Paul Collier (1)

Paul Collier says right off the bat that he is the descendant of immigrants. In fact, a large percentage of us are. I myself am the culmination of two sets of immigrants: my father’s ancestors immigrated from France and Denmark; my mother’s from Mexico. At any given time, there is always some group of people moving from one region to another. Collier’s book Exodus investigates the phenomenon of immigration from a global sociological perspective to help get to the core of some of the show more issues at hand so that we can stop viewing immigration in an emotional context and place it in more of an economic one.

The issue of migration incorporates feelings of nationalism, classism, and racism. There is an unhealthy correlation between migration and the twin ideas of contamination and assimilation. Collier’s attempt at demystification leads to some interesting findings on the subject. He contends that migration is a natural byproduct of the world’s bimodal wealth distribution (a lot of rich people, a lot of poor people, not a lot of middle-income folks). Waves of global migration lead to some of the following outcomes: economic and social destabilization, multiculturalism, workforce revitalization, governmental policy change, or nationalistic uprising. This is definitely not a comprehensive list; migration could cause combinations of these or even new reactions, but Collier tries to encapsulate the world of migration is this sort of model.

This is not necessarily a “fun” book to read, but there are lot of really well-thought out ideas. When Collier decouples the idea of migration from emotion, he makes us better able to talk about it. He also understands that talking openly about the rhetoric surrounding migration carries the risk of being ostracized, but much like him, I believe that these ideas can be discussed without things getting too heated. He does not hasten to label migration as either good or bad, but rather lays out a theory for how the causes and effects of migration work on a global scale. Collier’s prose is a bit dusty, I suppose, but sociological and economic treatises tend to be that way. If you’re looking for a new perspective on a historical issue, then pick this one up. show less

Paul Collier asserts the 21st century being the era of civil wars. If the claim is practically solidified, the peaceful restoration of a world community will be a far-fetched dream. Civil wars are detrimental to political and state progression, let alone humanity. A volatile umbrella sheltering ethnic discrepancies, power-related violence, abusive exploitation of developmental funds, brutality, genocide and the biggest scare of all thriving of terrorists pockets. Collier, an expert in show more developmental predicaments of impoverished economies focuses on the African panorama of political violence and power struggle under the façade of democracy submitting numerous ingenious resolutions of policy changes, military budgets cuts to minimize the conflict risk, holding fair and free elections, reforming economic policies and providing governmental aid supervised by designated financial peacemaker.

I have always maintained the fact of democracy being a farce in a place where power and money rules above the nominal populace enhancement. How can one exercise free will when egalitarianism is either strictly communal or a moneyed privilege? Why is nation-building essential yet highly impossible in various third-world countries?

Democracy the magical word for a sovereign nation; amusing how it differs in the bottom billion (countries accounting for more than a billion of the world’s poorest populace).So, how can one dissect democracy or rather what does it stand for in the bottom billion.
D - Dais for several deluded notions of freedom and justice
propagandas.
E - Electoral sham, exhibiting every aspect of dreadful hostility ranging from bribery, intimidation, manipulating ballots and deceitful garnering of votes.
M - Mishandling of international and developmental funds fulfilling egotistical power-hungry motives and illegal arms dealings.
O - Omitting the prospect of Human Rights and at times overlooking educational and health upgrading. In some rural pockets illiteracy is preferred as no questions will be raised against criminal political and insurgent activities.
C - Chucking the concept of national identity whilst enhancing the prospects of varied ethnic liberalizations demarcating class, religious segregations and social order in state communities.
R – Rebellious onset of civil wars surfacing volatile situations between the governing assemblies and private rebel armies.
A -Accountability and security of public good for state development are offered minimalist efforts.
C -Corruption thriving within the walls of nationalized infrastructure, disposing patronage and ultimately becoming a benign part of a dysfunctional organization.
Y -Yielding a landscape fertile for proliferating embryonic terror cults and collective bedlam.

Assemble an autonomous nation-state on this pandemonium! And, to think elections and liberty of exercising the right to vote sums up the foundation to constructing a sovereign third world nation-state. Is it a fundamental naivety or a deficient study of a greatly diverse unrevealed world? A nation can be busted within a span of days or even hours but to construct a secure democratic sanctuary it takes decades of combating revolutionary upheavals and understanding the extant intricacies.

Michael Clemems rightly estimates the epochal tasks of development in the billion-bottom countries stating,"Helping the bottom billion will be a very slow job for generations, not the product of media- or summit-friendly plans to end poverty in ten or 20 years. It will require long-term, opportunistic, and humble engagement, much of it through public action -- built on a willingness to let ineffective interventions die and on a sophisticated appreciation of the stupendous complexity of functioning economies. The grievous truth is that although a range of public actions can and should help many people, most of the bottom billion will not -- and cannot -- be freed from poverty in our lifetimes."(Foreign Affairs, Sept/Oct.2007)

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/62849/michael-a-clemens/smart-samaritans?

I agree. show less

The issues around immigration are not black and white. They are many-sided and are colored in many shades of grey. Paul Collier looks at the subject of immigration from the point of view of an economist and discusses the impacts of immigration from the point of view of the host country, the country of origin and the migrant themselves. His point of view is backed up by a wide variety of studies. Where those studies are inconclusive, he says so.

One great takeaway for me was that when experts(should apply to everyone) argue for their case they should explicitly scrutinize the potential side effects and risks their policy suggestions may induce. This is crucial for maintaining trust and preventing the rise of anxieties, ideology and populism when crisis hits.

Therefore I would have wished Collier to address atleast a chapter or two for the elephant in the room: the climate and ecological crisis. I was looking forward to his arguments show more on what should be done to decouple gdp growth from the growth of resource usage, moving towards carbon neutrality and eventually a regenerative economy, but found none that specifically tackle this crisis. I regard this as the biggest weakness of the book and a reason why many climate concerned readers will wholly disregard the arguments of this book for fixing capitalism in favor of replacing it. I suspect Collier is going to be challenged on this front and look forward to reading his take on this anxiety inducing subject matter.

Other than that the book has valuable points about the mismanagement of capitalism, that has created anxieties and rifts in our society, as well as ideas on how to fix them. This would be a three star book if Collier had not presented very valuable suggestions on how to get society and capitalism back on better track. In fact this is why I will recommend the book because we need to bring the suggestions Collier makes into the public debate. show less