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 Capitalism: 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 including: Albert Hirschman, Paulo Freire, John Dewey, and SA?ren 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.