Professor Lal vs Bono: Overseas Aid does more harm than good.
January 14th 2007 00:36
Chewing at the wrong bone Oh!
Recently I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Lal and discussing various issues with him. He made it clear to me that while he thought Bono and Geldorf were well meaning people. They were really doing more harm than good. Here is his interview with Michael Duffy and I need say nothing more.
Michael Duffy: Professor Lal, can we move to Africa now and in part look at the vexed issue of foreign aid. Can you tell us what aid has achieved and what this tells us about Africa?
Deepak Lal: It has achieved nothing. It's not just aid...the thing about Africa is it's an incredibly rich country in terms of natural resources. The trouble with natural resources and aid, this is like manna from heaven, you don't earn it, it just comes and falls into your lap, it normally goes to government. The governments then spend their time...firstly, people trying to get into government spend their time trying to kill each other to get hold of the profits from all these things which in some sense is unearned, and that then leads to political corruption, it leads to nothing being done for the general masses of people because you don't need them, all you have to make sure is someone comes and digs up the stuff, ships it abroad, takes a profit and deposits it in your Swiss bank account. So that is a fundamental problem, and aid is just another form of this natural resource rent, it just comes in a slightly different form when it comes in there. So I would have thought that aid has been a complete disaster for Africa and I would say that they should just stop it if they can.
Deepak Lal: No, the humanitarian aid, if it is a famine...the trouble with that of course is that famines in Africa are really state engineered to continue the political battle. If you think of the great Ethiopian famine, that was to try and starve the Eritreans out, and of course that means if you try and send food in, the government will steal the food and not let it get to the people who are actually starving because that's what they really want, they want them to starve.
Michael Duffy: That seems to be part of the problem, there always appears to be a pressing short-term need for aid, but when you add all that up over the last 50 years you see that it's actually sustained the situation of continual disaster.
Deepak Lal: Absolutely.
Michael Duffy: If you took the aid away, Africa still has substantial problems in the way that those nations were actually designed and the groups of people that are within them.
Deepak Lal: In fact that's one of the few parts of the world where the colonial legacy really has left them in a very weak position. Again, going back to this point about political habits, the tribal chiefs were the people who actually maintained order and they made sure that money was not stolen and they were, by and large, quite benevolent, and the only country which was allowed to keep its tribal chiefs was Botswana, partly because there was nothing there, the Brits didn't want to bother to do anything about it. And that's the one African country, sub-Saharan Africa, which has done as well as well as all the East Asian ones because...they have exactly like Singapore, the trappings of democracy et cetera, but it's really run by tribal chiefs. And that I think is a big tragedy because in the rest of Africa you created centralised colonial states whose borders were purely artificially set depending upon which conqueror or explorer ended up where, and that cut across tribes, it cut across all sorts of other things. Within these artificial states they've tried to create a nation. If the imperial order had lasted for another 100 years then maybe they could have created at least a class of people who believed in creating a nation, but what they left behind as you see in case after case are predatory nationalist elites who just want to use either tribal politics or natural resource rents to feather their own nests or feather the nests of their tribal compatriots.
Michael Duffy: We'd better move on to the west, we're almost out of time and I'd like to talk about Africa for a lot longer but we can't. How do you see the future of the west? You suggested our values have become incoherent. Why do you say that?
Deepak Lal: Because they claim that they believe in free trade and small governments. If you go around and look at what's up in Asia now, there are many more countries there which not only say they believe in this but they're actually doing something about it. China is probably the fierce labour market in the world, it carried out the largest unilateral reduction of tariffs since the Corn Laws were repealed in Britain. If you look at the size of governments in many of these countries, they are much, much smaller than that which you find in the so-called champions of this liberal economic order, the US and the EU.
