(in the relevant sense, this refers to why don’t various charities just rain megatons of food, water, schools and hospitals from the sky, given how much private 1st world citizens have to spare)
The linked article does point out the difficulties of raising overall quality of life and human development. Is that what you’re saying is harder to do than just throwing money at the problem? If so, I agree completely (and join the anti-PC crowd in suggesting that the very best of currently conceivable general solutions for Africa is reinstating colonialism).
However, I was talking specifically about satisfying the most elementary physical needs of individual destitute Africans (sustenance, health, peace), not grand questions of policy or structural change. Why I took such a narrow view is because I feel that pushing the self-sufficiency, ground-up angle when talking about ways to fix the whole mess is quite limited and even hypocritical; maybe sharing a little of our wealth to guarantee those needs for everyone (and enforcing birth control, and dealing with a whole separate can of worms, but that’s a problem with every approach) could indeed ameliorate the ongoing nightmare while our social engineering looks for a way to kickstart the aforementioned self-sufficiency.
Yes, increasing dependency and taking away responsibility is a clear instrumental evil, and according to many just evil, period. But if we could first stop people from 1) being born into suffering to do little but increase that very suffering and 2) dying quickly and miserably, maybe that’s worth the tradeoff.
maybe sharing a little of our wealth to guarantee those needs for everyone . . . could indeed ameliorate the ongoing nightmare
When there is hunger, there is power in controlling the distribution of food. When people have power from something, they do not simply allow outsiders to come in and take it away without a fight. You can ship all the food you like for free to African ports; the people of the country itself will still go hungry, because the people with guns will control the distribution to maximize their power.
If a man is intentionally starving and beating his children, you can’t solve their hunger and bruises by giving him material goods. You need to remove his power over the kids and put the kids in care of someone who won’t abuse them. If you want to grant the “the most elementary physical needs of individual destitute Africans (sustenance, health, peace)”, what you will have to do is overthrow their governments and install colonial governors.
There currently seem to be few volunteers for the job.
Yes, this problem is quite obvious, and yes, I’m in favor of full-scale colonialism, but couldn’t a heavier presence by UN/coalition-of-the-willing peacekeepers, with powers to override local authorities when it’s needed to prevent open violence and abuse, also keep the scum that floats to the top there in check? What’s the tactical record for peacekeeping operations that had a reasonably broad mandate for use of force? (Hmm, here’s one account. My cached thought that a “firm hand” brought decent results in Somalia appears to be confirmed.)
...Of course I realize how unlikely any international body would be to approve such powers against the protests of an “independent” local regime (Somalia being an unusual case in that regard), so such policing of aid-receiving countries would have to be carried out unilaterally and without foreign oversight by whatever nation could be willing to implement it. Which creates a power dynamic that’s basically colonialism. Which, again, would IMO be quite OK with purely selfish intentions and better yet with benevolent ones, but should be done openly anyway for clear generic reasons.
This is much harder to do then you seem to think.
The linked article does point out the difficulties of raising overall quality of life and human development. Is that what you’re saying is harder to do than just throwing money at the problem? If so, I agree completely (and join the anti-PC crowd in suggesting that the very best of currently conceivable general solutions for Africa is reinstating colonialism).
However, I was talking specifically about satisfying the most elementary physical needs of individual destitute Africans (sustenance, health, peace), not grand questions of policy or structural change. Why I took such a narrow view is because I feel that pushing the self-sufficiency, ground-up angle when talking about ways to fix the whole mess is quite limited and even hypocritical; maybe sharing a little of our wealth to guarantee those needs for everyone (and enforcing birth control, and dealing with a whole separate can of worms, but that’s a problem with every approach) could indeed ameliorate the ongoing nightmare while our social engineering looks for a way to kickstart the aforementioned self-sufficiency.
Yes, increasing dependency and taking away responsibility is a clear instrumental evil, and according to many just evil, period. But if we could first stop people from 1) being born into suffering to do little but increase that very suffering and 2) dying quickly and miserably, maybe that’s worth the tradeoff.
Yes, I’m exploring a view I know to be naive.
When there is hunger, there is power in controlling the distribution of food. When people have power from something, they do not simply allow outsiders to come in and take it away without a fight. You can ship all the food you like for free to African ports; the people of the country itself will still go hungry, because the people with guns will control the distribution to maximize their power.
If a man is intentionally starving and beating his children, you can’t solve their hunger and bruises by giving him material goods. You need to remove his power over the kids and put the kids in care of someone who won’t abuse them. If you want to grant the “the most elementary physical needs of individual destitute Africans (sustenance, health, peace)”, what you will have to do is overthrow their governments and install colonial governors.
There currently seem to be few volunteers for the job.
Yes, this problem is quite obvious, and yes, I’m in favor of full-scale colonialism, but couldn’t a heavier presence by UN/coalition-of-the-willing peacekeepers, with powers to override local authorities when it’s needed to prevent open violence and abuse, also keep the scum that floats to the top there in check? What’s the tactical record for peacekeeping operations that had a reasonably broad mandate for use of force? (Hmm, here’s one account. My cached thought that a “firm hand” brought decent results in Somalia appears to be confirmed.)
...Of course I realize how unlikely any international body would be to approve such powers against the protests of an “independent” local regime (Somalia being an unusual case in that regard), so such policing of aid-receiving countries would have to be carried out unilaterally and without foreign oversight by whatever nation could be willing to implement it. Which creates a power dynamic that’s basically colonialism. Which, again, would IMO be quite OK with purely selfish intentions and better yet with benevolent ones, but should be done openly anyway for clear generic reasons.