An excellent article in a Swedish Daily Newspaper today (2016-06-20) on Contributions/Aid and a finding that the philosophy of "bleeding hearts" and political correctness often results in more evil than goodness.

Todde

Aid does not always result in Prosperity

 Last Wednesday Bill Gates launched his latest aid project: one hundred thousand chickens will be sent to the world's poorest countries. To get maximum media attention he brought live chickens to the press conference, held on the 68th floor of the World Trade Center in New York. But the action was not appreciated by everyone. Bolivia - a major producer of chickens - said definitetly NO!.

 The project is yet another reminder of the aid industry's major shortcomings. Bolivia gave birth last year, up 197 million chickens, with an estimated export capacity of 36 billion. If Bill Gates chickens reached the country it would have been a blow to the country's domestic production. Who wants to pay for chicken if you can get it for free? It does not help to just like good - those who want to help people through active actions are responsible for the consequences of their intentions. A basic problem with aid is that poverty is rarely caused by lack of resources, but by bad political systems. Those who want to help need to understand the mechanisms that actually drives development forwards, and what the consequences of aid are, so they can direct them towards positive results.

 Bolivia is one of the world's poorest countries. But some things are moving in the right direction: reducing corruption, and from 2007 to 2014, GDP per capita has increased from 1390 dollars to 3124 dollars.

 However, there is no link between aid and increased living standards - on the contrary. The clearest example is South Korea compared to Kenya. In 1965 both countries had the same GDP per capita. Today we see South Korea is twenty times richer. The most important difference is that the South Korea opened up for international trade, while Kenya did not. Prosperity requires functioning markets; Aid history give us few examples of functioning coexistence. When will the western world realize this? That is still an unanswered question.

 The original article in Swedish is available in Swedish at:

https://www.svd.se/valstand-springer-inte-ur-bistand

ALEXANDRA IVANOV alexandra.ivanov@svd.se

 Maybe you would also be interested in this article: 

http://axiom1b.blogspot.com/2016/04/economykeynes-national-economics.html