP, with excellent health outcomes, while the US spends nearly 18 percent of GDP, yet with decidedly mediocre health outcomes. And, America’s is the only for-profit health system of the entire bunch. A new report by the US Institute of Medicine has found that America’s for-profit system squanders around $750 billion, or 5 percent of GDP, on waste, fraud, duplication, and bureaucracy.

Ensuring Efficient Energy

In an age of soaring oil costs, a few countries have made a real difference in energy efficiency. The OECD countries, on average, use 160 kilograms of oil-equivalent energy for every $1,000 of GDP (measured at purchasing power parity). But, in energy-efficient Switzerland, energy use is just 100 kg per $1,000 of GDP, and in Demark it is just 110 kg, compared with 190 kg in the US.

In an age of climate change, several countries are demonstrating how to move to a low-carbon economy. On average, the rich countries emit 2.3 kg of CO₂ for every kg of oil-equivalent unit of energy. But France emits just 1.4 kg, owing to its enormous success in deploying safe, low-cost nuclear energy.

Sweden, with its hydropower, is even lower, at 0.9 kg. And, while Germany is abandoning domestic production of nuclear energy for political reasons, we can bet that it will nonetheless continue to import electricity from France’s nuclear plants.

In an age of intense technological competition, countries that combine public and private research and development (R&D) financing are outpacing the rest. The US continues to excel, with huge recent breakthroughs in Mars exploration and genomics, though it is now imperilling that excellence through budget cuts. Meanwhile, Sweden and South Korea are now excelling economically on the basis of R&D spending of around 3.5 percent of GDP, while Israel’s R&D outlays stand at a remarkable 4.7 percent of GDP.

Combating Inequality & Social Unrest

In an age of rising inequality, at least some countries have narrowed their wealth and income gaps. Brazil is the recent pacesetter, markedly expanding public education and systematically attacking remaining pockets of poverty through targeted transfer programs. As a result, income inequality in Brazil is declining.

And, in an age of pervasive anxiety, Bhutan is asking deep questions about the meaning and nature of happiness itself. In search of a more balanced society that combines economic prosperity, social cohesion, and environmental sustainability, Bhutan famously pursues Gross National Happiness rather than Gross National Product. Many other countries – including the United Kingdom – are now following Bhutan’s lead in surveying their citizenry about life satisfaction.

The countries highest on the ladder of life satisfaction are Denmark, Finland, and Norway. Yet there is hope for those at lower latitudes as well. Tropical Costa Rica also ranks near the top of the happiness league. What we can say is that all of the happiest countries emphasize equality, solidarity, democratic accountability, environmental sustainability, and strong public institutions.

Is The ‘Ideal Economy’ Even Attainable?

[quote]So here is one model economy: German labour-market policies, Swedish pensions, French low-carbon energy, Canadian health care, Swiss energy efficiency, American scientific curiosity, Brazilian anti-poverty programs, and Costa Rican tropical happiness.[/quote]

Of course, back in the real world, most countries will not achieve such bliss anytime soon. But, by opening our eyes to policy successes abroad, we would surely speed the path to national improvement in countries around the world.

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

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