an extract from Bangladesh Barta
...Bangladesh, on the other hand, looks like it has nowhere to go. Its only real resource is its cheap labour (4-5 times cheaper than Cambodia), and manufactures only tolerate the traffic congestion, lack of infrastructure and poor export facilities because labour costs are so low. But, with tarrifs on textiles about to come down in the US, and Africa being opened up to investment (where labour is even more cheap and new infrastructure can be purpose built), it seems that rather than lift off, Bangladesh is about to face decline. There is no tourist industry, there is visible, widespread poverty (there are more Dhakaians than Cambodians), the cities are shabby and dilapidated, and the urban middle and upper classes engage with the public realm only when they can extract something from it. Cambodia and Cambodians are being exploited by textile manufactures, tourist industries, oil companies, development agencies, human traffickers, logging companies and many others. But Bangladesh is not: in a globalised world it remains the case that the only thing worse than being exploited by a capitalist, is not being exploited by a capitalist. This seems to be Bangladesh’s fate....
read more here
Sonntag, 24. Juni 2007
Dienstag, 12. Juni 2007
COMMENT BY TFD: Empowerment for Development
To empower people they have to know how. Power is nothing you can give to people - you can only show them how to use it - if they accept it. The idea and the understanding of how people can change their situation can only evolve from insights of processes they are dependent on. Only the second step towards “development” is the availability of capital and infrastructure. Important is that mostly capital with interest sets higher incentives for ideas that create a surplus. Moreover is capital a limited resource and only if money is payed back - somebody else can borrow this money.
The western mentality of social equality measured in money has a distinct conflict of goals with this rising ideology of micro credits. It assumes a certain status quo of rich and poor people equivalent with happy and unhappy people - a type of “god given” situation which can only be solved by giving money to the poor from the rich. The smile of a starving child in Bangladesh may not be political correct but shows the absurdity of defining happiness by welfare. The low social mobility in countries like Germany and France are the result of a heavy regulated welfare state for the “good of the poor”.
However the West is lucky. The developing countries are coming to help us. The people that learned to believe in the poor. The countries that live entrepreneurship to survive are coming to help to achieve what we failed to do - to empower the poor and give them dignity over their own destiny. The Grameen Bank is the first micro credit institute giving micro loans for micro entrepreneurs in the slums of LA, in the United States. Germany’s welfare system - supplying the poor with the “drug”: money and Germany’s judicial circumstances - however - is still considered to be too competitive for this type of micro credits.
The western mentality of social equality measured in money has a distinct conflict of goals with this rising ideology of micro credits. It assumes a certain status quo of rich and poor people equivalent with happy and unhappy people - a type of “god given” situation which can only be solved by giving money to the poor from the rich. The smile of a starving child in Bangladesh may not be political correct but shows the absurdity of defining happiness by welfare. The low social mobility in countries like Germany and France are the result of a heavy regulated welfare state for the “good of the poor”.
However the West is lucky. The developing countries are coming to help us. The people that learned to believe in the poor. The countries that live entrepreneurship to survive are coming to help to achieve what we failed to do - to empower the poor and give them dignity over their own destiny. The Grameen Bank is the first micro credit institute giving micro loans for micro entrepreneurs in the slums of LA, in the United States. Germany’s welfare system - supplying the poor with the “drug”: money and Germany’s judicial circumstances - however - is still considered to be too competitive for this type of micro credits.
Samstag, 9. Juni 2007
Additional information: What the West can learn from Bangladesh
The West can learn from this little interview Dr. Yunus is giving at theVision Summit 2007 in Berlin.. He is basically saying that everybody can and should be an enterpreneur and that education must promote this idea. I am happy that Dr. Yunus as a role model from Bangladesh turns out to be a voice for Germans as well since enterpreneuship irocanally has a very negative image in Germany.
Dienstag, 5. Juni 2007
Quotes for more transparency for development
Humanity has reached a crisis point with respect to the interlocking issues of overpopulation, unsustainable development and human suffering. Rotarian Action Group for Population & Development (RFPD)
Development aid is ... not necessary to rescue poor societies from a vicious circle of poverty. Indeed, it is far more likely to keep them in that state. Peter Bauer, developmental economist Friedman Prize Winner
Foreign aid has done far more harm to the countries we have given it to than it has done good. Milton Friedman, American economist, Nobel Prize Laureate
"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"
The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape ... Foreign Aid is always presented as helping the people of a nation, but it never does. Even the IMF has had to concede this. ... Well-intentioned people need to take more responsibility for consequences! James Shikwati, Kenyan economist, Director of the Inter Region Economic Network
Sending aid to governments in poor countries over the last 60 years has not alleviated poverty. Why has it failed? William Easterly, American Economist, Professor at the New York University
Why? Because in every case, foreign aid has strengthened governments that were already too power full. Milton Friedman, American economist, Nobel Prize Laureate
The single biggest obstacle to business and the renewal of the economies ... is corruption. Bono, Rock Star & Activist
The empowering of the citizens, not authorities, can give rise to the necessary checks and balance … against corruption … If we learn from European history … economic development is of the people, by the people, for the people … connectivity is productivity Iqbal Quadir, founder of GrameenPhone, Co-Director of the MIT Empowering
We need to develop and use business models on-site because incentives matter … Chapter one is the financial help… the moral absolution … lets celebrate it, lets close it …we have to recognize that we need to go on to chapter two which is all about execution and the how to.
Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of the Acumen Fund
Most of the existing research projects are too narrowly defined; they reflect a specific interest and often a process of one-way thinking. What is needed is a systematic and more nearly inter-disciplinary approach tilted at seeking to understand the magnitude and intensity of key processes. Jack D. Ives and Bruno Messerli, authors of “the Himalayan Dilemma Reconciling Development and Conservation”
KEEP YOUR COINS WE WANT CHANGE
Global equal rights and chances are what is needed most
Transparency for development
Development aid is ... not necessary to rescue poor societies from a vicious circle of poverty. Indeed, it is far more likely to keep them in that state. Peter Bauer, developmental economist Friedman Prize Winner
Foreign aid has done far more harm to the countries we have given it to than it has done good. Milton Friedman, American economist, Nobel Prize Laureate
"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"
The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape ... Foreign Aid is always presented as helping the people of a nation, but it never does. Even the IMF has had to concede this. ... Well-intentioned people need to take more responsibility for consequences! James Shikwati, Kenyan economist, Director of the Inter Region Economic Network
Sending aid to governments in poor countries over the last 60 years has not alleviated poverty. Why has it failed? William Easterly, American Economist, Professor at the New York University
Why? Because in every case, foreign aid has strengthened governments that were already too power full. Milton Friedman, American economist, Nobel Prize Laureate
The single biggest obstacle to business and the renewal of the economies ... is corruption. Bono, Rock Star & Activist
The empowering of the citizens, not authorities, can give rise to the necessary checks and balance … against corruption … If we learn from European history … economic development is of the people, by the people, for the people … connectivity is productivity Iqbal Quadir, founder of GrameenPhone, Co-Director of the MIT Empowering
We need to develop and use business models on-site because incentives matter … Chapter one is the financial help… the moral absolution … lets celebrate it, lets close it …we have to recognize that we need to go on to chapter two which is all about execution and the how to.
Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of the Acumen Fund
Most of the existing research projects are too narrowly defined; they reflect a specific interest and often a process of one-way thinking. What is needed is a systematic and more nearly inter-disciplinary approach tilted at seeking to understand the magnitude and intensity of key processes. Jack D. Ives and Bruno Messerli, authors of “the Himalayan Dilemma Reconciling Development and Conservation”
KEEP YOUR COINS WE WANT CHANGE
Global equal rights and chances are what is needed most
Transparency for development
Montag, 4. Juni 2007
Additional information: discussion on development aid
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2007 - Scaling Innovation in Foreign Aid
Sonntag, 3. Juni 2007
Additional information: An Analogy or excactly the same: Bangladesh and Africa
aid kills (an extract from a spiegel interview)
Here's something that should surprise absolutely no one paying attention:
"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"
SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...
Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.
SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.
Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.
SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?
Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.
Thanks to James Waddell on blog.mises for this pointer.
I'll say here what Shikwati won't say quite as bluntly:
Foreign Aid is always presented as helping the people of a nation, but it never does. Even the IMF has had to concede this.
The money goes (1) to the governments that rule over the people of a nation -- often brutally -- in return for redirecting the money (2) to Western political capitalists in the form of large capital purchases.
That's right: Foreign Aid is colonialism abroad and corporate welfare at home. It strengthens the worst political players in Africa and the worst political players back here.
Well-intentioned people need to take more responsibility for consequences!
I also find Live 8 to be repulsive and ironic from an ethical perspective. It is a very disturbing development. Twenty years ago, I was in a London hotel room watching Live Aid. Back then, Bob Geldof and company were asking for private donations (which may have been damaging, but at least they were voluntary), but Live 8 specifically says on their website that they don't want my money! What they want is my support in petitioning governments to tax and spend more. They don't want my voluntary support in any traditional sense. What they want is for me to help them get involuntary support. If that isn't the perverse-but-logical consequence of the democratic ethos, I don't know what is.
Finally, there is the economic absurdity at the foundation of this whole thing. Forget politics, forget ethics for a moment. What is the basic claim?
To quote Geldof, "This is without doubt a moment in history where ordinary people can grasp the chance to achieve something truly monumental and demand from the 8 world leaders at G8 an end to poverty."
Anyone who thinks more money can somehow end poverty doesn't know the first thing about either money or poverty. Perhaps if Geldof took some time off to study the nature of wealth-creation and value, he would do far less damage to people who are already suffering.
Here's something that should surprise absolutely no one paying attention:
"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"
SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...
Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.
SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.
Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.
SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?
Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.
Thanks to James Waddell on blog.mises for this pointer.
I'll say here what Shikwati won't say quite as bluntly:
Foreign Aid is always presented as helping the people of a nation, but it never does. Even the IMF has had to concede this.
The money goes (1) to the governments that rule over the people of a nation -- often brutally -- in return for redirecting the money (2) to Western political capitalists in the form of large capital purchases.
That's right: Foreign Aid is colonialism abroad and corporate welfare at home. It strengthens the worst political players in Africa and the worst political players back here.
Well-intentioned people need to take more responsibility for consequences!
I also find Live 8 to be repulsive and ironic from an ethical perspective. It is a very disturbing development. Twenty years ago, I was in a London hotel room watching Live Aid. Back then, Bob Geldof and company were asking for private donations (which may have been damaging, but at least they were voluntary), but Live 8 specifically says on their website that they don't want my money! What they want is my support in petitioning governments to tax and spend more. They don't want my voluntary support in any traditional sense. What they want is for me to help them get involuntary support. If that isn't the perverse-but-logical consequence of the democratic ethos, I don't know what is.
Finally, there is the economic absurdity at the foundation of this whole thing. Forget politics, forget ethics for a moment. What is the basic claim?
To quote Geldof, "This is without doubt a moment in history where ordinary people can grasp the chance to achieve something truly monumental and demand from the 8 world leaders at G8 an end to poverty."
Anyone who thinks more money can somehow end poverty doesn't know the first thing about either money or poverty. Perhaps if Geldof took some time off to study the nature of wealth-creation and value, he would do far less damage to people who are already suffering.
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