Building a new American economy

A critique of the analysis of Jeffrey D. Sachs

     Jeffrey D. Sachs is University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. He has been advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The need for a technologically advanced infrastructure that drives productivity

     In Building the New American Economy (published in 2017 by Columbia University Press), Sachs maintains that the United States needs to rebuild its infrastructure, because its current infrastructure is deteriorating due to insufficient maintenance, and it is in any event outdated, built for the economy of the 1950s, based on the automobile, steel, and oil.  We need a new infrastructure that reflects today’s technological capacities and envir…