Violent Saviors

I first encountered William Easterly’s work as an undergraduate economics student. His 2001 book The Elusive Quest for Growth: Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (MIT Press) was an assigned text in my economic capstone course. To say I was influenced by the book would be an understatement. Indeed, it was Easterly’s work that introduced me to scholarly writing for a popular audience. It was a puzzle he introduced in that book that inspired my first academic paper (2014, “Mountains of Disappointment: The Failure of State-Led Development Aid in Appalachia,” Journal of Private Enterprise [Spring]: 83–100). Moreover, it was Easterly’s work that inspired me to formally concentrate on institutions and economic development in my graduate program.

Just as Easterly’s earlier work resonated with me as a lay reader with basic economic knowledge, his new work similarly resonates more than two decades later, though now I read it through the eyes of a professional economist. I have no doubt that other academics and lay readers alike will enjoy and profit from his newest work, Violent Saviors: The West’s Conquest of the Rest. In addition to those interested in economics or economic development, those with an interest in political science, policy, and history would similarly benefit from reading it. Violent Saviors is a true testament to Easterly’s knowledge and demonstrates his remarkable ability to convey economic ideas thoroughly and clearly. Though the work’s 427 pages may appear daunting, this was a pleasurable read, and I would have gladly accepted more pages if the author had offered them. The book is also available in an audio format with a listen time of just under twelve hours at normal speed.

Violent Saviors is a remarkable work of scholarship. Easterly takes readers on a journey through various iterations of Western attempts to develop “the rest,” noting how who is included in that group has expanded and changed over time. If one had to summarize the book in a word, it would undoubtedly be the word “consent.” Easterly highlights, with poignant clarity, how centuries of interventions in the name of “development” have lacked the consent of those on the receiving end of said development.

The book is divided into four parts. Part I consists of two chapters discussing differing conceptualizations of “progress” and introduces a theme that Easterly returns to repeatedly—the idea of consent. He first initiates readers to contrasting ideas about economic development and its thoroughly illiberal exportation through a deep discussion comparing the views of Adam Smith and the Marquis de Condorcet. Easterly’s initial exposition not only sets the stage for the rest of the work but manages something quite impressive—offering readers new perspectives on scholars they thought they knew. While I was familiar with Condorcet, for example, I was wholly unaware of his ideas related to economic development through conquest. Though this section is relatively short, it was my favorite, as Easterly helped me to remember the profound beauty of Adam Smith’s work.

Part II is the longest part of the book, consisting of seven chapters covering the period between 1776 and 1865. Over the course of these chapters, Easterly covers significant ground, with chapters dedicated to Adam Smith’s challenge to the transatlantic slave trade, how economists and others defined (and redefined) “the rest,” analyses of the U.S. government’s treatment of Native Americans, and various attempts at “black progress” by the West.

Part III includes five chapters and covers the period between 1865 and 1945. Throughout these chapters, Easterly revisits earlier themes in the context of the new colonialism. He dedicates chapters to the U.S. occupation of the Philippines, the Belgian Congo, and the revival of “benevolent slavery,” before turning to a discussion of Lenin and the Marxist critique of capitalist colonialism. A subsequent chapter discusses the challenge Hitler’s Third Reich presented to the West: namely, how could the Western countries denounce Hitler’s conquest while maintaining control over their colonies?

The book’s final section, Part IV, contains four chapters related to the end of colonialism and the invention of the “Third World,” and the continued debates between liberal economists and the “illiberal development mainstream” (p. 277). The book’s final chapter, “The End of History,” discusses contemporary development efforts. By “end,” Easterly does not imply the temporal end of history; he uses the word “end” as a synonym for “goal.”

What Easterly illustrates throughout the book is both sobering and important. For centuries, “the West” has sought to develop varying conceptions of “the rest.” Time and again, governments, aid organizations, and those studying the puzzle of economic growth have forgotten or purposefully neglected ideas of dignity, agency, and consent. Modern development economics largely falls prey to the same ideas. “New” economic development is yet another example of placing old wine in new bottles and attempting to sell it as novel. Many parts and themes of Violent Saviors are worth exploring in more detail. Undoubtedly, many reviews will focus on the themes of dignity and consent. But exclusively focusing on these themes would understate the contribution of this book. I offer four additional themes for consideration.

