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     One interpretation of trends today is that the Rise of the Rest challenges the free values of the West.  Focusing on the last few decades, the high growth in autocratic China seems like a particular assault on the Western model.  But this book has offered another interpretation from a longer-run perspective:  free values are gradually spreading from the West to the Rest, including to China, and the Rise of the Rest reflects precisely that spread of free values.  The idea that individual rights are "Western values" may be an anachronism that is becoming clearer.

     The global double standard of rights for the rich and not for the poor is very much alive in the technocratic world view of development.  But this, too, could be a casualty of the Rise of the Rest and the spread of freedom.  The disrespect for poor people shown by agencies such as the World Bank and the Gates Foundation, with their stereotypes of wise technocrats from the West and helpless victims from the Rest, may become increasingly untenable.  Development may have to give up its authoritarian mind-set to survive.

-William Easterly