{"id":1597,"date":"2016-06-22T09:23:19","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T13:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/gloryseed\/?p=1597"},"modified":"2016-06-23T22:11:16","modified_gmt":"2016-06-24T02:11:16","slug":"poverty-is-big-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/gloryseed\/2016\/06\/poverty-is-big-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Poverty is Big Business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"http:\/\/www.simplecinemafilms.com\/poverty_inc\" — http:\/\/www.simplecinemafilms.com\/poverty_inc<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
**Watching** **Poverty, Inc.<\/a> made me angry like I\u2019ve not been in a long time. It\u2019s a great documentary.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n**
**I\u2019ve been poor: American-style, food-stamp, housing-project, bad-school poor. I even survived all the things the helping professionals did to help me.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n**
But I\u2019ve also been rich. And in between I\u2019ve even worked with and along side poor people. And I know from my own experience that most of the stuff the beautiful people do for the poor is more about looking beautiful and feeling beautiful than it is about actually helping poor people.<\/p>\n
**The moral of Poverty, Inc. is this: you should start believing in poor people and stop believing in the people who say they\u2019re trying to help them.<\/span><\/p>\n**
I\u2019ve got some things to say about the film, a few of them based on my experiences. But before I do here\u2019s the official trailer.<\/p>\n<\/iframe>\n<p>So, here are my thoughts:<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>We\u2019ve got the incentives backward<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>People do what they\u2019re paid to do. If you really think that people can overcome self-interest and act without any regard for their own interests, you\u2019re likely part of the problem.<\/p>\n<p>Think about it this way: how do we measure success? Often it is through growth. When it comes to a normal, profitable enterprise, growth is a good thing. Sure, that can go awry, and things can get too big. But much of the time it is what you\u2019re after because for the people working in a for-profit venture, profit often equals security. In other words, it means knowing you can pay the mortgage and put food on the table for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n<p>But how do the professional poverty fighters measure success?<\/p>\n<p>I think you can see where I\u2019m going with this. They measure it by growth too: the growth of bureaucracy, growth in donations, and so forth. These things also mean you can pay the bills and put food on the table.<\/p>\n<p>You know what they don\u2019t measure? How many poverty fighting ventures they close each year because they\u2019ve met the needs and they are no longer needed.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the test. Have you ever gotten a letter from any poverty-fighting business that read: Great news! We\u2019re no longer needed in (fill-in-the-blank)! Please don\u2019t send us anymore money! Mission accomplished!<\/p>\n<p>The same perverse disincentive works among the poor. Why do something productive when being dependent requires less of you? And this brings me to\u2026<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Helping is hurting!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Throughout Poverty, Inc. time and again we see the ways the things the wealthy do to help the poor actually put the poor out of business.<\/p>\n<p>Ever wonder why Africans are almost always pictured wearing Red Sox and Backstreet Boys t-shirts and not their native dress? It\u2019s because of those stupid yellow Planet Aid clothes bins, that\u2019s why. Not only has used clothes dumping wiped out the textile industry in West Africa, hardly anyone can make a living growing cotton there anymore.<\/p>\n<p>Why pay for locally produced clothing when you can pick up a pair of used Dockers for free at the clothing distribution center? And \u201csocial entrepreneurs\u201d like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toms.com\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Toms have actually made undermining local economies part of their business model<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Truly, it is more profitable to give than to receive. It makes you feel good too. Which brings me to\u2026<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>It\u2019s a huge ego trip.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is probably the most distasteful thing about the business of poverty. \u201cSocial entrepreneurs\u201d and celebrities like Madonna and Bono are not giving away stuff, they\u2019re buying self-righteousness. (Yes, I know that\u2019s harsh, but I\u2019m not taking it back.)<\/p>\n<p>Just think about all the feel-good songs they sing, songs like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.inthe80s.com\/weworld.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">\u201cWe Are the World\u201d<\/a>. Or take, \u201cDo They Know It\u2019s Christmas?\u201d Just look at the looks of self-congratulations on the faces of the cast of Glee as they sing. (I think I\u2019m going to be ill.)<\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=emIi-uo4I8I\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=emIi-uo4I8I<\/a>\n<p>I recall the disgust and sense of violation some of my Ethiopian friends felt back in the early 90s following the famine there. What bothered them is the rest of the world only knew about the famine. Ethiopia was synonymous with starvation. And this was due in part from We Are the World.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So what needs to change?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is where Poverty, Inc. sends a very unwelcome message to some ideologues. Good, old-fashioned\u00a0bourgeois values work.<\/p>\n<p>But in order for them to work you need at least two things.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>The rule of law<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>And not just the rule of law in most general sense, specifically you need property rights. (See what I mean about an unwelcome, even uncool, message?)<\/p>\n<p>What the poor need is fair laws, justly applied. Big Poverty undermines this through its perverse incentive systems, its patronage, and the dependency it fosters.<\/p>\n<p>When the poor know that the work of their hands, and their interests, will be fairly defended in court, they get to work creating wealth.<\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, the bureaucracies in these countries, just like in the rest of the world, undermine property rights.<\/p>\n<p>When bureaucrats become parasites and lose sight of the public good they are entrusted to serve, you can be sure that people who want to get ahead in the world will work for the government instead of for themselves. No, let me put that another way, they\u2019ll turn government work into a way to work for themselves instead of serving the public good.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Local banking<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a lot of attention directed toward \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Microcredit\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">micro-banking<\/a>\u201d by the beautiful people\u2013giving tiny loans to very poor people, often women. And this is fine. At the other end, you have the big international banks, both quasi-governmental and private, that only work with big entities, such as governments and multi-national corporations. What\u2019s missing is the middle.<\/p>\n<p>Small and mid-sized businesses are starving for capital. These don\u2019t have the heart-tugging appeal of the poor-woman with three small children, nor do they have the \u201cthis will change the world!\u201d pump-up the volume appeal of big public works projects.<\/p>\n<p>Usually these are run by upwardly mobile and ambitious men. (Which threatens the petty bureaucrats and runs counter to the misandry of the \u201ctip-over-patriarchy!\u201d crowd.) But until these men get their hands on capital, things aren\u2019t going to get better for the poor.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s more to this film, plenty more. You can watch it just about everywhere. (I viewed it on Netflix.)<\/p>\n<p>I hope just about everyone will take the time to watch it.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Watching Poverty, Inc. made me angry like I\u2019ve not been in a long time. It\u2019s a great documentary. I\u2019ve been poor: American-style, food-stamp, housing-project, bad-school poor. I even survived all the things the helping professionals did to help me. But I\u2019ve also been rich. And in between I\u2019ve even worked with and along side poor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2522,"featured_media":1599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,13,187,284,108,38,40],"tags":[286,285],"class_list":["post-1597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","category-localism","category-politics","category-poverty","category-self-sufficiency","category-social-ethics","category-virtue","tag-inc","tag-poverty"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Poverty is Big Business<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Watching Poverty, Inc. made me angry like I've not been in a long time. It's a great documentary. 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