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Podcast: Book Friends Forever
Episode: Violent Saviors by William Easterly read by Fred Sanders
Description: A celebrated economist argues that economic development is not really development unless everyone has the right to consent to their own progress
For centuries, the developed Western world has exploited the less-developed “Rest” in the name of progress, conquering the Americas, driving the Atlantic slave trade, and colonizing Africa and Asia. Throughout, the West has justified this global conquest by the alleged material gains it brought to the conquered. But the colonial experiment unintentionally revealed how much of a demand there was for self-determination, and not just for relief from poverty.
In Violent Saviors, renowned economist William Easterly examines how the...