Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor Over the last century, global poverty has largely been viewed as a technical problem that merely requires the right "expert" solutions. Yet all too often, experts recommend solutions that fix immediate problems without addressing the systemic political factors that created them in the first place. Further, they produce an accidental collusion with "benevolent autocrats," leaving dictators with yet more power to violate the rights of the poor.

In "The Tyranny of Experts," economist William Easterly, bestselling author of "The White Man's Burden," traces the history of the fight against global poverty, showing not only how these tactics have trampled the individual freedom of the world's poor, but how in doing so have suppressed a vital debate about an alternative approach to solving poverty: freedom. Presenting a wealth of cutting-edge economic research, Easterly argues that only a new model of development--one predicated on respect for the individual rights of people in developing countries, that understands that unchecked state power is the problem and not the solution --will be capable of ending global poverty once and for all.

"Bracingly iconoclastic.... Easterly's stories unfailingly reinforce a select number of crucial themes, the boldest being that the people of the so-called underdeveloped world have been systematically betrayed by the technocrats in charge of the global development agenda." --Eduardo Porter, New York Times

"William Easterly ...is one of the profession's most determined skeptics...In the real world, Professor Easterly says, development occurs as people identify problems and push for solutions through their political systems. Setting goals that nobody is truly responsible for achieving not only misrepresents what causes poverty but also substitutes goal setting for real action." --Los Angeles Times Review of Books

"There is something indomitable about William Easterly, and he has struck the development establishment where it is weakest: its appalling human rights record." --Bloomberg View

"[Easterly] is one of the most consistently interesting and provocative thinkers on development." --Economist