For those who wish to immerse themselves on the pros and cons of the debate over poverty, this is an essential intellectual foundation to the current work by Jeffrey Sachs who is both the advisor to the Secretary General of the UN on the Millennium project, and the head of the Columbia Earth Institute.
Thomas Jefferson said that “A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry.” He probably would have agreed to amend that to say an educated, healthy citizenry able to work. A historical appreciation of the phrase “pursuit of happiness” suggests that Jefferson actually meant, in lieu of selfish pleasure, the pursuit of self- actualization.
This book completes a circle with C. K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks) which suggests that there is a four trillion a year marketplace among the five billion poorest, and that unleashing their entrepreneurial initiative could save the world, and the definitive work by Jeffrey Sachs, on how can end poverty for $70 per year per person.
