A brilliant take-down of the modern concept of expert. The book portrays all the failings of our current expert-worship culture, and why, with their advice, we just keep digging ourselves deeper and deeper. A list: huge egotism, self-interest, dismissal of experience and ideas of the people actually living the situation, reliance on large amounts of money to accomplish goals, top-down flow of ideas and structures, insulation from the effects of their recommendations and ideas, refusal to take responsibility when things go wrong (just change focus), claim success but blame failure on externals and the stupidity of others, culture-centrism, class-centrism, narrow focus of viewpoint.
I just keep coming back to the image of Sachs sitting in his 8 million dollar condo built for him by one of the Ivy League universities as he pontificates about the situation of dirt-poor africans living in mud huts... Makes me fee queasy (and a bit hysterical...)
Well-written. Interesting read. Funny in a black humour (unintended) kind of way.
Refer back in particular to the comments on Nial Ferguson and his book, The Great Degeneration.
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