Over at LfDC, NZC cites a comment at Catallarchy, which, when I read between the lines a little, suggests that pulling yourself up by your bootstraps isn’t easy when you’ve fallen neck deep into mosquito-egg-ridden fetid swamp mud while on the run from the “owner” an Arab sold you to, you’ve had an arm or two hacked off my a machete-wielding ethnic cleanser, you’re suffering from HIV/AIDS because your society taught you that all you had to do to avoid it was keep deflowering virgins, your Kleptocrat gov’t has done everything it can to ensure that you never see a cent of foreign aid and your country never sees a cent of foreign investment, you’re too poor to emigrate properly, and all the neighboring countries you think you might be able to walk to over the next year or two are worse than the one you’re in. The commenter says:
they cannot possibly solve these problems alone.
I think it’s hard to disagree.
(When TJIC reads between the lines, he sees trust-fund kids with drug habits on whom our pity and charity are wasted. I think he’s off on a tangent, and his observations aren’t really applicable.)
I’m not sure I agree with Sachs’ depiction of the problems faced by the third world, at least, as quoted at Catallarchy:
The outside world has pat answers concerning extremely impoverished countries, especially those in Africa. Everything comes back, again and again, to corruption and misrule. Western officials argue that Africa simply needs to behave itself better, to allow market forces to operate without interference by corrupt rulers. Yet the critics of African governance have it wrong. Politics simply can’t explain Africa’s prolonged economic crisis. The claim that Africa’s corruption is the basic source of the problem does not withstand serious scrutiny. During the past decade I witnessed how relatively well-governed countries in Africa, such as Ghana, Malawi, Mali and Senegal, failed to prosper, whereas societies in Asia perceived to have extensive corruption, such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan, enjoyed rapid economic growth.
Becker and Posner have interesting things to say about the different results you get from twiddling the economic freedom and political freedom knobs. I saw an interesting presentation on CSPAN a few years back about studies of successful vs. unsuccessful third world economies and the amounts of foreign aid they recieve. SE Asia was the home of several success stories, while African nations mostly persisted in doing things wrong. Sachs goes on:
In fact, the failure of the Third World to grow as rapidly as the First World is the result of a complex mix of factors, some geographical, some historical and some political. Imperial rule often left the conquered regions bereft of education, health care, indigenous political leadership and adequate physical infrastructure.
WTF? Unless Sachs is talking about the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe here, he’s lost me. It’s my impression that at one time or other, most places in the world have played host to fantastically successful civilazations. While there are a lot of variables involved, ones that stand out in my mind are cultural change for the worse, political change for the worse, and climate change for the worse. I suppose the fear that the GBS notion expresses is that the world will become one big Sao Paulo, with the wealthy living in gated communities surrounded by machine-gun toting guards, and traveling between them in urchin-proof SUVs across seas of poverty, crime, filth and disease, (I know, I know, the world is already / has always been like this, etc.) and (maybe?) suggests that the solution is to roll the SUV windows down and throw handfuls of reals out the window as you drive. Even if the poor of the world aren’t trying to extort money from you, the GBS rationale NZC paraphrases is tantamount to responding as if they are. It feels too much like paying the Dangeld to me, which, it has been suggested, solves nothing.
Recent history suggests this is a bad idea, too. Technology makes the world smaller and more dangerous every day, and anger and envy being what they are, even if you’ve got the scratch to elevate the wretched to your level of luxury, they’re probably still going to resent being dependent on you. When your culture, polity or climate happens to make a change for the worse, and you suddenly don’t have your protection money on hand, what then?
I’m all for charity (the voluntary kind, at least), but I don’t want it to wind up in some thug’s Swiss vault. Help people in the third world remove the impediments to success that they’re facing. Once that’s done, charity for those still in need sounds less foolish.