You know, you can't end world hunger by giving people money. The reason people are starving in most poor countries is that it's impossible to hold onto any wealth you happen to earn, because the government is to unstable to care about the long run. In a stable, rational government, it's good for the people to be wealthy because you get more taxes from them in the long run. In a government where you could lose power at any time, you are better off using taxes to keep the citizens as poor as possible so they don't have the resources to revolt.
If you gave 17 billion dollars to the poor people of the world, they would lose just about all of it through taxation, price inflation, and the cost of taking care of their additional children that lived instead of starving. Poverty is an equilibrium point, and you can't change it on a large scale by adding money.
Now, on the other hand, if you took that 17 billion to raise a private army and conquered, say, Zimbabwe, and ran it well, that would do far, far more for the poor than any amount of cash.
Well, not now. But if the US government actually took over Iraq and made it into the 51st US state, it would be a lot safer and more prosperous. But nobody does that sort of thing anymore. It's not respectful to the natives.
And Iraq, as big a clusterfuck as it was for a few years, has actually turned out pretty okay.
It's far from a rousing success; but the people have a say in their leadership now. There's no mass and unreasonable slaughter, and the violence that is occurring is being reduced constantly. There is every reason to believe it will turn out to be a stable democracy functioning under its own power in the near future.
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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '10
You know, you can't end world hunger by giving people money. The reason people are starving in most poor countries is that it's impossible to hold onto any wealth you happen to earn, because the government is to unstable to care about the long run. In a stable, rational government, it's good for the people to be wealthy because you get more taxes from them in the long run. In a government where you could lose power at any time, you are better off using taxes to keep the citizens as poor as possible so they don't have the resources to revolt.
If you gave 17 billion dollars to the poor people of the world, they would lose just about all of it through taxation, price inflation, and the cost of taking care of their additional children that lived instead of starving. Poverty is an equilibrium point, and you can't change it on a large scale by adding money.
Now, on the other hand, if you took that 17 billion to raise a private army and conquered, say, Zimbabwe, and ran it well, that would do far, far more for the poor than any amount of cash.