I got lot of comments to my opening post on helping the "beginner" and the poor. There are two kind of disagreement comments, I addressed the "poor has no chance to elevate on his own" on Monday. The other kind of comment, "helping is good for the society as a whole" will be addressed now.
This statement says that we, as a group progress faster if the more successful members help the less successful. There are several ideological "proofs" that it works. However I can easily prove that they are all nonsense.
Look at Africa, middle-Asia or some other terribly poor countries. No doubt that these people are much poorer than an average American or West-European. There is also no doubt that they have much less chance to break out. Often the basic functions of the state are missing, like policing the streets, firefighters, electricity, water supply. The same person with the same knowledge would be much poorer and shorter lived in Africa than in the USA.
They are without doubt are part of the mankind. Yet they get help only by charity. They don't automatically get welfare from our tax. Strike that, if these poor people - exactly to elevate themselves!!! - get into our countries, they get a jail cell as illegal immigrants instead of help.
Anyone who claims "helping the poor" is good for the whole, must also explain why these people get no help, neither if they stay put in their poor country nor if they get into ours.
The "Africans are away, while our poor are next door and rob us if we don't give them welfare" is both cowardly and wrong. It's cowardly because you practically paying protection money to the lowest filth of your society instead of fighting them. It's wrong because the (illegal) immigrants often form mafias, and the dead-end countries are breeding terrorists. Mafias and terrorist groups are much more dangerous than a drunken idiot who brings a knife to a gunfight.
The only explanation for treating a poor African different than a poor countryman is social: you believe that your in-group is somehow special. You, and your countrymen have more rights and entitled for better services than "others", just because. I do not question that some great historical figures of your country and lot of smart and hard-working people made your country better than an African dead-end pirate hive, and it make them special. George Washington was a greater man than a random African tribal leader who sold his people as slaves for glass balls.
However it does not make you (or the random weedsmoking punk squatting in the abandoned downtown building) special. Unless you live by his ideas, you are not closer to George Washington than a random African. A social will believe that based on irrelevant circumstances like similar language or close place of birth or being a distant relative makes them similar, therefore his greatness somehow applies to the social too, entitling him (and other equally "similar") guys for the fruits of the great men's work.
Oops. I did not prove that helping the poor is wrong for the whole. I just proved that helping the "in-group" poor and not helping the Africans is wrong (and social). You are still free to claim that the world would be a better place if every men on Earth would get the same help. Considering that the poverty line is $10K in the USA, and the average African have like $500, it would mean to take all money from every American and European above 10K and give to the Africans (and still would not be enough). Go ahead and preach that!
Or accept that "helping the poor" is wrong.
"The communist dreamed of a country with no rich and poor. They completely succeeded. In their countries there are only poor."
This statement says that we, as a group progress faster if the more successful members help the less successful. There are several ideological "proofs" that it works. However I can easily prove that they are all nonsense.
Look at Africa, middle-Asia or some other terribly poor countries. No doubt that these people are much poorer than an average American or West-European. There is also no doubt that they have much less chance to break out. Often the basic functions of the state are missing, like policing the streets, firefighters, electricity, water supply. The same person with the same knowledge would be much poorer and shorter lived in Africa than in the USA.
They are without doubt are part of the mankind. Yet they get help only by charity. They don't automatically get welfare from our tax. Strike that, if these poor people - exactly to elevate themselves!!! - get into our countries, they get a jail cell as illegal immigrants instead of help.
Anyone who claims "helping the poor" is good for the whole, must also explain why these people get no help, neither if they stay put in their poor country nor if they get into ours.
The "Africans are away, while our poor are next door and rob us if we don't give them welfare" is both cowardly and wrong. It's cowardly because you practically paying protection money to the lowest filth of your society instead of fighting them. It's wrong because the (illegal) immigrants often form mafias, and the dead-end countries are breeding terrorists. Mafias and terrorist groups are much more dangerous than a drunken idiot who brings a knife to a gunfight.
