Jim Yong Kim: Obsession With Corporate Profits 'Worsened The Lives Of Millions'

President Barack Obama stands with Jim Yong Kim, his nominee to be the next World Bank President, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Friday, March 23, 2012. Kim is currently the president of Dartmouth College. (AP)

The man likely to become the next president of the World Bank thinks the global economy's obsessive emphasis on growth, something the World Bank itself has supported, has helped increase poverty and struggle around the world.

Jim Yong Kim, President Obama's nominee to lead the World Bank, wrote in the 2000 book Dying for Growth that the West's emphasis on stimulating economic growth has worsened the lives of millions of people. Kim wrote of a dire tradeoff between economic development and reducing poverty, coincidentally the World Bank's own dual goals.

"As the imperatives of growth at any cost increasingly determine economic and social policy and the behavior of global corporations, more people join the ranks of the poor and greater numbers suffer and die," Kim wrote in the book, according to NYU's Development Research Institute.

Kim singled out the World Bank, among other international agencies, as being partly responsible for this push to prioritize economic growth.

"The studies in this book present evidence that the quest for growth in GDP and corporate profits has in fact worsened the lives of millions of women and men," he wrote.

But some are critical of Kim's view. NYU economics professor William Easterly, for one, was not complimentary of Kim's criticism of the pursuit of economic growth. Easterly wrote on Twitter that "Dr. Kim attracts support from World Bank members who don't want themselves to have economic growth."

And other economists have been critical of Kim's lack of experience in development economics outside of global health, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Kim co-founded Partners In Health, which has helped deliver medical treatment to poor people around the world for diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

Before taking the helm of Dartmouth College in 2009, he taught at Harvard Medical School for 16 years.

Comments

[Karen Levin]

06:25 AM on 03/28/2012

Here is where our leaders have - once again - shot themselves in their own feet. We have believed what we were told, and it did not come to pass. There are only so many times that the collective mind of the masses can be lied to, and then, no more. Why should I trust any newly appointed official anymore - they have said they care, and have shown they do not. No more kool-aid drinking for me or our progressive brothers and sisters. No more hating our neighbors - anywhere. No more propaganda and lies. The truth is found in the words of the Occupy General Assemblies. Go, listen, speak, and most important; learn the truth of what has been done and will be done to us if you do not!

[fireart]

08:29 PM on 03/27/2012

To have "O" and his friends try to run the USA would make a great python movie if we were having to be the audience.

[albertarick]

11:43 AM on 03/28/2012

It definitely was a a great movie to watch when "W" was running the show.

[fireart]

05:28 PM on 03/28/2012

Most of them were not on unemployment .

[indyclem]

01:23 PM on 03/27/2012

to have a medical doctor run a banking buisiness makes no sense to me

[albertarick]

11:45 AM on 03/28/2012

He may actually have a sense of the consequences of his actions will be. The current crop of bankers have proven to be pretty disconnected from the reality that their actions foist on the people.

[indyclem]

02:56 PM on 03/28/2012

that position should be run by someone with banking experiance with the number crunching that goes with the job not run with emotion from a doctors perspective

[jmengr]

12:24 PM on 03/27/2012

Milton Friedman worsened the lives of millions.

[outsider1962]

11:39 AM on 03/27/2012

Actually it is not growth per say that has hurt millions. It is how growth has been achieved in the last 10 years or so. The large majority of growth in multi-nationals has been achieved through aggressive labour costs reductions, mergers and acquisitions. All of which resulted in work being optimized, eliminated or outsourced. IBM is a good example of a company that has achieved 16 straight quarters of profit growth, largely due to constant reduction of labour (outsourcing). If all companies rush for the cheapest labour, there is no stopping this trend until the Western worker becomes cheaper.

[BBackSoon]

02:25 PM on 03/27/2012

When average costs in Low Cost countries are 1/4 or less than what the non-living wage pay is here, it will be a long time till we get to that point. Or we will see a nasty rev-o-lution.

[TheSocialCapitalist]

11:38 AM on 03/27/2012

Now he's the perfect pick. I was hoping he would give a hint of how he would approach growth for the sake of growth rather than growth for the sake of progress.

The role of the WB was corrupted long ago, can Kim right the ship?

[AlonzoQuijana]

11:35 AM on 03/27/2012

Sorry to see this. Sounds like a doctrinaire socialist.

Despite the leftists' conventional wisdom, the reality is that higher GDPs lead to better lives for all. Longer life expectancy. Better quality of life. Even a better environment. The idea that economic stagnation is good for people is just absurd.

Disappointing nomination.

[jrfromdallas]

12:08 PM on 03/27/2012

How can you possibly be surprised?

[BBackSoon]

02:48 PM on 03/27/2012

No one but you has said anything about Economic Stagnation.

So this makes you either a fool or a liar.

[Dr Scott]

11:24 AM on 03/27/2012

Maintaining economies at close to zero growth, relative to population growth, is really the great economic and social challenge of this century.
Obviously, a "free market" economy is a bad model for the rapidly growing population. Forget about resources, we'll be killing entire countries just for land to spread out.

[AlonzoQuijana]

11:37 AM on 03/27/2012

Yes, let's keep Mali, Chad and the Gambia and all the other $2,000 a year per capita income countries at zero growth. You are sentencing millions of people to horrible lives of despair and squalor. Why liberals are so opposed to economic growth is beyond me.

[danielnedelcu]

11:24 AM on 03/27/2012

Oh great...another incompetent college professor who wants to tell me what I'm doing wrong. I say enough with the professors and lets get some competent business people leading this country. Sick and tired of ideologs.

[AlonzoQuijana]

11:37 AM on 03/27/2012

A development expert who is opposed to development is just Orwellian.

[jrfromdallas]

11:22 AM on 03/27/2012

Spreading the wealth is a pathetic idea

[LI2USsomemore]

11:17 AM on 03/27/2012

Two thumbs up to Mr. Kim. In the corrosive environment of corporatocracy, I doubt he will last long at the (proposed) position as head of the WB. His critics, of course, are the very ones who see capitalism as the greatest economic adventure devised by man and tohellwith the consequences.

Mr. Kim is a rarity. He sees the need for BALANCE. His opponents not so much.

[AlonzoQuijana]

11:38 AM on 03/27/2012

Yes, let's go back to full-blown socialism and communism.

[LI2USsomemore]

12:56 PM on 03/27/2012

Well, aren't you thoughtful and informed. Not!

[Mat Biscan]

11:17 AM on 03/27/2012

It would be nice to move from profits over people, to people over profits. Things may get a bit more expensive, but you can't buy cheap if you're dead.

[1967Tbolt]

11:31 AM on 03/27/2012

Could have had Larry Summers, pal.

[Passenger57]

11:06 AM on 03/27/2012

I like this guy already...

[v eyepete]

11:05 AM on 03/27/2012

"Obsession With Corporate Profits" otherwise known as down and dirty greed.