Should we feed the starving?

Great Debates
41 
 I wasn't aware this discussion had anything to do with the wealthy. But since you seem to hate them so much I guess defending them doesn't sound like such a bad idea. However this really isn't the right forum for that kind of thing since the discussion here is about feeding the starving.

The United States did make some money off of the backs of slaves. However it is interesting to note that the areas with the highest concentrations of slaves, namely the south, was not as wealthy as the north which had very few slaves. I especially love how you single out "people of different skin color." Perhaps you're not aware of the mainly white people who worked in horrid conditions in the factories and coal mines of the US. But I guess that's ok since it is white on white exploitation.

 I have no ethical problems with helping my fellow human beings. However if I don't want to help or I want to help in a different way is entirely my business alone. I resent it when others claim they have a right to the product of my labor. It is one thing to ask for help it is quite another to demand it. I am not a slave to their needs or desires nor are they slaves to mine.

 I understand that we're seeing this from two different perspectives. You believe that people are entitled to food and shelter at the expense of others. I of course feel the opposite. As affluent a country I live in I still have to make bread by the sweat of my own brow. That means I work for my food and everything else I have. And to suggest that I owe someone anything I've earned simply because they exist is repugnant.

Marc

42

I really do understand that it is easy to think of starving brown people as mearly pictures on your TV screen, and to forget that they are actual human beings. I don’t know if one who sees such people as less than human can internalize the fact that they are no different than you or I.
I do a lot of charity work in Nepal, one of the world’s poorest countries (just got back from a 3 month stint last week). When I first started doing this work, the people were strange to me. I didn’t understand their language, their cultural practices or their religious beliefs. I was helping just because I thought it was the right thing to do. But now, after several years, I see them as no different than myself. They have the same concerns for their children, the same hopes and dreams, the same problems. Unfortunately for them, they were born into extreme poverty in a country where there is no opportunity for them to change their situation. How can a person who works their ass off every day yet still doesn’t earn enough money to provide adequate food for their family possibly change their situation? They cannot go to school because they can’t afford it. Ditto for sending their children. They cannot move somewhere better, because they have no money to relocate. It’s easy when one is sitting in a comfy house in America to think, “Why don’t they just hop on a bus and try to do better elsewhere?”. But there is no bus. Hell, there isn’t even a road.
I agree with everyone who has said that it is very important to be sure that aid is used in a manner that will create long-term solutions. But even if some of the aid that we send is mis-used and squandered by corrupt governments, I, personally, cannot look into the eyes of a starving human being and refuse to feed him. Especially when I know that the jeans I am so casually sporting cost more than he/she earns in a month.

43

Lucky said

And here is the difference between making decisions with one’s heart vs. one’s head. In the micro level, the heart can make decent decisions. I hold that on the macro level, especially when it concerns government, the heart shoudl take a back seat.

Otherwise we end up with situation like Somalia. How many times did we help out poor nations (the Congo and the Phillipines come to mind) because it weas “the right thing to do” only to find that we had given a dictator the money to crush, torture and kill his opposition?

44

Unless, of course, you do it through inheritance, stock or currency speculation, or usury on loans. Interestingly, these seem to be the most efficient means of getting rich very swiftly.

Well, hon, be grateful you live in Canada. And I’ll sit up here and be grateful I don’t live in the United States.

45

matt_mcl:

I think that you are treating two questions like one:

  1. Is it immmoral to let people starve?
  2. Should people be forced to be moral?

MGibson is not saying we shouldn’t try to help. He’s saying we shouldn’t be forced to help. In other words, every person living at higher than subsistence level, should feel a moral obligation to help those who do not have the opportunity to better themselves.

However, you tend to respond as if this leads naturally to these conclusions:
-they should also have a legal obligation to help.
-government redistribution is the best way to help.

Can you justify these conclusions?

When people in this thread question whether sending food is the best way to help, you react as if they are saying that there should be no help. When people think that governments shouldn’t be the tool for helping others, you respond the same way. It makes it difficult for others to debate with you if they also think that it is moral to help but disagree on the means.

-VM

46 
Actually I don't believe that anyone regardless of relative wealth has a moral obligation to help a complete stranger. The needs of any individual does not entitle them to the product of someone else's labor, period. Of course as I have said I find nothing wrong with lending a helping hand. I'm not an unsympathetic bastard who cares nothing for the suffering of others. I just don't feel guilty about doing better then someone else nor do I resent those who do better then myself.