The only explanation for treating a poor African different than a poor countryman is social: you believe that your in-group is somehow special. You, and your countrymen have more rights and entitled for better services than "others", just because. I do not question that some great historical figures of your country and lot of smart and hard-working people made your country better than an African dead-end pirate hive, and it make them special. George Washington was a greater man than a random African tribal leader who sold his people as slaves for glass balls.
However it does not make you (or the random weedsmoking punk squatting in the abandoned downtown building) special. Unless you live by his ideas, you are not closer to George Washington than a random African. A social will believe that based on irrelevant circumstances like similar language or close place of birth or being a distant relative makes them similar, therefore his greatness somehow applies to the social too, entitling him (and other equally "similar") guys for the fruits of the great men's work.
Oops. I did not prove that helping the poor is wrong for the whole. I just proved that helping the "in-group" poor and not helping the Africans is wrong (and social). You are still free to claim that the world would be a better place if every men on Earth would get the same help. Considering that the poverty line is $10K in the USA, and the average African have like $500, it would mean to take all money from every American and European above 10K and give to the Africans (and still would not be enough). Go ahead and preach that!
Or accept that "helping the poor" is wrong.
"The communist dreamed of a country with no rich and poor. They completely succeeded. In their countries there are only poor."
31 comments:
Well in this case there is A real seperation of wow vrs real life yet a lot still applies but just for kicks lets take a look at a homeless person, some one who Perhaps was born on the streets and has lived a long time on the streets, they are filthy, mouth in grave disrepair. They stink they have no address they have no skills, you would say to this person get a job and you can fix all this, but would you hire them?
Obviously we in wow all started out half naked broke with one 16 slot bag to our name and some quests to do. Some people are still there, while others have used their skills in raiding and otherwise not being drooling idiots who think its cool to dance in the fire and the healer must be an idoit and why cant the tank keep things i pull with my 10k crit pryoball from killing me....
But as has been stated before hack the teir10 account and leave the poor level 80 skilless broke with no clothes and while it sucks within a week they will have gotten enough gear running normal Zul'drak to hit heroics farm badges will be doing dailies to learn trade skills and will get it all back. Start broke on another server? still can level up faster then the first time and make more then enough gold to repair fly so forth. It doesnt matter if your a gamer who showers twice a day or twice a month, if you have game skills there is no handicap.
Excellent post. However, You didn't mention the "in-group" part in your last post, and I thought you was talking about charity action toward the poorer part of the world. I actually had the African people in mind during the discussion in your last post (I live in an East Asian country, so welfare from tax doesn't actually exist or being relevant in my mind).
"Considering that the poverty line is $10K in the USA, and the average African have like $500, it would mean to take all money from every American and European above 10K and give to the Africans (and still would not be enough). Go ahead and preach that"
Slight weird example, because it's not just the absolute money that one owns that matters, but you have to take into account the living standard too. 10k$ in my country would allow you to live quite sparingly (the idea isn't wrong, but you may have to fix the example).
"A social will believe that based on irrelevant circumstances like similar language or close place of birth or being a distant relative makes them similar, therefore his greatness somehow applies to the social too, entitling him (and other equally "similar") guys for the fruits of the great men's work."
This is something that I've been thinking for a while too. One of the first thing any kid would be taught in school is to be patriot: to live their country and to love the people in the same country etc. I mean, except for my family and very few friends of mine, why would a guy living 1000km from me be any different than a guy living on the other half of the earth TO ME? Just because that he speaks the same language and have the same nationality that he's more special to me, and I'm supposed to love him and not the other guy (of course one can argue that being a human, you're supposed to love every other human, but that's of another topic)?! But the idea is just default to "wrong", "bad" by too many people around me that it would be impossible to discuss in anyway
Too much black/white thinking and extremely cynical, even for a goblin. "It's unreasonable to help all, so better help none" is not a logical conlusion.
