Essays, cases, and commentary by John A. Donaldson on sufficiency-first, small works, and the politics of poverty reduction.https://johnadonaldson.com/en-ushttps://johnadonaldson.com/writing/taiwan-two-clocks/https://johnadonaldson.com/writing/taiwan-two-clocks/What Taiwan forgot about its own pathway out of poverty. On TSMC's triumph, two divergent clocks, and the difference between an economy that includes its poor versus one that just redistributes to them.Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTEssayhttps://johnadonaldson.com/writing/what-is-sufficiency-first/https://johnadonaldson.com/writing/what-is-sufficiency-first/The idea that poor people benefit more when you generate opportunities that are small in scale and low-tech. Obvious as a prescription — heretical in development.Tue, 10 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMTEssayhttps://johnadonaldson.com/writing/the-end-game/https://johnadonaldson.com/writing/the-end-game/If we brought sufficiency-first to its logical conclusion, what would society look like? On scale, Kuhn, and the call for an epistemic community.Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMTEssayhttps://johnadonaldson.com/writing/large-scale-from-small-scale/https://johnadonaldson.com/writing/large-scale-from-small-scale/KFC, Nescafé, vegetables, cut flowers — all sourced from small Chinese farmers. How land rights kept agribusiness small-scale, for a while.Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMTNotehttps://johnadonaldson.com/writing/organic-alternative/https://johnadonaldson.com/writing/organic-alternative/Lessons from Isan, the rice basket of Thailand, on what it takes to shift small-scale farmers into certified organic production.Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMTNotehttps://johnadonaldson.com/writing/cash-crop-alternative/https://johnadonaldson.com/writing/cash-crop-alternative/Most poor people in poor countries farm. When subsistence becomes unviable, mainstream economists prescribe scaling up. But there are other ways.Wed, 04 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMTNotehttps://johnadonaldson.com/writing/the-journey-begins/https://johnadonaldson.com/writing/the-journey-begins/My 'discovery' of a fifty-year-old idea. How a puzzle about two neighboring Chinese provinces led, eventually, to what I now call sufficiency-first.Tue, 03 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMTEssayhttps://johnadonaldson.com/writing/commentary-china-100-years/https://johnadonaldson.com/writing/commentary-china-100-years/Op-ed for Channel News Asia on the centrality of poverty in Chinese politics, a century after the founding of the Communist Party.Fri, 11 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMTOp-edhttps://johnadonaldson.com/writing/bbc-radio-xi-jinping/https://johnadonaldson.com/writing/bbc-radio-xi-jinping/A brief interview on BBC Radio's News Day discussing the announcement that China had eradicated absolute rural poverty.Sun, 28 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMTBBC Radiohttps://johnadonaldson.com/writing/poor-people-in-china-today/https://johnadonaldson.com/writing/poor-people-in-china-today/A short video on the persistence of poverty in China — a reminder that the 'end of absolute poverty' is not the end of poverty.Fri, 26 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMTVideohttps://johnadonaldson.com/writing/lies-damned-lies-scopus/https://johnadonaldson.com/writing/lies-damned-lies-scopus/On the seductions and distortions of citation databases — from someone who has spent a lot of time reading them.Sat, 30 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMTEssay