Why Charity Doesn't Work

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Very well said, I am happy to see an intellectual African actually state their viewpoint, and she is correct, the problem is not that we are not aiding Africa or any other third world country for that matter to fight diseases such as AIDS, the problem is that this governments are not doing anything to change the current state of the country, most government officials of this countries are corrupt, and the ones who benefit from any growth the country might have are limited to those corrupt officials, it really is a shame, what we need is not small aid, this is not going to solve the general problem, what needs to happen is that this sort of corruption should be stopped, and then the country might do everything in its power to grow, this countries have resources..so what's stopping them from growing?. We need to work on raising awareness of aids, not simply give aid drugs, as I said before that's not solving the problem.

 

Very good observations.

 

Hmm, interesting topic. I typically see this argument brought in two instances, both having to deal with class structures. One has to do with racism and basically the point being stated was/is that nothing we can do will fix that. The other is poverty, specifically, the massive homeless rate. (particularly, american) Oppression and charity go hand in hand for various reasons, it keeps the poor poor and the rich feeling good but changing the situation is very hard. The second the balance starts to shift, everyone does, particularly the rich people. In concept, I love the idea of having a society where anyone could succeed if they wanted too but in actuality, I'm not sure if that could happen.

 

The only thing that will actually help the developing world is good old-fashioned capitalism.
Foreign aid exacerbates their debt, rather then alleviating it.

Impoverished people need one thing more than anything else.
Employment!

Encourage them to lower/eradicate corporate taxes, creating incentive for jobs to be imported, and for new firms to open within.
The bolstering of their economy will bring infrastructure improvements with it, thus boosting the economy even further...

And the rest is history.

 

I don't get why there's some sort of resentment whites and others might have towards themselves, we are not responsible to whatever the heck our ancestors might have done, and we know we are not like the people who lived on older times so why have so many prejudices? much of the reason why we are doing is simply to look good, well this is not helping Africa in any sort of way, they need to be able to grow as a continent and not depend simply on the more developed countries, look at Japan, got hit by 2 atomic bombs and do you see them crying all day about it? no they moved on, its time to stop the ignorance, sure lets all aid Africa but whats the purpose? if our help ends up not solving the big issue, first lets get rid of all the corruption and the ignorance there is of many sexual transmitted diseases and then maybe the continent can grow, once this happens we can aid the Africans economically and politically, advising them, and forming relations, but this is of no help and its never going to happen if the main problem is not targeted.

 

Completely vacuous.
Explain to me how a person being unemployed is a benefit to anyone else?

As long as African's remain impoverished, they lack the ability to do one very important thing.
BUY SHIT.

The evil wealthy overlords you are alluding to want people that are capable of buying things from them. Unemployed and poor people lack the ability to do this.

To simply:
When the poor get richer, the rich get even richer.

 

This is the awesomest thread ever ever! Thanks mf

It seems like it's the only way I/we could feel genuine, happier, etc. It's difficult not knowing anyone to talk to about this, so I'm happy you posted

uh, no

Me too. Hope you'll keep sharing how it goes! Would be happy to about books & articles on the topic, ideas, research about international charity organizations, or anything else you can think of to do to make progress on this.

Does anyone know what political organizations work on this? Being in a small U.S. city, I haven't been able to find any grassroots type organizations (I mean, where you can participate without having to have some difficult-to-achieve professional qualifications) that really focus on this.

 

Yes, we can try, but we need to face the fact that most people are selfish, people really care about their growth of their country, their lives, how it affects them and are ignorant to the struggles of all this others countries. We will need to change millions of views, as there might be some like you and me who are willing to take such change but there are the majority of the population who might not even be aware of 90% of the conflicts outside the US and the same can be said about many other countries. The solution? first we need to stop all corruption, we need to influence this countries to somehow change their political system..a country in which the ruler almost has complete control its not the way to go which is what many of this countries have, there is no check like here where there's something below watching what the president is doing, etc, there's a chain, control, we make sure everything gets revised in different stages and places over and over, many countries lack such system and the wealth is concentrated on those corrupt officials who are not observed, second we need to change the ways of the people which is a near impossible mission, we need to spread awareness, if the people are not educated on the current problems in their country there's not going to be a single action, we can try aiding people but what's the point if they are ignorant? we need to teach this people to manage themselves, that way we have intelligent man and woman running those countries and care about the growth of the country in general and not their specific wealth. We would need to change many of the old religious customs as many of this practices are in not way beneficial to the growth of their countries, there's many factors that need to be taken into consideration, sure we all want an ideal world, but we need to acknowledge that this is a very hard task and nothing will be accomplished until we stop the ignorance, the sentiments of the past, and actually care to spread education and form intelligent man and woman capable of handling future global issues.

 

It's argued that the reason the U.S. is the richest country (and we folks rich enough to have access to computers enjoy the benefits of being in places where that's possible) is due to the things our ancestors did (slavery, colonialism, etc). But I guess it's easier to argue that our richness is due to current international trade rules. So the idea is we're benefitting so hugely (I mean since there's such a big inequality in survival, lifestyle, etc), so we have some responsibility to do something about it.

It's nice you're asking about it Raccoon!

 

Giving results and things is worse than giving methods and systems. It is also better to leave a lot of freedom for personal growth, while providing the needed conditions for improvement.
Very Simple Example: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves
Summary: Kids teach themselves computers and english in a few months, if you just provide 1 working computer with Internet for hundreds of them.
Generalized: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimally_Invasive_Education
(all this is just one example; there are many other approaches)

Mhm, if you ask me, nobody ever 'earned' or 'deserved' anything. Have you 'earned' your body? It's just a verbal tool for some more (actively or passively) cruel people to manipulate other people. Religious/philosophical explanations and misapplied social darwinisms are being disproven faster than ever, so the time is coming to face it.

 

People typically care about the things close to them, I care about my family more than the family of some man in Africa. I care about you more than some woman from Bangladesh, it only makes sense. To care about the planet is truly a tremendous and often times painful task. It's not shocking that apathy has arisen to combat this.

I don't necessarily agree that democracy is the way to go, especially the faux-democracy the U.S. has. (we really have a constitutional republic, and the difference matters) Many European nations have had GREAT monarchs and history proves this. It does run in the family (typically, I remember some nations randomly picked the leaders of the country) and that's where the problem arise, not from the individuals lack of checks and balances.

If you are homeless on the street and have been for the last 10 years, I doubt the problems of wall street or the middle class asian american are going to matter to you. We have to think about priority. Many of the things we NEED to happen for the world to be a better place just don't have a high priority.

What religious customs in particularly are you talking about?