"Considering that the poverty line is $10K in the USA, and the average African have like $500, it would mean to take all money from every American and European above 10K and give to the Africans (and still would not be enough)."
That's a completely wrong statement. There is no need to get the average African to the same absolute level as an American. Living in Africa is cheaper than in the US. The world bank considers having to live from less than $2 (but more than $1.25) per day as moderate poverty.
As you admit, you did nothing to address the claim that we all do better if the more successful help the less successful.
That aside, you've fallen victim to one of your own distates. There is a stark difference between "helping" and giving handouts. Sometimes, though more rarely than is typically applied, helping involves giving handouts (or unsecured loans). Setting up a DE-farm, for instance, with absolutely no capital is a major pain, but if you have even 15g it's easy work and just a little slow.
Most often helping involves educating. Sticking with the DE-farm example, knowing that Auctioneer will do the math in much less time than even a spreadsheet would, and that postal will allow you to pull all the items from the mail in 1/4 the time makes the DE-farm feasible. Now it is true that the information on how to set all this up is out there and easy (enough) to find, if you don't know of this information, how are you going to find it?
And a final note, you claimed that you'd need all the money America and Europe had that was above the poverty line (and more) to bring Africa up to this point. I find this claim highly suspect and would like some citation for it. I know for a fact that the top 10% of America holds ~90% of the wealth, and that if we followed a more European model (higher progressive taxation with fewer loopholes) than we could afford much more aide to the impoverished. Furthermore, if this aide was done in such a way that it produced more than it cost (namely education) than we would all benefit more. As Andrew Carnagie was fond of saying, "the man who dies rich dies disgraced."
You say we should accept that helping the poor is wrong.
But I think it is more a case of "pointless" compared to "wrong".
The world society has been so unfair for so long that these insane differences had emerged and now it is impossible to resolve.
As you know from the wow economy. Money makes more money and in this way the poor will simply stay that way. The current economical system simply has no way of dealing with this problem.
I am not sure if the same can be said for wow as the problems are much smaller. Look at how you made an actual hunter out of a crappy one in a matter of hours.
@Anyone who claims that in poor countries the living costs are lower: That's exactly because the other countrymen are poor. You may can live from $2/day in Africa, because you can easily find another African, who will grow you food for $1/day. However if you start giving them money, they will refuse to work for $1/day, so the living costs will elevate.
"Look at Africa, middle-Asia or some other terribly poor countries."
Now, factor in colonial exploitation .... does your answer change?
The larger question philosophically I think you are trying to address in many of your posts is, "Are we as human beings interconnected with each other, or are we units, individuals?"
For me, the answer is a mixture of both. I think for you, too. For example, I do not think you would not stop to help a wounded person though you have nothing to gain. Nor would I help an able-bodied beggar with food on his plate.
What you are really exploring is limits. Since we all have them in varying degrees, the comments are no surprise.
Cut to the chase, Gevlon. I respect your viewpoint because you strive for rationality and clarity. What is your theory of fairness and justice?
"@Anyone who claims that in poor countries the living costs are lower: That's exactly because the other countrymen are poor. You may can live from $2/day in Africa, because you can easily find another African, who will grow you food for $1/day. However if you start giving them money, they will refuse to work for $1/day, so the living costs will elevate."
You put too much importance into money, they're just a mean to exchange, they only have value if they can be traded for something, after all. The problem in developed country is how to distribute the made goods more evenly, however that is not the problem in underdeveloped country.
In USA, there are goods to be bought, in the African, there are NOT enough foods to be bought. Helping the African means educate them, bring technology over and help them to grow foods, to create something. Charity is not enough, you only give them the fish, you have to give them the stick and tell them how to fish, too.
@Kevan Smith: the colonial exploitation ended almost a century ago. Japan and Germany suffered huge damage in both industrial power and manpower in WWII. Yet they both managed to elevate to the richest countries of the world. You can't blame things from your grandfather's time (or your grandfather himself) for the current misery of yours.
