the end of poverty

A friend of mine emailed me the other day with some comments about Jeffrey Sachs book, the End of Poverty. So as I was sitting in a cafe on the side of a muddy street in downtown Dar es Salaam, watching poverty come and go, I got to thinking about the end of poverty. Not that I claim to know how to end it, or feel in any way qualified to critique an eminent economist like Sachs, but it seems to me talking about the end of poverty, one might just as well talk about the end of greed, or the end of selfishness, the end of cruelty, or the end of low self-esteem.  Of course there are logistical, policy and economic factors to poverty, by definition, but I believe, at the heart of the matter, poverty is, well, a matter of the heart (my apologies if I have accidently plagerized any country and western lyrics).

A streetside cafe where one might be inclined to reflect on poverty.