April 23, 2025 – by admin
Jeffrey Sachs, once hailed as an economic wunderkind and now a self-appointed global interpreter, steps onto the world stage like a moral chronicler. He presents himself as a conscientious voice warning against the world’s evils—from imperialism to injustice. But behind the halo, shadows flicker: conspiracy rhetoric and subtle insinuations that echo dark clichés. Sachs, the Moralist of Wall Street, preaches morality loudly, but with a noticeably selective outrage barometer.
Between Principle and Precipice
With professorial gestures, Sachs denounces Western sins and invokes higher values. He positions himself as a moral authority, someone who speaks the unvarnished truth to the powerful. Yet in this role, he repeatedly veers into questionable territory. In interviews, he spreads bold claims that veer more toward the realm of conspiracy. Recently, he spun a tale of a “decades-long conspiracy” by Israel against disobedient Middle Eastern regimes. According to him, the U.S. is manipulated by the notorious “Israel lobby” into waging wars—an argument that leans heavily on classic anti-Semitic tropes. That Sachs, himself of Jewish descent, would disseminate such insinuations lends the whole thing a bitter irony. From the mouth of a self-proclaimed moralist, it sounds as if he’s revealed the formula of the world—when in reality, he’s merely repackaging age-old conspiracy myths.
The economist, once celebrated as a fighter against poverty and a development advocate, now appears on talk shows, where he reveals supposed puppet masters with the voice of unwavering conviction. Once respected, Sachs, according to observers, has undergone a “disturbing transformation from respected economist to freelance propagandist of the Kremlin.” With sharp-tongued polemics, he scolds Western politicians as warmongers while cozying up to those who, in his theories, always remain innocent.
A Double Standard in a Halo
Sachs’ outrage is distributed selectively across the globe—at times with inquisitorial zeal, at others with gentle leniency. It’s striking whom he targets and whom he spares:
In the moralist’s crosshairs:
He passionately criticizes the U.S. and its allies. Washington’s “empire,” he claims, is to blame for virtually everything, from Ukraine to the Middle East. He levels heavy accusations at Israel, implicitly labeling it the puppet master of American politics, and NATO doesn’t escape his wrath either—portrayed as a provocateur of global conflict. He speaks of Western military interventions with dramatic indignation; every misstep by the West becomes, in his view, a moral catastrophe.
Handled with kid gloves:
Russia and China, however, are met with remarkable leniency. Russia’s aggressions are whitewashed as understandable responses, with NATO supposedly having “forced” Russia to defend itself. The fact that the Kremlin launched a brutal war in Ukraine is nearly glossed over in Sachs’ narrative; instead, he echoes Putin’s talking points about legitimate Russian security concerns. Similarly soft is his tone toward Beijing: China, he claims, is merely misunderstood and encircled by the West. Sachs even seriously calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from East Asia, arguing there is “no historical basis to believe in Chinese aggression.” Human rights violations or Beijing’s power ambitions? Nowhere to be found in his commentary.
This Selective Outrage Raises Questions
While Sachs presents himself as a moral compass, the needle of that compass shows a pronounced tilt. When it comes to autocrats like Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Sachs transforms from accuser to defender: Assad, he claims in all seriousness, governed a “normal, functioning country,” and downplays atrocities as Western propaganda. Here the moralist reveals himself as a relativist: to some he delivers sermons, while to others he rhetorically wipes the blood from their hands.
The Chronicler with Two Sets of Measures
In the style of a chronicler, Sachs paints a worldview clinging to outdated East–West templates. His analyses do indeed show depth, especially when dissecting American foreign policy mistakes—he is knowledgeable and often accurate there. But what good is the most brilliant analysis if it’s steeped in ideology? Sachs acts like a commentator looking through a filtered telescope: he sees the faults of one side in crystal clarity while consistently ignoring those of the other. The result is a skewed chronicle of world politics—opinionated, yes, but distorted.
Sachs himself masters irony and rhetorical flair when lashing out at Western politicians. A U.S. president quickly becomes a dangerous imperialist, while a Russian autocrat is presented as a misunderstood soul merely seeking security. The polemics he employs ultimately backfire: the Moralist of Wall Street stands accused of being exactly what he claims to fight against—an ideologue with his own agenda. His role as a geopolitical commentator turns out to be a balancing act between justified criticism and bizarre apologia for authoritarian regimes.
In the end, a stale aftertaste remains. Jeffrey Sachs may have aspired to be the moral conscience of the world, but when that conscience beats selectively, it may do more harm than good. A chronicler who proclaims half-truths with full indignation loses credibility. Sachs has maneuvered himself into a corner where his moralizing tone sounds increasingly hollow. The world is complex, yet in Sachs’ narrative it is surprisingly simple: the West is almost always to blame. The moral preacher basks in the attention, but whether he truly serves the world remains another question. Ultimately, Sachs remains a cautionary figure—a moralist with a broken compass, a chronicler who measures with two sets of standards, and who has now become the subject of critical reflection himself.
The Architect and the Sand
An architect stands before a desert of sand—the post-Soviet Russia of the early 1990s. In his hand, he holds an ambitious blueprint: rapid market liberalization, privatization, shock therapy. The architect’s name is Jeffrey Sachs. He knows the ground is unstable: corruption runs through the soil, the rule of law is patchy at best, and political storms sweep across the land. Nevertheless, he begins to sketch his structure with hasty strokes: a free market economy is to be erected here—quickly and radically. It’s as if he wants to build a glass skyscraper on quicksand, hoping that speed might compensate for foundation.
