The American Spectator : Overcoming Aid

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Overcoming Aid

By Joseph Lawler on 3.16.09 @ 6:05AM

Liberal sentimentality isn't putting food on Africans' tables.

(Page 2 of 2)

Her appreciation of poor Africans' humanity and otherness is sorely lacking in Singer's account. Moyo wants to conquer the dehumanizing poverty afflicting Africa, even though the hands-off solution would mean that she doesn't get to be the hero. Singer, on the other hand, seems to care less about helping poor people than he does about hectoring Westerners into feeling guilty about withholding donations. His worldview-free argument requires him to seat the motivation for giving aid squarely in the rich Westerner's conscience, at the cost of thinking critically about Africans' needs as if they mattered as well. The Life You Can Save tends to reduce the aid recipient as well as the aid donation process to a mere abstraction: you put money in the mail, someone in Africa or Asia becomes happier. To the person Singer is exhorting, in the end it does not matter whether the money he gives to Oxfam is siphoned to cruel dictators while Kenyans starve. His conscience is satisfied the moment he puts the check in the mail.

Singer's argument emphasizes the donor over the recipient because it is purely utilitarian. His system doesn't have a natural law or religiously motivated respect for the dignity and worth of every human. Without an appreciation for aid recipients' needs as humans worthy of dignity, Singer's approach lacks the sensibility of Moyo's.

In one revealing aside, Singer claims that for Christians, "sharing our surplus wealth with the poor is not a matter of charity, but of our duty and their rights." Here Singer gets it backward. Christians believe that every human has a God-granted right to life and dignity, but the motivation for aiding the poor transcends the ideas of duty and rights. For Christians, charity means love. The recognition of another's dignity as a human prompts acts of charity or love.

That charity is definitionally supposed to be a matter of love would be obvious to Moyo, whose critical approach to aid is rooted in her awareness of her fellow Africans' wants and needs. For Singer, tragically, charity is reduced to one person maximizing his utility by sending money to a charity organization without thinking too hard about how it benefits an actual human. With such an impoverished understanding of human relations, it's not surprising that his understanding of how aid works is impoverished as well.

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About the Author

Joseph Lawler was formerly managing editor of The American Spectator. Follow him on twitter: @josephlawler.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (41) | Leave a comment

Brooksanne| 3.16.09 @ 11:35AM

I wonder when Westerners will realize that our prosperity rests on our forebears' self-reliance and willingness to face difficulties; and that others need various kinds of help (other than a cash gift) before they can get to that point.

dcd| 3.16.09 @ 12:36PM

Moyo criticizes aid, in part, because an exploitable source of cash and power leads to corruption (someone will be smart enough to get their hands on the cash) and corruption tends to spread.
It would therefore make sense to not only cut off aid but also trad. Western demand for diamonds, gold, tantalum and oil also inable smaal groups to acquire easy money by corruption. Without the access to forign cash the internal markets and structures would be forced to develop to a point where they could with stand corrupting influence of forign cash.

*| 3.16.09 @ 2:59PM

Oxfam doesn't give money to goverments, Peter Singer is not against microlending...

John Karanja| 3.17.09 @ 5:38AM

I am about a third of the way of reading Dambisa's book and i can already tell you she has contextualized African Aid vis a vis European Aid, given the Marshall Aid plan was given to Europe to reconstruct was was destroyed as compared to African Aid which was given for political reasons such as the cold war alignment.

D&L| 3.17.09 @ 9:02AM

I have great respect for Peter Singer, his mature utilitarianism and his vast experience in applying philosophical ethical theories to day-to-day problems of people. It would be wrong to reduce Singer's argument for giving aid to utilitarianism alone. What he stresses in his book is that it is just human that when you see another suffering, you feel like helping - nothing about how that suffering person will actually use that help. It is wrong to contrast Dambisa Moyo's views that aid does not work to the need to help those in need according to Singer. Such analysis lack focus on clearly two crucial sides of the debate on aid when millions of Africans still want to move out of their own poverty even if it means pulling themselves up with their bootstraps.

Mike McCormick| 3.17.09 @ 4:43PM

"Poverty is the worst form of violence" Gandhi-It is not suprising that most of the continent of Africa is in turmoil.I remember while living in Chad ,N'garta Tombabaye who was president at the time stating" I can no longer accept the crumbs from the rich mans' table "He told the American military (C-130 cargo planes )were there to help with the Sahelian drought to leave .He was unhappy with Henry Kamm's NYT article concerning corruption in Chad.To be truthful it's hard to do business with so many failed states when AID corruption rules the day.Africa needs to look at itself and realize why a lot of the suffering of its empoverished people continues .Sure mercenaries ,misfits ,missionaries and without doubt the colonizers are in the mix but let's face it big business and multi-nationals still exploit the hell out African countries with the complicity of their leadership (see) Ronald Reagan with his arm around Mouboutu in Washington.A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

Rasna Warah| 5.30.09 @ 11:11AM

If you want to see how aid really works (or rather doesn't work) on the ground, I suggest you read Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits (AuthorHouse 2008). Moyo provides the analysis, this anthology provides the evidence.

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It is hard to say that aid is not the best solution, it is a quick fix...with I guess long-term negative consequences as pointed out in previous comments.
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Tariku| 12.18.10 @ 1:43PM

Aid produces much more than just corruption. It massively distorts priorities, it misallocates labour towards politically correct drivel, and it makes young Africans study and strive to please donors rather than consumers.

cindy| 1.11.11 @ 1:06PM

We must do something about it that fresh water is available all over the world and free for everyone.

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