Collier's also very interesting on fisheries. The world's annual catch is about $80bn; annual subsidies about $30bn. He's got an interesting idea for how to protect, and sustainably harvest, the fish of the open oceans. Since these are "the true global domination of mankind", assign them to the United Nations, to be used to fund the World Food Programme, and similar, non-glamorous parts of agency operations, "global public goods", that struggle for support.
He's also got interesting things to say about developed states: such as on Europe how very little tax revenue is distributed beyond the state that collects it. Contrary to the claims of the Daily Mail and other Eurosceptics: "The pan-European tax rate is merely one percent of income, and virtually all of this is redistributed within the country which has originally paid the taxes."
A wry black humour also occasionally sneaks through to enliven the text, as in: "In the familiar game of thinking up clever collective names, nobody has ever suggested 'a modesty of economists'." And he's also no captive of the neo-classicists, despite the curiously unthinking optimism. He notes that "since the 1980s the bulk of the profession has persuaded itself of the superiority of private action to public action... [but] the global economic crisis has taken the shine off the magic of the market, although the bulk of the economics profession remains in denial."
So The Plundered Planet is surprisingly readable overall, and the ideas are interesting. Well worth the time. Just remember that while Collier's more self-aware than most, he's still an economist, with some enormous intellectual blindspots.
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