So the western countries are not living up to their rhetoric, and the latest example of course is this absurd dragging of their feet by both the US and the EU on agriculture in the Doha Round of trade. So it seems to me that if you're really looking at things which might derail the world economy, it's no longer as it was in the past, you know, what's been happening in the Third World. The Third World is on the right side, it's really the US and the EU, of which EU is even worse than the US, but the US being the dominant super power or imperial power, whatever you like to call it, that has a much bigger responsibility making sure that the world order is not undermined. I think the best thing they can do is to do what the British did in the 19th century, unilaterally accept free trade and let's forget about all these bilateral deeds, PTAs, FTAs and what have you, and just say, 'From tomorrow our borders are open. If you want to protect your goods, too bad. You're throwing rocks into your own harbour. We're not going to do it,' and that will be the end of the story.
Michael Duffy: If the west doesn't reform, if we go on as we are, what are the implications of that? How do you see the future economically...I mean, in the absence of a big war, where do you think China and India might stand in 25 years compared with the US and Europe?
Deepak Lal: In my book there are two nice pictures. One is of the world economically in 0AD, the start of the Christian era. There were only three large imperial states which were roughly the same in standards of living; Rome, China and India. Then Rome of course collapsed and you had a huge number of small kingdoms, which SE Finer described as poverty stricken dung-heaps. And then you have the 11th century with this rise of capitalism and these papal revolutions. Then the west took off, but it took a long time, they'd not just caught up with India and China. India and China continued happily at this 1st century level of living, if you like. And then the rise of the west and the voyages of discovery et cetera, that then led to the relative decline of India and China. If you look at the figures, that continued until the early part of the early part of the 20th century. Then from the mid 50s you have a very slow gradual rise, and now of course since the 1980s it's galloping. If you look at any figures, the three biggest economic entities in 25 years are going to be the US, India and China. All the rest, for demographic reasons, for all sorts of economic inflexibilities, are really has-beens.
Michael Duffy: Professor Lal, on that note we'll leave it. Thanks for joining us today.
Deepak Lal: You're most welcome.
Michael Duffy: Deepak Lal is professor of international development studies at the University of California and author of a number of books including The Poverty of Development Economics and the one we were just discussing which is Reviving the Invisible Hand, and that is published by Princeton University.
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Comment by David my David
You really need to be in a Jesuit Seminary man ...
or become a third order member ...
The people on [here] ... ?
They're deaf to God's whispers ...
But keep whispering man ... (and put a few SHOUTS in as well ...
Me? I love Bono ... (when he's in music mode ...
When he's poncing all over the world as the world's greatest dignitary ... or God's diplomat ... ? I'm not interested ...
The best dignitary or diplomat God ever had? Cardinal Raphael Merry del Val (Secretary of State to Pope St Pius X ...
Pope St Pius X?
PASCENDI DOMENICI GREGIS!!!
The contained and controllled RAGE OF GOD! ...
Bono? Stick to your day job man ...
Spain?
Your Posts?
Bl. Dom Marmionish ... Christ the Life of the Soulish ...
Bishop Richard Willaimson-ish ...
SSPX ... (check it out .. if you haven't already ...
Me? Un-excommunicated LeFebvre-ist ... a bit Mel Gibsonish ... a bit traditionalist ... a bit Pope St Pius V-ish ... a bit Tridentine-ish .. A bit 'The Mass of All Time .. in perpetuity-ish' ... A bit canonical ... A bit 'PRO MULTIS' non pro omnes-ish ... A bit hanc igiturish ... a bit 'simili modo postquam cenatum-ish ... a bit Latin-ish ... a bit 'Hoc est enim corpus meum'-ish ... a bit 'hic est enim calix sanguinis mei'-ish ... a bit 'Novum Testamentum'-ish ... but never 'Novus-Ordo'-ish ...
A bit anti-Vatican II-ish ... (strike that ... make it a lot ...
Simplicity? Purity and Simplicity? St Frances of Assisi-ish ... a bit ... Thomas a Kempish, My Imitation of Christ-ish happening here ...
The only two canonised popes since Pius V? ... Pius V himself and Pius X ... Pius? Piety ... PIUS ALL THE WAY ...
David ...
Comment by Ash
Australian Traveller
Flashes of memories
People do not realise that Africa runs on corruption - you get caught speeding - pay someone off, you get caught stealing - pay someone off, you want the impossible done - pay someone off. This is the continent that CREATED the saying, "It`s not what you know, it`s who you know!"
