At the very beginning of the movie Poverty, Inc., spokesperson Michael states a quote by Machiavelli stated: “the reason there will be no change is that the people who stand to lose from change have all the power, and the people who stand to gain from change have none of the power.” Machiavelli, at the time, was describing the world’s human aid system today. As entrepreneurs innovate and develop new products or services that could change global issues, there needs to be a discussion about what individuals have the power and what individuals should have power. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, there were a lot of needs to be met. Still, foreign aid overshared certain supplies and resources to the point where a short-term natural disaster became a long-term unnatural disaster. The reason why many developing countries, after disasters, stay socially known as developing countries is due to the cause of foreign aid from large and more powerful nations. All aspects of foreign aid, like aid agencies, NGOs, charities, celebrities raising awareness about developing countries, social entrepreneurs, governments, and corporations, all gain profit from developing countries. In Poverty, Inc., Theodore Dalrymple is an author and psychiatrist in England. Dalrymple states that when he went to countries like Guinea, Zimbabwe, and Haiti, he pointed out twenty-seven aid agencies. There are many aid agencies because other countries and their citizens benefit from local needs and poverty. Aid agencies give employees a good paying salary that is free from tax and is offered servants that are usually locals from the suffering country like Haiti. Poor individuals have become a product of the large poverty industry; thus, if the lower class gets out of poverty and starts to become prosperous, the poverty industry will become obsolete from the market and success. The paternalistic aid system is not working and has not worked for many decades. To make poverty history, we must destroy the poverty industry and start forming partnerships with the poor to help them achieve their dreams of prosperity.
Ever wondered why there is so much poverty in the world, not only in the United States but globally? The same old socialized thought is that the rich patronize the poor, and the poor resent the rich. Why, may one ask? Paternalism. Paternalism is the act or policy set in place by the authority that has control over supplies needed and regulates control under individuals under the authority’s control and affects those individuals and the relationship between authority and the people. Joshua Omoga is a local businessman that operates in Kibera. Omoga sells all types of products and items outside of his living quarters. Regulations are a big impact on the success of Joshua Omoga business by not being able to expand because he is not the owner of the property, and unable to register his business due to Kibera being built on temporary structures that the government does not recognize, causing major challenges and setback on his business to support his son’s education. Jacob Donatien is a local rice farmer in Haiti. Donatien states that the lobbying of rich countries and, blocking out foreign competitors and, putting harsh tariffs and import duties, then asking their government for subsidies so that they can produce more causes a surplus in production only for the surplus to be dumped into the less fortunate countries caused tremendous strain on the local farmers in Haiti and caused many farmers to abandon their farming. Denatien discussed how once the market is flooded by inventory from the United States surplus, there is no more demand for local farmers causing many farmers to lose work for the whole year. Many local farmers have used their entrepreneurial spirit to devise ways to better the situation. Instead of Haiti receiving international rice, they should export it back to the richer countries or more jobs creations for Haiti’s poverty population instead of donating rice. Charles Mends is an Entrepreneur located in Ghana that produces freshly chopped pineapple juice in drinking bottles. Charles Mends states he wants to expand his company facilities since his company’s number of employees has increased. Since Mends is a young male with no collateral, he cannot access any loan for a larger facility. Ghana has small-scale financing companies that have a pattern of giving loans to small market shops run by women, and then Ghana has big corporation banks that only give loans to big companies. There is a gap between small-scale and large-scale companies, known as small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). There are no institutions to lend financial help to SMEs. The problem is that in high-income countries, SMEs have a good amount compared to low-income countries with hardly any SMEs. There is a missing chunk of prosperity in low-income countries. Joshua Omgoa and Charles Mends are examples of how the law and regulations can be someone’s worst enemy. The Rule of Law gives individuals fundamental human rights and values, applies the law of the EU, and pushes for an investment-friendly business environment. The Rule of Law is found missing in low-income countries. That included property rights. Property rights are a terrible problem for farmers in developing countries like Haiti population is estimated to be 70% are farmers that need land to continue in the market. For most farmers, the land that they farm on is owned by someone else, causing farmers to not gain access to collateral to get a loan for their business ventures because they are unable to gain ownership of land in the first place. One cannot create an economy without ownership. The lack of property rights is only one area where the rule of law is absent in developing countries. The other lack of access to justice in court is missing in low-income countries as well, and the less fortunate are separated from the formal economy of those developing countries by legal structures that only well-connected and wealthy individuals can navigate.
