Overview:
In Violent Saviors, renowned economist William Easterly examines how the demand for agency has always been at the heart of debates on development. Spanning nearly four centuries of global history, Easterly argues that commerce, rather than conquest, could meet the need for equal rights as well as the need for prosperity. Looking to the liberal economic ideas of thinkers like Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, and Amartya Sen, Easterly shows how the surge in global trade has given agency to billions of people for the first time.
Narrating the long debate between conquest and commerce, Easterly offers a new and urgent perspective on global economics: the demands for agency, dignity, and respect must be at the center of the global fight against poverty.