“We need you,” said Jeffrey Sachs to a packed auditorium in Old Cabell Hall. “We should find ways to team up.” Sachs, a leading international economic adviser, outlined the need to merge resources to solve major global problems, such as poverty, at the 2009 Annual Spring Symposium, presented by the UVA McIntire School of Commerce on Friday, April 24. Following Sachs’ keynote address, a panel of four prominent UVA professors discussed what could be done locally to begin crafting a vision for global sustainability.
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Jeffrey Sachs revealed the reality of global markets at the 2009 Annual Spring Symposium in Old Cabell Hall. It will take public responsibility and education to overcome major issues, such as poverty and sustainability, he said. |
“Problems don’t come packaged anymore,” said Sachs. Vice Provost for International Programs Gowher Rizvi echoed the sentiment. Just when borders and frontiers are becoming irrelevant, he said, UVA must “produce global citizens,” who can move from one society to another with ease and comfort.
In his speech, Sachs, the director of the Earth Institute and Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia University, painted a gloomy picture. According to him, the world is currently witness to at least three crises that are unraveling simultaneously: “All three crises, I believe, come from the fact that we need a robust and value-based approach” to resource challenges. As a market economist, he believes in capitalism, but “what I don’t believe in … is what’s called the free market economy, because there is no such thing as a market that’s free.” For that reason, Sachs welcomed the idea of rebuilding and better organizing growth and economic development, for the challenges of this generation are “unparallel” to those of older and even future generations. At this time, the markets are inherently unstable and, more importantly, they do not “ensure a humane distribution of income,” he said. In the U.S., there are at least 50 million people who are uninsured, but the situation in the world is even more dramatic. Global markets work, said Sachs, but, “markets are absolutely capable of also leaving a billion people struggling for survival every day,” and there is nothing in theory or in practice that would guarantee the survival of these individuals. Ultimately, because the markets have been deregulated since the 1980s, and the shadow banking system has helped in the collapse of banks, Sachs stressed the need for more regulation. “I believe in the market economy, but one that is embedded in other institutions.”
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