Comments on: “Aid is Africa’s biggest problem, not AIDS”

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:30:53 +0000

Phil,
Do we perhaps have to admit that there are certain segments of our human population that simply aren’t able to function as “the rest of us do” due to the fact that these segements have for generation upon generation been afforded a sort of “laziness-tolerance” factor from their aid-providers?
And if not, then how do we possibly go about changing these people’s feelings and beliefs?
End the aid? In all seriousness, you know that’ll happen when pigs fly.
Regards,
Mark

By: philg

philg — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:25:12 +0000

Actually Sachs does advocate guaranteeing food, housing, health care, and education to everyone in a society, even if they use those guarantees to have 10 children per family. He dismisses, in a paragraph or two, the idea that such guarantees will lead to higher birth rates.

By: cjstevens

cjstevens — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:30:26 +0000

It’s been a while since I read “The End of Poverty,” but unless I misread the book, Sachs was not advocating unlimited free anything. He was advocating what is necessary to get countries onto the first rung of development, that is to say, “startup capital.” Indeed, the startup capital perspective makes sense, as what we really want to do is help others to help themselves. I entirely agree that we don’t want to shovel free stuff to people ad infinitum, but aid itself is not the problem; stupid aid is.