Implicit in the question is the idea that aiding the third world costs money. The World Bank claims that America’s three billion a year subsidy to its own cotton farmers has knock on effects that make African cotton farmers three hundred million dollars a year worse off. But the American subsidy is a very wasteful internal transfer. If America wants to give African cotton farmers three hundred million dollars in aid, it need only scrap its subsidy at a net benefit to America of perhaps two billion dollars.
Notice that I’m saying something different from “aid is actively harmful”. I’m saying that we haven’t plucked the low hanging fruit of passive win/win where we stop doing dumb shit and every nation is better off. After that comes active win/win such as building harbours and roads that increase the value of African products by making it cheaper to transport them to First World markets (win for Africans) while making African products more available to First World markets (win for First World). Mobile phones have reduced Third World poverty by letting farmers and fishermen direct their produce to the best markets, even while the mobile phone operators have profited by providing services. Fostering a zero-sum mentality with questions that assume that aiding the Third World costs the same amount of money as the benefit provided is misleading.
Indeed, in the ‘most important world saving causes’ list earlier, ending agricultural subsidies wasn’t even mentioned but that would probably be top of my list (battling with greatly relaxing immigration restrictions for the top spot).
Implicit in the question is the idea that aiding the third world costs money. The World Bank claims that America’s three billion a year subsidy to its own cotton farmers has knock on effects that make African cotton farmers three hundred million dollars a year worse off. But the American subsidy is a very wasteful internal transfer. If America wants to give African cotton farmers three hundred million dollars in aid, it need only scrap its subsidy at a net benefit to America of perhaps two billion dollars.
Notice that I’m saying something different from “aid is actively harmful”. I’m saying that we haven’t plucked the low hanging fruit of passive win/win where we stop doing dumb shit and every nation is better off. After that comes active win/win such as building harbours and roads that increase the value of African products by making it cheaper to transport them to First World markets (win for Africans) while making African products more available to First World markets (win for First World). Mobile phones have reduced Third World poverty by letting farmers and fishermen direct their produce to the best markets, even while the mobile phone operators have profited by providing services. Fostering a zero-sum mentality with questions that assume that aiding the Third World costs the same amount of money as the benefit provided is misleading.
Indeed, in the ‘most important world saving causes’ list earlier, ending agricultural subsidies wasn’t even mentioned but that would probably be top of my list (battling with greatly relaxing immigration restrictions for the top spot).