Try and understand the significant difference in skill, education and organisation in Africa. There is no comparison to Europe or the US (or even China). What both I, and Shikwati, are requesting is that Africa be allowed to find its own level without the continual disturbance of do-gooding outsiders who cause more harm than good.

Submited post on PressPosts.com – “?For God?s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!?”

I am actually going to start to use a learned helplessness animal model in some of my research. I was thinking about it in terms of depression. Basically, put the animals in a situation where no matter what they do, they can’t get out. Eventually, they just give up and sit there. It didn’t really occur to me that “aid” could be part of that environment until you said it. Won’t work with mice, of course, but I can see how it would work with people.

In their minds they reason, “If I’m incapable then of course others must help me.” And so they demand it.

In Africa, after 50 years of aid, entire nations depend on it. The culture of entitlement is predominant, dangerous, and exasperating.

In South Africa free houses were promised. Free houses are being delivered. But not fast enough for the likings of many. Now they riot to demand their free houses. Once they have them then they complain that they aren’t as nice as they wanted.

Entitlement is the dark side of aid.

I’m sure I’m oversimplifying, but from what I can tell, pride kinda goes out the window for a lot of people after they’ve been in the system for a generation or two. Then, it somehow morphs, to some extent, into a sense of entitlement.

I have no idea if this is analogous to the situation outside the US. I think it’s a bit more complicated than that, but I bet it plays some sort of a role any time Aid is involved.

On the other hand, even careful benevolent programs (like the Peace Corp) have inbuilt assumptions. Namely, that you should farm. What happens if farming isn’t sustainable at all – no matter what you plant?

The collapse of food production in parts of Ethiopia (sponsored by Bob Geldof) was related to a pitiless drought that forever changed northern Ethiopian agriculture (in the 70s and 80s, before global warming but certainly as a result of poor agricultural practices).

Instead of letting people move, the government (and aid programs) forced them to stay where they were and farm. Without water it created the images that so haunted the world.

This is where I come back to markets. If people want to change what they do, let them. Forcing people (and paying them to keep doing what doesn’t work) is exactly the same as subsidising farmers to farm things that no-one wants to buy.

As for welfare, Michael, I don’t disagree entirely. Again, (and I hate to parrot Sam, especially since he’s running for president) but education could help many achieve self-support. Workfare, for all its flaws, is at least a step in the right direction. It needs, as does the Peace Corps, revision and improvement.

The Peace Corps is a good idea, but without the right attitude toward the locals’ expertise in their climate, soil, etc, it could be as bad as Gavin indicates that food or monetary aid is.

OK. Now I’m starting to sound like a heartless Republican.

Thanks for this fascinating piece.

I think there’s something both humane (wanting to help those we see as “less fortunate” – which might mean only not born in the developed world) and condescending (hearkening back to Kipling’s notion of the “white man’s burden”) about our foreign “aid” programs for the developing world.

I wonder if we’d expanded and developed our Peace Corps model (sending people with skills and knowledge to help locals “learn to fish,” so to speak) if that would have proven over the last several decades a more helpful (in the right sense) form of assistance….

It makes no sense to people that competition isn’t important in economics, only comparative advantage. A country looking to improve its exports doesn’t need to be cheaper than China. It doesn’t even need to consider China. All that country has to focus on is what IT does best, even if it is worse at it than anyone else.

US protection of corn farmers, cotton farmers and Detroit motor manufacturers indicates that US lawmakers don’t understand that one either.

So how I expect them to understand that aid results in the opposite of what they intend, I don’t know.

Gradual withdrawal of aid I would support from large areas of Africa but I would not like to be the one to decide how long that piece of string would have to be…

Having said that, I totally agree with the economists’ suggestion to stop the aid. And, there is no reason to believe that people left to their own devices will find a way to survive. It is possible. People in Sub-Saharan Africa can and develop strategies to prosper in this global economy if we let them be.