My theory on fairness and justice is simple: these things do not exist and trying to install them is like trying to make men immortal. Noble but stupid.
The big question is not whether we help the poor but whether helping them makes us poorer or richer.
Take Africa for example if we help Africans become 'wealthier' they consume and produce more but from Africa we get vast natural resources. If they didn't export those resources and consumed them theirselves where would western countries get the raw materials from? At the very least raw material price increases would cause inflation. Keep in mind resources are limited.
In WOW in would be advantageous keeping other characters low continually grinding resources so richer characters buy them at low cost but characters level. In real life obstacles are put in the path of that progression through protectionism methods.
By keeping countries in grind mode richer countries are able to buy plentiful cheap resources. If the poorer countries were able to sell there resources at the correct price they would not need help.
Technically your are right,you cant force meaningful help; but what you are doing with you ganking guild update of March 3 2010 is analogous. Helping the poor Ally on the sever is an "in-group", a poor Horde sever would have been just as viable, so would a different MMO, or other things that would make this post far too long, for numerous reasons. Point is you cant tell people how, when and whom to help without becoming a naysayer. We know why your ganking guild is gonna try, but someone out there on a certain sever might think "there's a Goblin with an Altruistic heart of gold."
But in a weird way if the guild fails "Helping the poor" is wrong; if it succeeds "Helping the poor" is right, which is a brilliant social experiment.
Your getting abit to political here mate. As for rich countries and poor ones. Can you plz make USA pay their big bill of dept and then get back to me with its status in world economy.
I agree with the person who commented that Gevlon's post is less about what is "wrong" and more about what is practical. To be fair, there are people who would say that not helping people because it isn't practical is wrong, so some people have a completely opposite view.
I think the situation with many poor nations, including a few in Africa, proves the adage that you cannot fix things by throwing money at them. At some point, the target of your charity must do his part or it's a waste. It does no good to send millions of dollars in aid to a country whose government then steals or wastes it instead of using it to improve living conditions.
It's like carrying that 900DPS scrub in tier-9 because you would 'feel bad about kicking him.' All you are doing is helping this person drag everyone else down.
Fairness has never existed, and will never for one reason: the nature isn't fair itself, some will be born better than the other (I'm not talking about one being born having a better background, I'm saying that, some will be more intelligent, more physically stronger, having better memory etc than the other). So the idea of "everyone being treated equally" is actually unfair in itself. And even the communist/socialist will accept it now. As far as I have been taught, the new idea of socialism is that everyone will get thing proportional to their contribution to the society, AND noone is left starve to death. And however you disagree, the latter part will always be there.
Now that there is a problem that politician can't just go out and say "ok, so the other guy next door to you will get a bigger vote than you, because essentially he's a working man who is paying tax and you're just a drunken homeless". They will sure fail that election.
Anyway, there is one thing to consider that I think I've asked you many times without getting the answer: exactly if one is a middle upper class man that can easily afford his living with a little luxury, a saving for a few years of unemployment, now what is the reason of deliberately trying to earn more money at any cost (I'm not saying that you should not earn money, you should do your job and consider money as the byproduct,not the all and everything goal), and what is the reason of NOT spending a litle part of that money to help someone from starving? Even if it hurt the world economy 1000$ to save someone from death, I think it's a cost worth paying. You can claim it's social and irrational as you wish, but why some of the best mind in the world (Bill Gates?) do charity work ? Don't say that it's for profit and reputation of their company: Bill Gates has already quitted his CEO position in Microsoft, and if he really want to make more money, he would keep the position .
I don't believe in helping the poor if it means throwing money at them and hoping they know what to do with it. I believe in "educating" the poor so they know how to make their own money - kind of like the analogy "give a man a fish vs teach him how to fish".
