Aid is tricky.
rzwitserloot posted in politics on February 26th, 2006
Some very hard realities in this article from the british Times. This isn’t the first article I’ve seen that basically suggests Africa is still poor because of foreign aid - here is another one, from the german Spiegel magazine.
These articles contain some compelling arguments.
Yet, anytime aid happens to come up in discussion, and I mention these articles, people vehemently disagree, usually springing to the defense of their particular favourite third world aid organization. Ayn Rand at work?
February 27th, 2006 at 7:54
The entire system of aid or relief is based on the principle of making people feel good about themselves. The filosofy of Ayn Rand would indeed state that ‘rational egoism’ would prevail over any form of objective thought.
Oh well, if we all would listen to the wise words of Rand, there would be no foreign aid…
February 27th, 2006 at 15:00
Well, no foreign aid would be a great thing, but my point is that people give aid to feel good about themselves only, and do not want the notion that aid is good challenged. that is the ayn randian factor in this whole story. Funny how people are willing to defend anything they’ve already given money to.