Right now, I’m reading The Bottom Billion, by Paul Collier, a professor and former research director
at the World Bank. The book focuses on
four “poverty traps” that countries have fallen into and ways for these countries
to escape them.
To get a flavor for Collier’s arguments
about the bottom billion, I recommend watching at least a few minutes of his TED Talk. Towards the beginning of it,
he introduces a wise maxim for policymakers as well as for individuals: “What I’m
going to offer you is a recipe – or combination – of the two forces that change
the world for good, which is the alliance of compassion and enlightened self-interest.”
This raises the point that even aid –
something we think of as altruistic – is partially self-interested. Collier pointed to the Marshall Plan as an
example of this. (The Marshall Plan was
certainly an act of compassion by the United States for Europe, but it also
was designed to help the United States economy.)
Collier handles this seeming
contradiction by inserting the idea of enlightened self-interest... But what does that mean?
If self-interest can be enlightened,
then it immediately follows that it was “dark” to begin with. So then, can self-interest really be enlightened,
or does it become something else? It seems simply to suggest a kind of self-interest that doesn't harm anyone.
But why wouldn’t it be better if aid
policy was far more altruistic than self-interested? He argues that both compassion and
enlightened self-interest serve valuable, distinct functions. Collier says we
need “compassion to get ourselves started” but we need “enlightened
self-interest to get ourselves serious” about dealing with poverty.
Even if the primary goal of aid is
altruistic, it need not harm the donor.
Rather, striking a balance between true, selfless altruism and absolute
greed is likely to produce the best results.
It's hard to imagine that aid can be self-serving; I've always believed that aid was given to certain cause out of altruism or some desire to help others. However, based on what I've read from the Bottom Billion so far as well as your post, my assumptions have definitely been wrong. I guess that the self-serving aspect of aid can be clearly seen in how many donors are providing aid vertically rather than horizontally--they are supporting only specific programs or issues that would reap the most benefits for themselves. For a long time, I thought that donating aid horizontally was ineffective due to the large costs, but it seems that aid should only be taken into consideration by those who are genuinely altruistic. However, to play the devil's advocate, do intentions truly matter? Let's say that I'm a wealthy businessman who doesn't really know the economics behind aid but feels strongly about a certain NGO and so donates aid vertically. Will the financial result on the NGO be different if I were someone who was self-serving and donated to the same cause vertically out of greed?
ReplyDeleteOn a practical sense, I agree with you. Your example raises a good point. It doesn't matter -- in terms of the impact -- whether a dollar was donated to a given cause out of compassion and kindness or if it was donated as a self-serving investment. But there is a need for both kinds of aid in our world because often times, it does not work out like your hypothetical example where both kinds of donors give money to the same cause. Rather, these two different people (or governments, or NGOs, or corporations, etc.) often times would end up donating money to very two distinct -- but both important -- causes. And sometimes, the lines are blurred.
DeleteI see your point that people with different intentions will inevitably donate to different causes. However, does this entail that the causes the "selfish" people support will rarely be advocated by those who are "altruistic"? And, as we know from what Collier states about the lack of efficacy in donating money haphazardly without taking responsibility for the results of such aid, will the causes that the "selfish" support slowly be less important or successful? Do there have to be distinct causes, or are you arguing that the best way is to just make the entirety of aid embody altruism?
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