tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight a conversation with william easterly about his new text on the security of experts. he calls for nothing less than a radical rethinking of our approach to global development. and return to a conversation to the two-time grammy winner james conlon, who was conductor and music director of the los angeles opera. he is honoring them me sick of composers who have been marginalized by history. -- honoring the music of composers who have been marginalized by history. those conversations coming up right now.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. the 1960's, two .3 chilean dollars in aid has gone to developing countries in an effort to eradicate poverty with only limited results. is now seniorly fellow at the brookings institution. he has written extensively about ,his issue and in his new text

the tearing of experts, economists and dictators and the forgotten rights of the poor, he calls for radical rethinking of our approach to development. to have you, good back on this program. >> good to be back. tavis: this is a bold and provocative and in-your-face title, the tearing of experts. who are you talking about? >> i'm talking about what i used staff, thed bank gates foundation, the rockefeller foundation. we have this paternalistic attitude in which we think we know what is best for poor people, and we don't recognize poor people's rights to determine their own destiny, to determine their own democratic destiny. that is what we fundamentally disrespect in the business of foreign aid. tavis: to my mind, the tyranny is not maligned neglect, it certainly is not

well-intentioned, just add implementation. that is a damming indictment. >> it is really a sin of omission more than commission. that we really don't seem to care about the rights of four people. let me give you one small example if i could. there is a world bank project that was done in uganda to convert land to forests among which was thought to be of higher value output for the land. it sounds very technical and very good and neutral, but it wasn't neutral at all. soldiers went in with guns, took away 20,000 ugandan farmers land at gunpoint, burn down their homes and crops, kill their attle, march them away gunpoint and left them without land. experts.the tierney of an expert solution that does not respect the rights of the poor to their own land, making them even worse off than they were before. there are some pretty high-profile american to have taken exception to your work and have pushed back.

of obviously are well aware all the stuff they have said. what do you make of the fact that there are persons who are otherwise respected in our society who say that you have it wrong? >> maybe i do have it wrong. i think we need to at least have the debate. what saddens me most is that we haven't even really had this debate on the rights of the poor. we hardly even talk about the rights of the poor. for example, this world bank run check was on the front page of the new york times, and the world bank momentarily apologized and said they would investigate. but in fact they never really investigated. they did no investigation of their own at all. they faced no consequences whatsoever. nobody in the whole field of critics you are siding in development ever protested that world bank project. they never -- never protested that no one had to pay any consequences.

it is like done with impunity. that is what i am arguing against here in the book. bill gates for example, who does great work, no doubt about it. >> i admire him a lot. tavis: and yet there have been times when there was a contestation of the way you solve this and the way he sees this. when people name the bill gates foundation and they just assume they are doing great work all around the world, what respectfully are they not getting? >> i think bill gates does not understand how development happens. if element happens when poor people demand their own rights and can demand their own government democratically do what they want them to do, and not do horrible things to them like was done to the ugandan farmers. bill gates has often praised the government of ethiopia is doing great things. the dictator of ethiopia for 20

years, bill grates -- bill gates praised him for doing all the right technical things. but he was a serial human rights abuser. he killed demonstrators in the streets after rigged elections. he denied famine relief to the opposition. he put a peaceful blogger in jail for 18 years just for advocating peacefully for democracy in ethiopia. this is not the good guy. this is not the solution to ethiopia's poverty. he is the problem, not the solution. tavis: this is not an indictment on bill gates, this book we read you are not doing that and i'm not doing that. the point is, how do you respond to people who say dr. easterly, you are dealing in certain parts of the world, you have to deal with the leaders that are in place. you're not in charge of who they elect or putting people in .ffice if my foundation or the work i am engaged in is about getting

, i have to people work with the system that is in place to do as much good as i can for the people on the ground . how do you respond to that? >> is not us who are demanding democracy. it is the ethiopians who are demanding democracy in ethiopia. courageous ethiopian dissidents demanding democracy in ethiopia. when bill gates supports usaid to ethiopia as he has very emphatically comment when he supports world bank in ethiopia, and he praises the dictator of ethiopia for having done a lot of good, he is really taking sides against these dissidents, against the courageous campaign for their own democratic rights, and he has given us the mistaken view that development is really done by dictators, when it is just the opposite. they are not the ones who create development. tavis: at the

center of your book is the argument that we have to make a choice of whether we want free development or authoritarian development. i think the viewer already has the distinction of the two. tell me what you mean when you say free development versus authoritarian development. ricky down for me. -- rake it down for me. >> free development is what we have all experienced in the u.s. you cannot imagine this uganda story we talked about happening in california, for example. we had something much more minor happen with the traffic jam on a bridge in new jersey. sign of our democracy in action. how seriously you take our own rights. tavis: we live in an interconnected world. that said, what agency to the american people have when they