Marc

47 
Most people do no live through inheritance. I have invested some of my money in stocks though but I'm not going to get rich very quickly off of them. Although I suppose it all depends on what you mean by rich. Investing does seem to be the most efficent means of attaining wealth. That's ok though.

 Actually I'm the one who lives in the US and you're the one grateful for living in Canada.

Marc

48

This thread was going so well…can we get it back on track?

Some people have turned it into a thread about whether we deserve our good fortune. Some have attempted to turn it into a discussion about whether we should be forced to give. This is becoming VERY iritating.

matt_mcl: regardless of where anyone of us here got our money, to what extent does helping in the short term help in the long term?

m gibson: assuming you care (bear with me) would it help to give (not should you be forced to give, not whether you should be a pariah for declining to give)? Answer the question, or start a thread about how good you feel about rationalising apathy.

picmr

49 
 That was a very cheap shot you directed at me and I didn't deserve it. There was no reason to be harsh with me for being off topic especially when you weren't harsh with Matt for doing the same. I said there was no obligation to help others I didn't say we shouldn't help others. And I said that because someone else here interpreted my words to mean that we were obligated to help. And unless you're the moderator it isn't your place to tell me or anyone else to stick to the topic or start a new thread.

 Depending on the reasons why people are starving it might help to send food, no doubt. For example when the hurricane hit Central America recently they needed food, water, and many other supplies. Sending aid to them was just that, aid. It helped them bounce back from the devastation and become self sufficent again. I imagine they would have recovered eventually anyway but sending them the supplies helped speed things along.

 Sending food to nations like North Korea or Somolia probably won't do anyone much good. In Somolia the local warlords end up taking the food and selling it on the black market or using it to keep people under their thumb. Until these nations go through some sort of fundmental change in the way they run things they'll always be starving or close to it.

 So is it helpful to send food supplies to nations with a starving population? Sometimes.

Marc

50

Let’s look at some of the ‘generosity’ of countries such as the US, France, UK, even USSR.
In that last lies the obvious clue as to why any of the named have ‘given’ aid, but all of them have been motivated by the same considerations.

The US supported Markos because they did not want to lose a strategic position and were fully aware of where a large percentage of the ‘aid’ was going. This was not a problem to the US even if aid did not reach the intended target because it made Markos dependant on US wealth.
Why do you think that the Iranians rose up against the Shah? Because he was using western aid to support his lifestyle while using what was left to crush opposition.

You could replace either of the participants in that last with any of the former colonial powers and a plethora of third world ones.

Much of the ‘aid’ that is given is little more than state subsidy toward the donor nations industry. Aid(overseas budgets) is given with strings attatched the rcipients are not free to purchase the most cost-effective goods but must use the aid as credits to purchase goods from donor nations, thus wealth never reaches the shores of the needy.

Desertification is a feature of poverty ridden lands. These people are often well aware of the damage that is done to their farmland by some of their practices but a meal today is of far greater concern than a meal in 20years time. They often have been succesfully subsistance farming for generations and understand the environmental issues in their region well. They get displaced by war caused by or exarcerbated by the actions of the big players on the world scene.

Many of the poor countries have found that the price of the commodities they once supplied have fallen dramatically so they tried to borrow, getting into debt. The cutbacks they then have to make just to service those debts dent their economies which causes discontent amongst their populations, it does not take much to light the touchpaper.

It is noteworthy that the debt repayments of the third world to the developed world exceeds the value of the aid that is ‘given’.

To get loans to help them service their debts 3rd world countries were told to restructure their economies by the IMF .Many did this and, as part of the plan, invested in growing higher value cash crops. Trouble with that, taking coffeee as an example, is that the supply of coffee grew since many nations were advsed to enter this market and of course the value of the goods fell.

Brazil did all the right things as economists of the day reckoned. They borrowed hugely to finance the developement of industrial infrastructure and at first the value of their exports rose. When recession hit in the early 80’s suddenly Brazils export markets declined, by this time so much had been borrwed that the west simply could not afford to let them go under for fear of a domino effect an loan defaulters.
Brazil was able to ride that storm , just, but there was a great threat to democracy there.

In other less fortunate nations their economies and governments collapsed into extremism, and corruption.

