Helping People Help Themselves

"A towering achievement. It outdoes Sen and Hirshman in its reach across economics, management theory, psychology, sociology, mathematics and philosophy. The result is a coherent alternative 'way of seeing' the relationship between aid organizations based in rich countries and aid recipients based in poorer ones, and some practical suggestions
on how to re-engage the aid agencies more as 'helpers' than as 'doers'. Along the way it fairly sizzles with insider insights into the workings of the World Bank."
---Robert Hunter Wade, Development Studies Institute, London School of Economics

"Ellerman provides a compelling humanist understanding of how economic development aid can succeed, if only people and nations are enabled to help themselves."
--- William Greider author, The Soul of Opening Paths to a Moral Economy

David Ellerman relates a deep theoretical groundwork for a philosophy of development, while offering a descriptive, practical suggestion of how goals of development can be better set and met. Beginning with the assertion that development assistance agencies are inherently structured to provide help that is ultimately unhelpful by overriding or undercutting the capacity of people to help themselves, David Ellerman argues that the best strategy for development is a drastic reduction in development assistance. The locus of initiative can then shift from the would-be helpers to the doers (recipients) of development. Ellerman presents various methods for shifting initiative that are indirect, enabling and autonomy-respecting. Eight representative figures in the fields of education, community organization, economic development, psychotherapy and management theory Albert Hirschman, Paulo Freire, John Dewey, and Søren Kierkegaard demonstrate how the major themes of assisting autonomy among people are essentially the same.

David Ellerman is currently a Visiting Scholar in the Economics Department at the University of California at Riverside.

David P. Ellerman is currently a Visiting Scholar at the University of California at Riverside.