read this book, to take what you have laid out seriously and do something about it? >> what we can do is say we should not be financing repression in uganda and ethiopia. it is not an accident that we are financing these guys because they are allies in the war on terror. it's a lot like the bad old days of the cold war when we were financing autocrats who are our allies in the cold war. we are not happy with supporting autocrats that reject our values. we are on the side of people who are campaigning for their own recognition which is the same recognition we want of our rights. believeell me why you -- disabuse me of the notion that fellow citizens don't much care who we are financing and what happens in the other part of the world? they don't see it, they don't really hear about it.

it is far removed, not even in our consciousness, and even if it were, if in the name of protecting us by being allied with certain dictators -- you know where i'm going with this. if it ends up protecting us, that's the price we have to pay. what sense do we have that the american people care about that anyway? >> i think they do care. they care a lot about the material poverty of poor people in africa and other poor parts of the world. what am trying to convince them is it is not only about material poverty. it's also about the dignity and rights of poor people. you cannot treat for people like some kind of bundle of needs for food and water and shelter. that would be very disrespectful of their dignity to treat them like that. i'm trying to change the conversation away from that focus only about caring about the material poverty to

respecting their dignity and rights and their demand for democratic accountability of their own government. >> i couldn't agree more with everything you have just said, but isn't that always the fight, trying to get people to celebrate dignity and to stop contesting their humanity? that is always the fight. >> it is always the fight. we see it every day. over the week and there's a story about madonna going into allowing and trumpeting herself as the saver -- savior of malawi. are savingle who ourselves. we don't need some rockstar to save us. i love music, but god help us if the rock stars are going to save us. [laughter] expertsthe tyranny of written by the courageous william easterly, getting us to

talk about these issues. what kind of people we want to be allies with around the world where the rights of the poor are concerned. good to have you on this program. up next, conductor james conlon. stay with us. two-time grammy winner james conlon is the conductor and music director of the los angeles opera. he is also championing composers whose work is not so well known to contemporary audiences. music by composer silence by that knotty regime. me.by the nazi regi the oratorio combines the story of moses leading the israelites to freedom with negro spirituals. the achievements were hijacked by racism. let's take a look first at james conlon conducting the cincinnati

orchestra and chorus. ♪ tavis: good to have you on the program. >> thank you so much. tavis: let me start by talking about the state of opera. the opera is in trouble, it seems. wantte this down because i to get some context for our conversation if i can. peril,ld of opera is in as i said a moment ago. san diego's opera will fold now after 49 years. these are the closures of late. the new york city opera, 2013. baltimore opera, 2009 opera.

boston, 2011. i percent tonio 2012. clearly you still believe in it -- opera san antonio 2012. >> i'm still optimistic about the future. nothing is happening to opera. it's not that, it's institutions and these are economic issues. aera is very expensive, it is very expensive art form. what has happened basically in our country is that in the last taken out ofs were schools. programs were taken out of schools. now we have adults who are not old enough to remember, i was in the band, a play the violin, we had music appreciation. i grew up in new york city public schools. everybody had that. with that gradually started to diminish in the 1980's, we lost the basic beginning for all of

our population. there's nothing illegal about opera. it's not for special -- there's elite about opera. i just happen to fall in love with opera and classical music when i was very young. i'm grateful to have grown up with it, to have the opportunity. those opportunities are not around. we are not building the audience, and that is part of what is happened. it is very sad about san diego city opera. that doesn't necessarily mean that this is what is going to happen to every opera company in the country. i still personally hope that some of those situations can be turned around. tavis: >> but if it is happening in major cities, james, i think you're right it won't happen to every opera, but if it happens in these major markets, shall we say where there is more cosmopolitanism, what gives you reason to believe, where it is

the hope come from that sustains you to do what you do? >> don't forget that new york city is a special issue because the metropolitan opera is right across the class of from the city opera, and that is a big factor. i don't know a lot about the particulars in san diego. the arts have been sponsored since the time of the renaissance. the meadow cheese made florence dicis made florence the renaissance that it was. it is very important that we do it and continue to fight. i will never stop fighting. i believe deeply in the beauty of this art form and i believe it is for everyone. it is music for everybody. you bring children, you don't say you're going to hate this. you just bring them.

