Anna Baddeley

Briefing note: The Price of Civilization by Jeffrey Sachs

Who’s Jeffrey Sachs?

Leading American development economist and United Nations adviser, Sachs is broadly on the left of the political spectrum. His most famous book is The End of Poverty.

What’s the book about?

Another analysis of the current financial crisis, the book is a mixture of diagnosis and prescription, focusing on America.

What are his big ideas?

Sachs is no Keynesian, calling the idea to solve the crisis with more government borrowing “a magical argument without any empirical support”.

He thinks the US urgently needs to stabilise its national debt, for reasons both economic and moral.

In order to do this, he proposes raising taxes sharply, and not just on high earners: he suggests the US raise its federal sales taxes to European levels.

What are people saying about it?

In his Sunday

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