The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor

· Sold by Basic Books
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3 reviews
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416
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About this ebook

In this "bracingly iconoclastic” book (New York Times Book Review), a renowned economics scholar breaks down the fight to end global poverty and the rights that poor individuals have had taken away for generations.

In The Tyranny of Experts, renowned economist William Easterly examines our failing efforts to fight global poverty, and argues that the "expert approved" top-down approach to development has not only made little lasting progress, but has proven a convenient rationale for decades of human rights violations perpetrated by colonialists, postcolonial dictators, and US and UK foreign policymakers seeking autocratic allies. Demonstrating how our traditional antipoverty tactics have both trampled the freedom of the world's poor and suppressed a vital debate about alternative approaches to solving poverty, Easterly presents a devastating critique of the blighted record of authoritarian development. In this masterful work, Easterly reveals the fundamental errors inherent in our traditional approach and offers new principles for Western agencies and developing countries alike: principles that, because they are predicated on respect for the rights of poor people, have the power to end global poverty once and for all.
In this "bracingly iconoclastic” book (New York Times Book Review), a renowned economics scholar breaks down the fight to end global poverty and the rights that poor individuals have had taken away for generations. In The Tyranny of Experts, renowned economist William Easterly examines our faili...

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Ratings and reviews

3 reviews
Dakota
August 7, 2026
This book tore pandora's box wide open and in the process also ripped the final veil off any concepts I thought I knew about society and righteous human morale and true love; and led me to the most beautiful realization ever! That we are far to smart; with far to much technology that is able to provide EVERY HUMAN BEING WITH THEIR OWN CHOICES OF LIFE PATHS AND TRUE ENLIGHTENED DISCOVERY, HAPPINESS, AND LOVE AT THE CORE! And it's truly sickening that there is still so much wickedness occuring.
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About the author

William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University and Co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute. He is the author of several books on global politics and economics, including The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (winner of the FA Hayek Award). His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Review of Books, and Washington Post. Foreign Policy magazine named him among the Top 100 Global Public Intellectuals. He lives in New York.
William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University and Co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute. He is the author of several books on global politics and economics, including The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Li...

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