i believe they will react naturally to this. we need to expose everybody. tavis: tell me about this premier. >> as you gathered, i like to find opportunities to provide the public to hear pieces that they do not know. somebody once said to me, an old book read for the first time is a new book. it doesn't matter to me if it was written 100 years ago, 200 years ago. if it has something of substance, something appealing, if it has something to say, it's important that we hear it. that the annual event is a composer -- nathaniel didn't is a composer of it nor ms. substance. -- enormous substance. he was a canadian american who was educated fully in the united states. he was a very air you died man. he wrote this piece -- he was a very erudite man.

it was premiered by the cincinnati may festival and was given a national broadcast for the opening. this was quite an event. thereby hangs a tale. that national broadcast was interrupted three quarters of for reasons that are obscure, although we can imagine. .ou can hear this you can go on youtube and hear this happen. the announcer comes on and says due to previous programming, we will now discontinued the performance at the cincinnati may festival. this was clearly the act of persons who were racist and who had influence and for whatever reason were resentful of the 'sct that an african-american is it was being performed on national radio.

that is unacceptable, of course. it didn't get hurt again until the 1950's where it was produced again a second time in cincinnati with leontyne price. i found out about a few years ago and i said this is a perfect thing for us to be bringing to new york city at carnegie hall when we visit there in may. i wanted to bring an american program, contemporary work of john adams. john adams is one of the most imminent composers in america today. theso wanted to show what may festival has accomplished over it's very long history. it is the oldest choral festival in the united states. i think this one is a very important contribution. you turned that corner because you started out

describing what happened that night as obscure. there is nothing of secure about it in my mind, it was flat out racist. there must be plenty of other pieces we have never heard from all kinds of composers including those of color that have been pushed to the corners, collecting dust on the shelves somewhere, because it wasn't given the respect it initially deserved and no one brought it to the rest of us so we could be exposed. is there a bunch of stuff that we just haven't heard? quick there is so much music we have not heard coming from all sources that i could fill up the rest of my life. it is incumbent on all of us who have the opportunity to bring music of value to the audience and to the public, and that is what we should do. tavis: you mentioned leontyne

price is one of the greats, no doubt about that. i wonder what your take is on or lackus, the presence thereof, of people of color in opera today. how much progress do you think we have made? >> the opera role is very open because we are all desperate to get great voices. there are so many great voices of african americans that fortunately, that has broken down a lot of these limits. less so for the men, strangely enough. , i adore lien team price. it was one of the great experiences of my young life to work with her. price.tyne she has opened the door to many others. a little bit slower for african-american males, and i don't know if that is changing

as rapidly as it ought to be. but there are so many great voices out there. as composers, there are fewer and fewer. you will remember when scott joplin suddenly became a household word 30 years ago, maybe less. i believe in the case of nathaniel dent, there is enough music to fill several concert halls. tavis: what is your hope that the rest of us will take away from your fighting so hard to expose us to the stuff that we have no idea about? >> my hope would be composers who have been suppressed, who were suppressed by the nazis, there is so much valuable art that we tend to be lazy by listening only to the same things we know, which is not bad. i understand that. but my hope is that we will keep listenrs and that people

to music in a way without any preconceptions, i should like this or i should appreciate this. it is exactly the same with classical music. i believe passionately that it is for everybody. >> we have had all kind of great conductors come to the show. i am always struck by the fact that the people who enjoy classical music, want to hear the same stuff over and over again. i can understand why you would want to hear beethoven and brahms and the list goes on. is, to your why it mind, those of us who are classical music lovers, are so closed off to other stuff. either-ort have to be versus or-and.

is music that gets better or more meaningful every time we hear it. that is not a bad thing or a good thing. we have to keep ourselves open to what is new. , i know that my colleague believes strongly that and i have to listen agree. it is in the nature that classical music grows on you with every repeated hearing. so it is natural that people sit back after a while and say i just want to hear what i know. i look forward to hearing it myself. in the meantime, good to have you want. that's our show for tonight. thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith. >> i would like to say congratulations to tavis forgetting this jar on hollywood boulevard.

hollywoodar on boulevard. it's not on hollywood boulevard but it's on a little cross .treet parallel and he certainly deserves it. die say that right -- did i say that right? , and myinly deserves it utmost congratulations. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with mikael baryshnikov about his new play. that is next time. we will see you then.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs.

next on kqed "newsroom": should police be able to examen the contents of cell phones without a warrant? a look at the changing face of san francisco with mayor ed lee. plus, comedian brian copeland brings back his hit one-man show "not a genuine black man." >> i don't talk ghetto. when i hear the word "ax" i think of it as a noun. [ laughter ]