I came from an improvished background but my parents instilled in me the value of hardwork and education. The end result is I work in the IT field managing servers and databases and make a decent living. But we also had help along the way. We had a landlord who often let us pay the rent late and we also got some government assistance to help procure food since my parents meager earnings were not enough to feed a family of 5 in the USA. But the caveat is that my parents hated getting welfare and as soon as they could, they started working 2 to 3 jobs to get off of welfare. Eventually my parents learned english well, educated themselves, and both got better paying jobs. It was our persistence and drive that allowed us to progress. But to completely ignore the fact that we got help would be an injustice to the concept that sometimes helping is exactly what is needed to make someone a better "goblin".
I would also add that "goblins" are made and not born. Gevlon is proof of that - one of his earliest projects was taking a poor person and showing them how to make gold - and according to his blog he was successful. Doesn't matter how hard you work if you don't know where to expend your effort - that is where the "help" comes in.
But "help" for me means parcing out knowledge and not money.
Gevlon,
Very interesting – I appreciate your point of view. Definitely something to think about. Is there a right or wrong answer? To help the poor or not – I propose that those who do chose to do something or take some action are doing so for selfish reasons. I’m sure that they do not consider themselves as selfish in the common negative connotation of the word. But it makes them feel better about themselves – it makes them feel good to be able to help. In their belief system they feel obligated to do good things and when they perform some act of helping they have satisfied that subroutine and are rewarded internally with a sense of accomplishment. Perhaps when they are continually asked for help beyond their feeling of what is their fair share, then they feel taken advantage of and they do not continue to get that good feeling. They then stop helping and go do other things (for themselves) until that urge to help becomes strong enough that they go and do something to give them that sense of fulfillment once again. So people acting for selfish reasons (to feel good about themselves) go out and do those things that will satisfy their desires until those needs are met. Perhaps they feel it is a way to repay a debt – someone helped them so they will eventually help someone who was in their position. But for whatever reason it is their choice to do so. But what about the poor? What do they feel about the help they are receiving? Or rather why apply your beliefs to them? Do they even want your help? Perhaps they would like to struggle and overcome their own challenges and feel satisfied by their own sense of accomplishment. You would take away their struggle and make it easier and deny them their own sense of worth. They would learn that they could not have achieved this on their own. They will learn to ask for help more often and not try on their own. What would life be like without its challenges and struggles and failures? You would want to “Nerf” the world the way the WoW is made easier for someone who finds some parts of it too hard. And if you could do so, feed all those who are starving, fix their corrupt governments, made life easier for them, would that make things better? Really? Would people really be happier? All of a sudden their basic needs would be met and then they would have higher needs. Would you try to satisfy those as well? Really? I suggest that you do not pity them so much and think that they can not achieve their goals or succeed in their daily struggle for survival without your help. How egotistical it is to think so. They may in fact be happier in their lives than you. They may feel more satisfied in their accomplishment in survival and sleep well each night. While you fret and take a sleeping aide and worry about how you will afford that new thing you want and cannot see that perhaps you are the one who needs some help.
Gevlon, I enjoy your perspective on things greatly. Keep it up!
A lot of your posts have very strong core ideas, and I think you'd get a lot out of seeking out history, economics, and philosophy discussions of these and related topics.
http://mises.org/media/1982 in particular is a great history lesson about foreign aid.
It's not about "theories of fairness and justice," it is actually harmful to the recipient. Not just unhelpful, but harmful.
It doesn't cover domestic welfare, but you can find other similar discussions.
Keep posting.
You're mixing up "social in-group and out-group" with "benefit to me." I wouldn't benefit by helping Africans. They aren't my neighbors affecting my community. Besides, what Africa needs is not any economic help, but to stop being so damn stupid about allowing corruption and tribalism to wreck their countries.