First, it becomes clear throughout the book that the West has a long history of justifying its impositions on the rest. From the development right of conquest to more contemporary notions of the “Third World,” proponents of foreign interventions both “hard” and “soft,” for the sake of progress elsewhere, have gone to extraordinary lengths to justify their actions. Though the justifications and narratives surrounding them have changed throughout history, it becomes clear through reading that the mindset required for repeated intervention is visible throughout history. Various illustrations of this mindset are woven into the narrative rather than being formally articulated. In discussing military intervention abroad, my coauthor Christopher J. Coyne and I made an initial attempt to articulate the “interventionist mindset” in our paper “Empire State of Mind: The Illiberal Foundations of Liberal Hegemony” (2016, The Independent Review [Fall]: 237–50). Throughout the book, the examples Easterly offers demonstrate this mindset with remarkable clarity. It is clear to this reader that additional explorations of this mindset are worthwhile.

The second theme of Violent Saviors that will undoubtedly inform my future thinking is what Easterly calls the “gerund defense” (p. 112). He explains this defense in the context of development economics as follows: “Whatever your doubts about whatever progress has already happened, the defense suggests, please let me assure you that progress is happening now. You cannot test this in the present; you will only be able to look back on some future date for whatever progress had really been happening—at which point I can reassure you with a new gerund that progress is now happening” (pp. 112–13). Easterly notes that he first deployed this idea with Laura Freschi in 2010, but it was novel to me. The “gerund defense,” once you are introduced to it, is impossible to forget, as you will quickly realize its use is ubiquitous across many arenas of activity, but particularly within the context of government. I now feel as though I have a new key for detecting unscrupulous reporting of progress. I have no doubts other readers will feel the same, as well as the similar inclination to point out the problems of such a defense when it is offered.

The third theme of Violent Saviors that will remain with me is an appreciation for the way the actions of today are intimately connected to the ideas and actions of the past. After reading this book, it would be impossible not to see how the ideas, incentives, and entanglements of the past remain painfully relevant. It would also be difficult not to see the grave disservice the economics profession has done to itself. History of economic thought, once a clear requirement for those pursuing graduate degrees and often a component of economic undergraduate programs, has long been eschewed for courses on econometrics, coding, and instruction on the newest statistical technique du jour. The result has not been more enlightenment or progress but the inevitable repetition of the past by those who failed to study it.

Along similar lines, Easterly’s book presents a beautiful illustration of the economic way of thinking—viewing the world through the perspective of scarcity, incentives, institutions, and the way that economic actors respond. It does not hide behind complex models or economic statistics but presents economic ideas in the way (in the view of this economist) such ideas should be presented. I emphasize the word “should” purposively. The normative nature of my claim relates to the fourth element of Violent Saviors that particularly struck me. Easterly notes in both the earlier chapters when discussing Adam Smith, as well as later chapters, that economics in the tradition of Adam Smith is deeply imbued with moral philosophy. Easterly notes how, when read with the background knowledge of the ideas Smith discussed in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)—his work on moral philosophy—one’s reading of Smith’s most famous work, The Wealth of Nations (1776), shifts dramatically. More importantly, Easterly doubts or rejects the idea that economics can really be “value-free.” This stands in stark contrast to the way many economists view the profession. If I had to disagree or argue with one part of the book, it may be this one. While I appreciate that all economists have value systems and make moral choices, I am not convinced that economic analysis cannot be conducted in an objective capacity.

William Easterly’s Violent Saviors is a wonderful book with an important and sobering message. This book is a must-read for anyone in the economics profession and at the top of the list for courses in international economics, economic development, or the history of thought (courses on the last topic being sadly rare). I have no doubt other disciplines would find this a helpful and informative text.