Bottom Billion by Paul Collier the Book

Bottom Billion by Paul Collier

The book analyzed below talks about the poorest countries in the world, and what the world could do to alleviate their downward spiral into absolute dearth. Paul Collier, an Oxford University Economics Professor, posits various stories and points out that global poverty is actually decreasing as more and more countries are globalizing. However, for approximately 20% of the world, which Collier approximates to 50 states, and which he names the "bottom billion," failure to cope with modernity is a way of life. These bottom states thus suffer from chronic civil wars, bad governance and lack of proper 21st century living standards. For this reason, Collier has written this book with the scope of educating the international community in developed countries about these various problems in the developing world. More importantly, however, the author stresses that one must take action and follow his advice to help these developing countries step out of poverty and the various traps in which they are entangled, and contribute towards making the world a better place, a more advanced, peaceful place, in which to live.

Collier begins the book by telling the readers how the bottom billion are falling behind while falling apart. He states that while "the countries at the bottom coexist with the twenty-first century […] their reality is the fourteenth century: civil war, plague, ignorance." The author goes on the describe that these developing countries are concentrated in Africa and Central Asia and that their income has fallen by 5% between the ending of the Cold War and the September 11 attacks. To add to these disheartening statistics, he points out that rarely are development NGO's or governmental organizations located in these less-than-glamorous countries, and that most prefer posts in China or Brazil. Collier further adds that the governments of these countries at the bottom, one of the root causes for their lack of progress, are often composed of psychopaths who have "shot" (sometimes literally) their way to power, or bought it.

The other root cause for lack of progress in these poor countries, which Collier stresses throughout the book as one of his most important points, is "traps." The author believes that most societies in the developing world who are not lifting themselves out of poverty, which is not an endemic trap, are stuck in other various traps, including the conflict trap, the natural resource trap, being landlocked with bad neighbors, and the bad governance in a small country trap.

The first trap, the conflict trap, includes one of the most violent and wrenching of conflicts: civil war. There are characteristics, such as low income, slow growth, and dependence upon primary commodity exports, which can accelerate a country's direction towards the conflict trap, and it is only a matter of time before civil war erupts in such an instance. The second instance, the natural resource trap, the author states, has developed out of greed. Whereas some countries, such as Norway, use their abundance of oil for bettering the country, other countries, such as Chad, utilize these resources to benefit a small percentage of the population and generally oppress the majority. In a place like Chad, where the resources are utilized by such a government, a lopsided democracy without electoral competition or checks and balances, it is easy to see why the country is failing despite its natural resource blessings (which have therefore become a curse). The third trap, being landlocked with bad neighbors is self-explanatory, and means that a country's potential for growth is thwarted by outside factors. For example, if a country must export and its neighbor has poor roads, or requests impossible fees for transport through his country, the first country's ability to profit is diminished. Lastly, the bad governance trap is important because governance and economic policies help shape a country's performance. Without good governance, a country spirals into chaos, and the realities of the first two traps become all too possible.