When you look at all the little brown faces with dying eyes do not forget that the west has been a willing supplier in the arms business. If we can supply them with guns on loan guaruntees, which everyone knows is not money, then perhaps we could do the same with food, or better yet, get the hell out of their financial and political affairs.

We in the west are marvellous at telling other nations how they should run their affairs but when they have taken our advice it seems to make things worse.

The atrocities in Sierra Leone are financed by the diamond markets in Amsterdam, it has little to do with politics and everything to do with western greed.There are child soldiers walking round with British made guns but they could quite easily be French, or American.
It is western oil companies that are directly suppling the finance to the Nigerian goverment to use by their military to oppress the peoples living in the oil-rich lands, the Ongona, you haven’t forgotten what happened to George Sarawewo yet have you?
Now that Nigeria is operating in that region to ‘maintain order’ in nasty little wars we have conveniently forgotten that it is no longer a democracy.

Fact is that we in the west bear a duty to help feed the helpless of the world simply because much of it has been caused by our interferance.

There are comparisons about which compare the consumption of energy, goods, and resources of citizens around the world which most of you will have seen. All I recall is that the US uses an incredibly disproportionate amount of the worlds wealth but pays less and less of its GDP in commodities imported from the 3rd world.

How far do you wish to extend the logic of not helping the vulnerable because it appears unsustainable? Just those little brown men then? Maybe we should stop looking after those dumb animals that are going extinct, even though it is largely our fault.
If we were to release ourselves from the constraints of compassion because of what we, in our arrogance, think is the big picture I doubt it would be long before we lost ourselves as a society and became savages.

51

Correction- that was Ken Sarawewo not George

52

Must…grunt…stay…gasp…on…ugh…topic…

Aha! Yet another reason not to give any aid. If you do, then everything becomes your fault. If we give money to African nations, we are bastards. If we don’t we are bastards. Better to be a cheap bastard than a poor one.

We may provide arms to one side or the other, but that does not mean that we caused anything. It is not like we dropped crates of weapons out of a plane and the folks in Sierra Leone said “hey, let’s have 12 years olds start a war!” . Many parts of the world have horrendous internal conflict for a myriad of reasons, many of which have nothign to do with the US (contrary to popular belief, the US did not colonize Africa.) This is why it is important to assess the effect of aid prior to giving it.

You can’t use wealth. It is not like a fossil fuel. IF it were, we would all be living in mud huts and trading in produce. Wealth can be created, augmented, decreased…but not used up. Good aid helps countries create their own wealth rather than simply feed them for a week.

And I resent the allegation that teh only reason that one would not give aid is because the starving people are “brown.” there have been well reasoned and cited arguments above for failure to give aid to certain countries. YOu aregument is about as moving as a Sally Struthers commercial, the parts that are on topic, that is.

53

I love Gandhi’s quote that you can feed a man and he will not be hungry today, but if you teach a man to fish and he can feed himself forever [sorry for the poor paraphrasing].

This thread has run the gamut from extending helping hands to hungry people, helping hungry people feed themselves to the political expediency of keeping our political allies in power by providing so called development aid. I believe we have no real moral, ethical, economic or political reason not to help folks out because we all live on the same planet. The question is how to do this. Pick your own organization or charity - there’s a gazzillion out there.
I prefer organizations that promote social entrepreneurs, but I digress. Whatever agency/organization/charity you pick should address the following principals which are basic to any economic development whether in Africa, Latin America, Asia or Eastern Europe. You can’t really pick and choose because they come in a package.

  1. Freedom of information and freedom of speech - this includes access onto the internet.

  2. Strengthening the legal system which is applied equally to all folks with justice kept in mind. A lawyer friend of mine says that the legal system should focus on what you cannot do rather than on what you can or must do. I’m not that much into laws to really understand the difference but I’ll except his expertise.

  3. promote decentralization and democracy

  4. strengthen civic / civil society and the local associative movement [neighborhood organizations, PTAs,
    save the whatever movements

  5. basic education for all with an emphasis on girl’s education [better educated women result in lower infant and childhood mortality, better family nutritional status, improved economic status to name a few benefits].