Blueprint on Quicksand
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, chaos reigns: the economy is in shambles, state coffers are empty, inflation is galloping. In this environment, Sachs, advising the Russian government, proposes a neoliberal shock therapy. The idea: abolish price controls immediately, float the ruble, rapidly privatize state enterprises—a radical fresh start in record time. The architect Sachs is convinced only a quick cut can save the patient. Yet he overlooks that the operating room is crawling with infection. What use is the best economic theory if corruption and legal vacuum undermine its very foundation?
Implementation begins in January 1992, and cracks quickly appear in the beams. Prices skyrocket, the ruble loses dramatic value, people’s savings vanish. The country sinks into hyperinflation and poverty. Within a short time, the cost of essentials multiplies, and millions of Russians fall below the poverty line. In fact, the share of Russians living in poverty jumps from about 2% at the end of the Soviet era to around 50% by the mid-1990s—a historic collapse. The shock therapy has devastating effects on ordinary people, eroding their livelihoods. Meanwhile, cunning insiders exploit the chaotic privatization to snatch up former state enterprises. A new class of oligarchs emerges in record time: a few winners, millions of losers. The economic structure Sachs designed begins to wobble before it ever stands upright.
Soon it’s clear: the house is crooked. The hoped-for market economy devolves into a Wild West capitalism. With no functioning courts or effective laws, the free market becomes a robber’s den. Corruption thrives instead of being eradicated; the shock therapy has worsened the rot. In the 1990s, Russia sees a staggering rise in mortality—experts describe it as the worst peacetime demographic collapse in an industrial nation. The social fabric unravels while the architects remain engrossed in their plans. Sachs’ miscalculation becomes tragically apparent: he ignored the state of the ground. The unstable base—corruption, lack of rule of law, no social safety net—required foundational work long before any bold economic structure could be raised. Instead, it was built on sand, and the structure collapsed. Most Russians experienced the 1990s as an economic nightmare, worse than the Great Depression in the West.
When the Pillars Fall and the Architect Keeps Drawing
When the construction crashes down, the criticism rains in. Western observers and Russian citizens alike ask: wasn’t this radical plan doomed from the start? Sachs, however, steps back from the rubble and brushes the dust off his lapel. Responsibility? Not his, he claims. His plan was right, just poorly implemented. Indeed, he later vehemently distances himself from the worst outcomes: he claims he “had nothing to do” with the corrupt privatization—he even “strongly opposed it.” He emphasizes that his advisory role was limited to macroeconomics, as though dividing responsibilities could soften the scale of the disaster. He also argues that his advice was ignored: many reforms, he says, were never implemented. A functioning social safety net, which he had recommended, was lacking, and the monetary policy was not stabilized consistently enough. In short: Sachs places the failure on others—on Russian hardliners who abandoned the prescription too early, and on Western donors who failed to provide promised billions. Indeed, Sachs had warned that without massive foreign capital, it wouldn’t work. In his eyes, then, the therapy was not to blame—only the neglected aftercare.
This self-exoneration runs through Sachs’ later commentary. He argues the shock therapy in Russia “never got a fair chance,” implying that his model was sound in principle. But critics counter: a good model must also adapt to realities. And the reality of Russia in 1992 was, in a word, sand: crumbling institutions, powerful old elites, no tradition of legal order. To try and transform such an environment into a turbo-capitalist economy was itself a radical experiment. Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz warned early on that too much haste without institutional development could be fatal. Economist William Easterly also stressed that a functioning market economy needs a legal foundation that cannot be conjured overnight. But the architects of shock therapy ignored these warnings—with well-known consequences.
The Echo of Responsibility
The collapse of Russia’s economic experiment had not only economic but also political consequences. Many Russians felt betrayed and humiliated by the West. The democratic experiment was discredited by the chaos of the ’90s, ultimately amplifying the call for a “strong man.” In the rubble of shock therapy, Vladimir Putin found fertile ground for his rise. A bitter historical paradox: Sachs, who had hoped to help install democracy and markets in Russia, unwittingly helped pave the way for authoritarian restoration. The architect intended to build a shining edifice—and unknowingly stirred the sandstorm that swept it away.
Today, Jeffrey Sachs views this chapter with mixed emotions. On the one hand, he still defends the principles of his plan; on the other, he expresses disappointment in his former partners. But genuine self-criticism remains rare. The metaphor of the architect on sand is hard to ignore: Sachs’ mistake lay not just in the details of construction, but in the arrogance of the design. He believed he could ignore the laws of the foundation—that markets and capitalism would function simply by being unleashed, even if the pillars of rule of law and stability were missing. That blind faith in his model came at a cost.
The chronicler in us may conclude: the architect Sachs learned one thing from the collapse—how to elegantly delegate blame. He’s quick to shift responsibility for the failed project onto others, while he himself moves on, now as a commentator on world order. But the story of the house built on sand remains a cautionary tale. It shows that grandiose plans must ultimately withstand the test of reality. Sachs’ shock therapy in Russia collapsed because its architects ignored the groundwork. The architect moved on, but the sand still clings to his boots. His blueprint may have looked brilliant on the drafting table; in practice, it became quicksand for an entire nation. And so, Jeffrey Sachs, the architect, stands somewhat helpless before the wreckage his work left behind—surrounded by the echo of responsibility from which he sought to flee.