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February 04, 2005
Great Man No Doubt, But....
Nelson Mandela....great man no doubt but even such are liable to that essence of the human condition, being completely stupid on certain subjects (we all are, alas, the only difference being which subjects our stupidity covers).
In London yesterday he remarks, in a speech launching the Make Poverty History Campaign (their site is down at present..way to go folks, maintenance the day after a major launch speech!!) he states:
He said: "Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.
Leave aside the obvious points that both slavery and racial discrimination, while both immoral and man made, are sufficiently persistent that we might consider them natural, part of what humans do, and consider the line on poverty.
As human history shows us, poverty is the natural state, it is wealth that is unusual and wealth that is man made. I am fairly open in my detestation of (no, not the motives, but the actions of) those behind the Campaign and it is for this reason, that they are approaching the problem with ther heads full of economic vacuity. This is just a small example.
If you think that poverty is something that we have thrust upon Africa then your prescriptions for how to alleviate it will be entirely different from those advocated by someone who views it as natural, immoral, and avoidable (that is, someone like me). What really worries me is that the vapid solutions being put forward will succeed in one way, in raising the money desired, (perhaps even required) and fail in the more important manner, of actually alleviating poverty. At which point people will shrug their shoulders, say, "We tried", and then ignore it. If we really are going to try and solve this problem, if we really are going to spend the money, can we at least try and make sure that it is not spent stupidly? Can we at least get the organisers to understand that there are economic solutions to economic problems.....and start with the most obvious concept, that it is wealth that is unnatural, wealth that is man made and wealth that we need and wish to create?
February 4, 2005 in Climate Change | Permalink
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Comments
Watching the news last night the very same thoughts occured to me. Poverty not natural? Tell that to the Neanderthals!
Given his age and legacy I'm not going to be uncharitable, his heart is in the right place, bless him. I spent December travelling around Ghana and I have to say that the most interesting thing about it was people watching, observing not only people, but a whole society, pull itself up by the boot straps. If we want to make somewhere like Ghana better we need to remove our trade barriers and encourage companies to relocate there. Both parties then benefit.
I was staggered to hear that Canada gives £20M in aid to China. Why? I can only assume that it must be some sort of protection racket.
Posted by: gareth | Feb 4, 2005 11:05:20 AM
Absolutely true. The school of cultural relativism that treats every culture as equally good doesn't help, either. Different cultures produce different societal outcomes, wealth being one of them.
That's not to say that Western cultures are the only ones capable of generating high standards of living, but we sure know which ones demonstrably don't.
Posted by: Dave Sheridan | Feb 4, 2005 7:02:07 PM
