HST 300 Books Summary Tyranny PT 2 PDF

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A required book summary on Easterly's Tyranny Pt. 2. ...

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Daniel Pardi HST 300: Seminar in Historical Research Professor Bekele January 21st, 2015 The Tyranny of Experts (pg. 201-354) To my own satisfaction I found the material easier to understand in the second half of the book. Perhaps it was my dormant economics knowledge taking effect from high school, or more realistically I began to take into account his thesis when regarding any question I had. Easterly’s main point is that the poor need to be treated with equal rights. I learned from this book, specifically these pages assigned a plethora of new pieces of information. I specifically took interest in Adam Smith. Smith was a philosopher whose main interest was pinpointed on economics. He was from Glasgow, and attended the University of Glasgow where at the time, eighteen hundreds, the academics were very fixed on teaching knowledge that goes against what society was for at this time. Smith would go on to write two books which Easterly will cite; The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nation. Within these two text Easterly breaks down his original debate of the individual vs. the state, into the free market vs the government. Easterly emphasizes that these are not the same debate. Still he uses it, as far as I could tell, due to its moral and ethical implications in which Smith’s ideas stood on. Smith’s notions, as argued by Easterly, have been misinterpreted over time, and Easterly claims that Smith came up with his famous “Invisible Hand” to help the poor, and not make the rich richer. Smith had the same egalitarian goals in mind as Easterly. I also enjoyed the comparisons Easterly made to regional development, and a nation’s development. What was tragic was when autocrats used notions

such as nationalism and perverted them to prevent migration, which eventually hurt Zambia, whereas West Virginia’s population was saved by those who left. The authoritarian policies are denying individual rights, which led to the downfall of Zambia’s current economy. The ending of this was truly touching. The weight of his notions was lifted and as a human he spoke of egalitarian goals he truly wished to reach. He wished for all men and women to be equal. The message was brilliantly placed as the last line. After reading 354 pages of information that can be categorized as sociology, psychology, philosophy, development economics, politics, political science, he chooses to end it with a message that transcended these notions, and for me myself it was as if all his ideas that seemed to be lost in space all came to together....