@Klepsakovic: how about "the poor should be stop being so stupid about weed, booze and petty crimes"
Thanks for this article, I had a similar discussion over lunch yesterday. A work colleague expressed her dislike of Germany probably paying for Greece.
I asked how exactly that would be any different then our tax money supporting indebted parts of Germany. We are a federal system, 16 states = Germany. We don't push Berlin out of the federation for being broke. The European Union will also not push Greece out.
I asked where she wanted to draw the line, how far away a human being must live so we don't care anymore and turn our backs to them.
Personally I would love to live in the United Nations of Earth, every human a citizen.
Gevlon, with the topic of your first discussion being "the poor has no chance to elevate on his own" the next topic in this series should have been "the poor has no desire/need to elevate on his own".
Where I live you encounter two types on the Freeway On/Off-ramps. There are the possibly but not necessarily illegal immigrants selling everything from bags of oranges & fruits to bouquets of flowers to drilled coconuts with a straw in a hole. And then there are the people with the carboard sign that might as well say "U gif gold plz? LOL!"
The first group don't need a handout, aren't asking for one, and if I give them money I get something of value in return, i.e., we both benefit from our relationship. In fact society as a whole benefits because they take my money and use it to buy clothes, food, pay rent, water, gas, etc. Maybe they're not paying income tax but they're still paying for the items they buy/consume, they're paying a consumption/Sales Tax on those items, and so overall they have a net positive effect on society.
Now, the second group. The ones who take my money, give me nothing in return, then use that money to buy drugs, alcohol and/or cigarettes. They don't buy food, clothes, or pay rent, because there are Missions and Churches where they can eat for free, get a bed for the night, and a change of clothes when they need them. They don't pay for their food, clothes and bed; we do. Their food, the bed, the Mission itself, the volunteers' time, all of that has a cost. Society pays for their food, bed, and clothes and gets nothing in return. They have no need to find a job, to better themselves & contribute to society, or they would have already done so.
And it's not that nobody will hire them; it’s that they don't look for work because they don't need to work because society provides for them. They make a very small contribution to society via the Sales Tax they pay on their alcohol & cigarettes, but it’s far outweighed by the cost to feed, clothe, and house them. They have a negative effect on society and we would be better off without them. I don't mean they should be locked up in a prison or an asylum because that's also a drain on society. I mean they should be removed from society completely, as in killed. Now if you're saying, "But James, the cost of their burial is a burden on society!" I'd reply, "Are you crazy? Why would we bury them when we could turn them into pet food!" That way they would be more useful in death than in life. We'd market it as Homeless People Petfood© and have a catchy slogan like, "Eliminating the homeless problem one bag at a time." The Pet owners would lap it up! "You mean I can feed my pet AND help the homeless at the same time? That's great!" Getting a little off topic here.
Now just like the homeless, the "You give gold plz? LOL!" people are a drain on virtual society. Anyone with half a brain can easily make money in a virtual world, so if they have no gold it's because they're not even trying. If they just learned a Gathering Skill or two and went out into the low level areas they could make more gold and faster by harvesting, skinning, mining, fishing, etc, than they could standing around in town begging. Giving them gold just encourages them to stick around and beg for more. You haven’t helped them; you’ve reinforced their negative behavior. Now they'll continue to spam local chat and piss people off. Gold beggars, like the homeless, make no attempt to better themselves and have an overall negative effect on society. Too bad we can't chop them up and feed them to our virtual Pets.
Hey Greedy Goblin,
I was browsing info on AH economics and stumbled upon your very nice and information-rich blog.
About expanding the idea on helping the poor, at least on WOW, let me share a story that happened in a school, in a place far far away.
Economics class, first day of schoo, topic: Capitalism VS Socialism.
Student defended the socialism system because there were no inequalities, everyone was the same, no rich no poor. All production by the country is equally shared with the entire population.
Professor then makes a proposition to the class: "As of today, every student's grade will be added together and then equally divided by the number of students, thus everyone received the benefit of the common effort".