You are lucky if foreign aid even reaches its intended destination. Along its way it finds itself getting lost in the back pockets of various people and the bit that`s left over? Well ...............
Bono should stick to singing - I recently went to one of his concerts - the music was great, excellent, very enjoyable - his preaching? Should be left for after the show. People listen to him enough without him having to turn his concerts into school rooms.
People should wake up to Africa- you would be surprised with the treasures that lie there and the destruction that takes place due to greed.
Ash
Comment by signals
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Comment by Brenton
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Comment by George
Comment by Adrian
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One caveat to add is that one should both the pro-aid and anti-aid arguments with a grain of cynicism. Anti-aid arguments are very convenient, are self-serving in their relief of people of financial obligation on the basis that it does more harm than good.
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
The problem with giving aide has always been a complexed issue. "There is always enough for man's need but never enough for his greed.." sic Gandhi.
Certainly dealing with governments is problematic as some governments caused the poverty. I know of many scandals after the Tsunami that should not have occured.
However I would argue very strongly against a blanket statement that labels all aide as bad. It is a very convenient cop-out to use the excuse that you are unable to give to all charities as an an excuse to give to none. It also reminds me of the 18 and 19th centuary attitudes of blaming the poor for their own conditions. Instead of social improvement in England we had deportations to Australia.
Individual programs do fail but individually managed and accoutable programs rarely fail. To do nothing is much worse than never trying.
As such I would far more credit to well meaning generous fool than a clever miser.
Comment by Robert V
One good book about this is "In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz," largely about how leaders in the Congo took foreign aid for themselves. In the Cold War, impoverished countries would even play the two superpowers off each other -- they'd promise communism for awhile to get Soviet aid and, when that dried up, catch the capitalist bug.
I disagree that it's worse to do nothing than to not try. Well intended government actions, most notably communism as a whole, have caused unimaginable suffering. Government intrusions for the purpose of good must be limited, monitored and reversible. Not to mention reasonably expected to work.
Comment by Robert V
Comment by Cibbuano
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Donating money is an easy way to give yourself a pat on the back, I think. I'm not faulting people's generosity, but I question whether they donate to help, or just to feel like their part of a solution.
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
The person living in poverty gets blamed for squandering money they never recieved and for troubling people consciences. Instead we have cycles of poverty, failed efforts and what I call 'Fatal Pessimism'. "Can' fix it, so don't try. The world is better off if these people are gone anyway. Wouldn't it be better to let then starve and save the rest of the planet?"
It may be comforting to assume no good can be done because that requires absolutely no effort. Very big comfort zone of selfishness perhaps? Perhaps concerns over accountability need to be addressed. However where does accountability start if does not start with yourself? Are you free of any obligation to help people in this world? Or are you looking for excuses to look away? If there is a program that you cannot give to because of its corruption, are you not then obliged to find one that is not corrupt?
Comment by Robert V
The point, as you say, is that accountability matters. Government "charity" -- it's not really charity, as politicians give away others' money -- is far more likely to face these problems.
And yes, if you doubt one charity but still want to give money, you should find another.
As an aside, I really doubt too many people take the social Darwinist, let's-just-starve-them attitude toward charity.
Comment by Lilla
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what comes to my mind on this issue of to be chritable or not to be charitable, is that parable about the fisherman.
I hate Sir Bob and think him a sanctimonious, self seeking Pr!ck.
sorry,
Lilla
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
I think that we may have much more in common that first we thought.
No one would be happier than me if every government aide program had to adopt proper accountability and transparent actions. Where the objectives, costings,measures and independance are tested. There are genuine people who act professionally and there are Professionals who act ouit of self interest. Huge scandals destroy hope for all involved.
I do find some government aide is more about a quick PR job than about helping people. Other aid was given with no strings attached and was turned into weapons or personal fortunes. Others were given aide in the form of loans that create a national cycle of debt.
I do think that we should also be asking if Aid in the form of loans is actually Usury.
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Comment by spain01
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spain again
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Cities dying of thirst.