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that does not make them suddenly rich. Changing their (and everyone's) living conditions does. China is a great example. If we had just given them donation for
by novalis78 13y ago
that does not make them suddenly rich. Changing their (and everyone's) living conditions does. China is a great example. If we had just given them donation for the last 30 years, I am pretty sure they'd still be riding their bikes to work and dream of "finally getting out of poverty)
- rthomas6 13y agoI see what you're getting at, but I don't see why you think direct cash donations to people has no impact on someone's enterprise. The studies by Give Directly show that a lot of poor people will use direct monetary donations to invest in themselves in sustainable ways, such as starting a new business or buying infrastructure for their home or village. Besides, if you have a bike and ride it to a job, you are not the kind of poor I'm talking about. The poor I'm talking about are people who have insufficient food and fresh water. You can't expect people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps when they're dying of malnutrition and disease in the middle of a country with a dysfunctional government.
- novalis78 13y agoSo let's see: dysfunctional government > disease > malnutrition > lack of education > dysfunctional government. How did China, Thailand (or any other developing nation) break out of that vicious cycle? What would the main arbiter of positive change be? If you had limited resources but wanted to effect the most positive change possible, what would you do? My argument was that simply handing money out (indiscriminately - we might be of the same opinion there) is not the most effective way.