Students didn't understand very well, but agreed to do it, especially those who were late in turning in homework/assignments/etc...
First exam rolled up weeks later and the total result was a class grade average of 78 (from 0-100). Students who were not prepared for the exam, cheered up, excited, a passing grade, while those students who were dedicated and average gpa 3.9 were in disbelief.
What happens on the second exam was even worse. The students who did not prepare well for the first exam, did even less studying for the second exam, while those with very high GPA have decided to study even less. The average grade on second test was compiled and divided, the grade was 65.
Without students realizing, the Socialism principles were established and implemented in the classroom.
Worse of all, the third exam came up and the compiled grade for each student in the class was a whopping 40. Everyone failed.
Ending result, everyone blame each other since no one really wanted to study for the benefit of the whole, arguing, blame game, glancing blows, all was seen.
The end result, every student was failed in the class and then the professor asked the question:
"Have you learned the meaning of Socialism, where everything belongs to everyone and to no one at the same time?"
The explanation is that the human beings are willing to sacrifice themselves when the reward is high and justifiable, but when there is intervention and the productive side looses to the passive side, no one will accept the sacrifice to work hard and achieve excellence. No reason to do it.
Sidjaman aka Kahjuruh, Windrunner
The United States has the most people in the world who have a negative net worth. Meaning, they have the most people that when you total their assets plus their debts, they are worth a negative amount of money. So maybe some Africans who have $500 should give some of us money. Then maybe I could get a better computer and play WoW in 1920x1200.
/tinfoilhat
Poor countries are obviously not spending enough money on oil, that's why they don't experience economic growth. After all, studies have shown that change in per-capita GDP is proportional to change in per-capita energy consumption.
The individual who is lazy and stupid, well he cannot be helped, but to characterize him as being the typical poor person, is rather lazy. To refuse all aid because a minority are helpless is unjust and only harms those who would bootstrap, if they only had boots.
Africa as a whole is flawed. The cultures, the infrastructure, the tribalism, everything. A bit of help here and there won't fix anything. That's hardly the same situation as being poor in a wealthy nation such as the US where for the most part, things work.
Or to put it in more economic terms, the time to return on investment is much worse. A decent education starting at age 4 will make a poor American into a productive citizen after in 12-14 years. Poor countries need more than 12-14 years and the risk involved is much higher. It's far more efficient to make wealthy countries stronger (by elevating their poor to productivity) and allowing that wealth to naturally spread as immigrants come and businessmen go out in search of opportunities amide the chaos abroad.
Gevlon
I don't think your numbers really stack up here.
The GDP of the USA is approximately 14 trillion dollars (T$).
The GDP of the EU is approximately 17T$.
The GDP of Japan is approximately 5T$.
That makes a total of 36T$. The population of Africa is approximately 1 billion. To give them all 10K$ per year would therefore cost less than 1/3 of the GDP of the richer countries, not all of it.
Even that is completely unnecessary. As the first anonymous poster pointed out, $2 a day is considered "moderate poverty". Let's be generous & raise living standards to $3 per day. That would cost less than 3% of the rich world's GDP, which would be perfectly feasible if the will existed.
Of course the right way to do this wouldn't be by simple cash handouts, but by funding a good education for all, improving the infrastructure and taking the hit to Western farmers associated with lifting food tariffs.
I think you're on much stronger ground when you talk about the reasons why this doesn't happen. Ultimately, the electorates in these rich countries do value their own countrymen higher than people in far-off lands. A generous interpretation of this would be that people felt a greater obligation to "take care of their own" - a broader form of a desire to be self-sufficient. A more negative one might be your "in group" theory, where poor people you don't meet don't matter. I suspect they amount to the same thing in practice.
