Two interesting articles about aid

[fpb]

I think the impulse to help is natural and inevitable, but there is at least something to be said against institutionalizing it. I did have severe instinctive objections to the establishment circus that African aid has become in recent weeks, and these articles supply reasons to suspect it.
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,363604,00.html
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html
We may not buy everything they say, but at least they are worth thinking about.

Comments

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

Forcing others to help you do something you want to do that they may or may not think is a good idea is not really helping. To me, it's more like helping yourself to something that isn't yours, namely other people.

What is it about giving a man a fish as opposed to teaching him to fish?

Oh, I forgot. Church and State separation. My bad. [/facetiousness]