What we should do

I attended a presentation at the University of Toronto by William Easterly. It was interesting because I had kind of forgotten about it until recently when I came to some of the same conclusions that he presented, but I didn’t understand. It was a few months ago so forgive me if I make some mistakes.

The main point is that we in the West can’t and shouldn’t come up with “the solution” to poverty. Here’s why:

If we did it would require us to be 3 things:

Omniscient, Paternalistic and Authoritarian.

Omniscient because we would have to literally know everything to come up with “the solution”. As it stands right now a lot of people in fact understand very little about the people and atmosphere they are trying to help and work in.

Paternalistic because if we did know “the solution” we couldn’t get Africans to come up with it themselves, we’d just have to hand it down, unchanged from on high and they’d have to just do what was prescribed.

Authoritarian because even if we had “the solution” and explained it perfectly, we would have to make sure that it was actually implemented as designed. The only way for that to happen is for us to completely oversee and force everyone to do exactly what we tell them.

Obviously from these three things, we can’t do the one we want to and shouldn’t do the ones we can. As a result, it kind of renders “the search for the solution” pointless.

Towards the end of his lecture, I and a number of other people got the same question. He already knew it and answered before we asked. “What the heck are we supposed to do then?”

Here’s where I can’t reliably remember what he said, but I’ll combine what I think with what I think he said. Make sense? We should avoid one thing and do one thing:
Don’t be destructive or obstructive! Don’t make unfair trade agreements, don’t dump unwanted food and clothes destroying local production, don’t plunder and destroy the planets resources, don’t poach all the doctors and nurses.

Be constructive! Share ideas, trade, be (responsible) tourists, work with and support.

Don’t believe me? Here’s an example of how I landed on this belief:
You know the saying don’t give a man a fish, teach a man to fish. Well there are 3 things wrong with that.

1. It assumes that you actually know how to fish
2. It assumes that you know how to teach someone to fish (very different!)
3. If he relied on you to teach him to fish, who will teach him to cook a fish? Make a fishing rod? Avoid overfishing? Hunt? Harvest?

It’s the reliance that is the problem. You can’t be a student and child your whole life. It doesn’t mean you stop learning when you stop being a student either.

So in the fishing example what is our role?

1. Don’t overfish. Don’t buy the fish at a low price and sell cooked meat at a premium. Don’t flood the market with cheap fish you caught and put all the fishermen out of business.

2. Share where the best fishing spots are and any tricks you have. Trade some fish he catches in exchange for some you catch. Invite him to come and try fishing like you do and go and try fishing like he does without explaining all the ways he’s “doing it wrong”.