As for silly anti-communist examples, easy to tell:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality
Denmark maybe was mentioned in this blog before? One of the highly 'socialist' countries? But Japan has second lowest Gini coefficient, because of culture.~
While i can't disagree with your post, i disagree in this hasty comment:
"@Kevan Smith: the colonial exploitation ended almost a century ago. Japan and Germany suffered huge damage in both industrial power and manpower in WWII. Yet they both managed to elevate to the richest countries of the world. You can't blame things from your grandfather's time (or your grandfather himself) for the current misery of yours.
My theory on fairness and justice is simple: these things do not exist and trying to install them is like trying to make men immortal. Noble but stupid."
You CAN not blame Africa for it's misery. It's not that africa men are not trying enough hard to get more wealthy, like german did after ww2. It's just the involvement of the "Big Ones", who are still there, and if you're smart enough, Gevlon, the colonisation never ended. They still own 70-90% of the worthy mines, they still legally own 45% of their daily resources from farms, animals etc. They still make billions every year by promoting the wars between them, providing them the weapons(#1 most profit industry in the world). They do not let Africa stand in it's feet cause such thing would cost them mythical amounts of wealth lost.
So here ends my disagreement. Below here is commenting.
Of course justice and fairness can not be installed, that's stupid. Without Real freedom and with the shameless authority we, western people, have accepted as part of our daily lives, "justice" and "fairness" are just silly words established by, the so "faithful" to them, politicians to fool the simple mind of the mass that we actually have these things working....
It's just that simple, humanity won't be happy until the last capitalist is dissolved in the blood of the last bureaucrat. This won't never happen because, well, stupid persons are protecting the marvelous capitalism that rapes them every day. Go on, vote! Actually, Hitler got voted by the majority of German, back in 30's. So, who's fault was WW2? The genius(yes he was.) Hitler who was the leader of arianism belief, while he was short black hair brown eyes 1/8 jew, or the incredibly foolish voter who actually voted this satanic being and legally gave him the right to kill till his lust for blood and power was sated?(a bit of hyperbole here, oh well..)
Help the real poor? Bullsh1t :)
I rolled a horde toon on an alternative server. I started with jack squat. A few whites, no bags and a handful of copper.
But by knowing what sold on the AH well, and by taking up gathering professions early as possible (mining/skinning), I had 1000g by the time i was level20.
Sure it wasnt the quickest way to get to 2 - by farming mobs - but it has set this toon up 'for life'
Speaking of the real world, ive always thought that helping people is much more effective than handouts. Small business loans to poverty stricken families and communities to dig a well, buy some goats, start a small business etc. Help them to help themselves.
Ellifain @ Khaz'Goroth
It depends on your definition of "help" - most African aid was and will continue to have huge fraud and waste. (recent scandal re the first rock charity event. claims of 95% fraud.)
In the few places where there is safety and a reasonably competent government, then investing in them can help their standard of living. And eventually they will be buying Coca Cola and BMWs and paprika.
It is in the first world's best interest if places with high poverty and birth rates have a better standard of living via capitalism and education.
"I think the situation with many poor nations, including a few in Africa, proves the adage that you cannot fix things by throwing money at them. At some point, the target of your charity must do his part or it's a waste. It does no good to send millions of dollars in aid to a country whose government then steals or wastes it instead of using it to improve living conditions."
This is exactly right, and deserves some extrapolation. The crushing poverty of 20th Century sub-Saharan Africa was in large part due to corrupt local governments who happily took foreign aid and pocketed it. This is certainly a problem, but it doesn't invalidate the effectiveness of foreign aid as a whole. In fact, such corrupt regimes are by and large on the wane in sub-Saharan Africa, and with a few notable exceptions like Zimbabwe and Somalia, life in Africa is actually a damn sight better these days than it has been for a while.
I am not saying foreign financial aid is a cure-all for post-colonial woes; obviously, many factors go in to pervasive poverty and just as many strategies are needed to end it. However, local corrupt and self-serving governments (that may even act with the tacit approval of teh developed world) are at the very least the difference between Africa and South America.
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