The aspect of innovating a service to those in need and giving to the less fortunate in surplus amounts free of charge are keeping the developing countries to stay developing. The reason why many developing countries, after disasters, stay socially known as developing countries is due to the cause of foreign aid from large and more powerful nations. All aspects of foreign aid, like aid agencies, NGOs, charities, celebrities raising awareness about developing countries, social entrepreneurs, governments, and corporations, all gain profit from developing countries. All these components, in the end, gained profit while creating a global poverty market and industry for entrepreneurs to enter into, causing more strain on the epidemic of global poverty. The term social fact was created by stating that social fact is a broad variety of norms, assumptions, and economic and social institutions that captivate any individual or organization. This doesn’t mean certain individuals or organizations have tried to use innovation to fix the problem of poverty globally. Still, the problem is that most innovations are created with the idea of the set-in-place assumptions, beliefs, and values of the social fact that secretly situations the less fortunate as charity or the other kind rather than victims or subjects that are actively creating efficient was to combat poverty by creating their developments creating entrepreneurial spirits that could lead to success. Our current system instilled today in our world builds incentives for governments to not build the ladder of prosperity. The ladder of prosperity is the guide for the less fortunate to gain wealth and power in today’s world, like legal protection from violence and thief, justice in the court systems, the ability to gain legal title to land, freedom to start a business, and larger links to exchange. Poor individuals have become a product of the large poverty industry; thus, if the lower class gets out of poverty and starts to become prosperous, the poverty industry will become obsolete from the market. This aspect of entrepreneurship innovates for the greater worse of the already suffering.
The societies of these developing countries that receive foreign aid are not sitting around just accepting the unfortunate situations brought onto them by foreign powers. Still, they are actively improving their situations by being active and open. There is a different type of aspect shown throughout the movie Poverty, Inc. The entrepreneurial aspect of seeing a local need and coming up with a compassionate and innovative way to better the lives of others is shown in the company called Apparent Project, which is in Haiti. Co-founders Corrigan and Shelley Clay moved to Haiti to adopt a child in 2008 to start an orphanage for those children without mothers and fathers. Corrigan and Shelley got the idea to start Apparent Project after meeting with the mother of their newly adopted son and asking her if she had a job, would she have kept her son? Her answer was yes, and a light bubble went off in their head. Carrigan and Shelley discovered that roughly 80% of children in orphanages in Haiti have at least one alive parent and were not true orphans but poverty orphans. The negative side of donors wanting to start orphanages is reliving parents their obligations to educate their kids, cutting off the emotional ties of the child, which creates a cycle of destruction and allows more orphans. Carrigan and Shelley Clay realized that charitable organizations addressing the issues of orphans in Haiti believe these examples, like orphans, must be addressed instead of viewing the issue as people that need to be addressed. One example of the negative hospitality that child orphans experience is shown by a young Haitian boy that was adopted by the co-founders of Apparent Project, Carrigan and Shelley Clay. Carrigan Clay states that while his son Jackson was in the orphanage overseen by these charitable organizations, he almost died twice from starvation due to the carelessness and lack of knowledge that Jackson was lactose intolerant. Apparent Project stands out differently from other charitable organizations by providing jobs, sustainable living income, and training for valuable skills to Haitian parents with children by learning how to make beaded jewelry that has been sold in large retail stores like GAP, Walmart, and so on. Apparent Project is giving Haitian parents the power back to better not only their own lives but the lives of their families and the community of Haiti.
Suppose an individual were to attend an aid conference currently compared to a decade ago and ask the audience how many people are involved in charities. In that case, hardly anyone raises their hand because now the word charity is seen as a bad word, and many call themselves social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurship allows business models to be applied to real-world social issues like earthquakes, tornados, world hunger, hurricane, genocide, etc. One prime example of a social entrepreneur is Blake Mycoskie, who founded TOMS Shoes. Blake Mycoskie got the idea and saw a need for shoes in developing countries like Argentina while learning to play polo. TOMS Shoes is a shoe company that makes trendy and comfortable shoes; however, every time a pair of TOMS Shoes is sold, another pair of TOMS Shoes is given to children in need of shoes. This entrepreneurial aspect of creating innovation to help those in need would leave an unintended consequence to arise by pushing local shoemakers from those developing countries like Argentina out of their local market, leading to loss of business. The surplus number of free items given to those in need causes local businesses to go out of business due to the reliance on foreign aid. Delivering trucks and produce planes arrive whenever possible, so whenever there is a need, local businesses cannot reach that need causing havoc on the third-world country’s economy. TOMS Shoes is also a prime example of a company trying to be innovative under the given framework of governments that keep poor people unable to reach the prosperous ladder to success and the ability to make a harmful system more effectively harmful to those in need. That allows the framework to always be set in place.
