Donating to charity is a modern marker of virtue and altruism. To give away capital and material, when it could be used for personal gain, and instead donating it to the poor is a selfless act that, particularly in wealthy nations, is often lauded and promoted. Think of the countless ads that run depicting starving children with protruding stomachs staring mournfully into a camera while somber music plays in the background and a black-and-white message to the effect of “Every Cent Counts” is overlaid on top. There are thousands of NGOs and charities, and together, they work to improve the plight of the economically disadvantaged nations of the world. This is the message so commonly spread by affluent nations, and yet the truth of the matter is that they fail to deliver on the so-called salvation they proclaim to deliver.
Such a notion seems absurd, and yet it is exactly this idea that Michael Matheson Miller’s documentary Poverty Inc not only introduces but backs through years of evidence and research. The crux of his argument rests on the idea that these NGOs, through providing free supplies, may provide immediate aid and relief, but they create a cycle of dependency on their services in the economies which they serve, thus leaving them even more destitute in the long-term. The most famous example of this, which Poverty Inc does not shy away from exploring, involves the Cuban Rice industry.
In the late 1900s, the United States had a surplus of rice produced by farmers, which the government offered to buy and give to Cuba, not only subsidizing American farms, but also doing a charitable deed. While, on the surface, this provided Cubans with accessible rice, it destroyed the local farming industry in Cuba and forced their reliance on American markets. A farmer operating locally and for-profit simply cannot compete with an influx of competing charity, and they will inevitably be driven out of business. Now, that aid could be arbitrarily pulled at any moment, and when it does, there will be no remaining industry to allow the economy to be self-sufficient. Therefore, most charities, at least in their current state, create a forced dependency on their services that inhibits economic development.
Why does this occur? If this were such an issue, wouldn’t these nations be speaking out against this blind market flooding? The fact is, they do speak out against it, but it is difficult to undo the damage without cutting off now-reliant citizens on the only means they have to basic resources. Additionally, there is little incentive for NGOs to adapt their current models, because in a perpetual system of reliance, they are the ones who benefit. The sad reality is that there is no NGO without a community that needs aid, so what better way to ensure the NGO’s future success than to create a system where the community cannot survive without the NGO. This is not to say that NGOs do not provide aid - to give to charities is certainly a noble thing, but the current system is ineffectual at organizing this aid in ways that best supports the communities instead of the ‘saviors’ offering it.
With that said, I believe there is a solution to the current crisis facing the charity industry. Rather than seek to provide raw materials indefinitely to these communities, their members need to be given the resources so that they can build up the local industries to produce such materials themselves. Only by freeing them economically and giving them an equal foot in world trade can they begin to experience the economic development current activism claims to be giving them.
An often cited example of flooding resources into an economy to revitalize it (and the one often used by supporters of the current system) was the Marshall Plan following World War II. European countries were devastated socially, economically, and structurally following the War’s end, but through the United States’ offering of no-strings-attached money under the Marshall Plan, many of their industries were able to rebuild and flourish in the following years, allowing for a Western post-war economic boom. However, the distinction between aid then and aid now is that much of Western Europe already had a developed economy before the war - the Marshall Plan simply allowed them to pick up from where they left off. Current underdeveloped countries do not have this foundation to immediately jump to, and it is unreasonable to assume that simply providing them with money and food will allow them to skip the foundational steps and immediately become a developed nation.
My version of charity does not shut out local industry, but it encourages it to grow locally so that these communities can develop in a self-sufficient manner. The most successful world is not one where NGOs prop up nations, but where NGOs prop up industry. Charity is not a bad thing, nor will it ever be, but to be as effective as possible, its core goal must be to create economic independence, not dependence, and it is this core facet that currently undermines the current system and harms the very communities it seeks to prop up.