  6. improving access and quality of child services [especially immunizations], family planning services, STD
    sexually transmitted diseases/sexual health/AIDS and reproductive health [free and open access to birth control, condums, abortions regardless of marital status and age]

  7. open trade

  8. responsive govt and civil society [like the Red Crescent] to respond to emergencies: epidemics, natural disasters, food and water shortages, shelter needs

I don’t think that a society can successfully grow without responding to these basic principals. I don’t think that we North Americans, Europeans can afford to ignore these principals in our development assistance because the strengthening world or international economy is making us all more interdependent. What goes down comes around.

There is a flipside to this coin which I don’t remember seeing raised in this thread. Folks complained about the burden of having hungry folks. Yeah, we could have a faster growing int’l economy when more folks are involved in production. On the other hand, what do these folks get from us now? Deforestation, air and water pollution, regional wars which continue because we make armaments available, threat of nuclear war, non-available drugs to fight simple but life threatening diseases because the drug companies want to preserve their profits or see no profits in manufacturing for the poor third world. We are gobbling up natural resources at an ever increasing amount while returning less. Need I go on? What moral obligation do the starving masses have to us?

54

Except that he was Ken Saro-Wiwa.

55

The Board has been very slow for me the past few days. This afternoon it was OK, but now this thread is the only 1 in GD that I could open ( because it was on the top of the page ). So I thought I would reply. If any of my points are addressed on page 2 I apologise; I am not sure that my computer has loaded the whole thing.

I believe that we should feed them.
I have only owned this magic box for a few months so I am not exactly an expert on the net. I would appreciate it if someone could help me find some hard numbers. I searched on yahoo and altavista ( the only search engines that I have found ) and I could only come up with 1 example. But since Ethiopia was mentioned earlier, it seems to be a good 1.
I am not an economist and I do not claim much knowledge on the subject, but my understanding is that rather than the poor nations living off “the largesse of the West”, it is the reverse. The poor nations have a trade deficit with the US.
From Africa Online.

It looks to me as if these poor countries are supporting our lifestyle.
If my understanding is flawed please let me know.
Also, is promoting Western-style development in poor countries a good idea?
I would think that if every person in the world consumed as much as the average American then the entire Earth would soon become a desert.

[hijack]
Southern Style:

I disagree with all 4 of your points. I would do so in a new thread if I felt any assurance that I would be able to open and read it. But to keep it short, do you have a cite for those 10,000 Black slaveowners?
Also, how could any White slaves have arrived before Black slaves if the 1st known immigrants to the present day US were a group of Black slaves that were brought to our shores by their Spanish owners to found a town near the mouth of South Carolina’s Pee Dee River in 1526?
The slaves revolted and fled their masters to ( presumably ) live amongst the Natives. The Spanish fled back to Haiti. I learned this from James Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me. Good book, I would recommend it.
[/hijack]

( I hope that my link works, the preview reply function will not. )

56

Sorry MGibson if you thought I had a cheap shot, but your subsequent response is clear and certainly defensible. I thought I had nearly as much of a go at Matt.

picmr

57

Hi 2sense,

A small point to begin my reply: 10,000 black slaves were owned by blacks which is different from your reply stating that there were 10,000 black slave owners.

But that really doesn’t matter. The fact that there were black slave owners is sufficient for the argument.

The white slavery in this country came in several forms. Not only what we think of as “traditional” slavery, but also a clever device known as the “indentured servant”. This little ploy allowed a “lien holder” to “own” the labor of the debtor, and effectively his life, by having the debtor work off the debt. Of course, the debtor also had to buy room, board, clothing, medical services, etc, usually from his master, so that the debtor was often unable to pay off the debt and worked for the master his entire life.

Several centuries ago there was a clear difference between slaves and endentured servants. But the slavery discussion doesn’t consider the morals of the era, only the attitudes of today. And since an “endentured servant” violates todays laws on slavery, I’ll pose it as one example of white slavery.

You disagree with all 4 points? Disagree with opinion if you will, but disagreeing with facts is an ineffective way to win an argument.

I don’t recall where I first learned about the black slave owners. I’ll try to do a little digging and see if I can come up with a reference.

SouthernStyle

58

Apart from the “white slaves” side-issue, it almost seems like we’re reaching agreement here: giving money is not in itslef any sort of panacea, and may make things much worse, but it is possible to help. The lines peaches mentioned (maybe with odd minor quibble) were pretty good.

Short term relief that does not exacerbate the causes of famine can be productive. You have to look to where the aid will go, but at the same time try not to be too nosey.

Incidentally, I reread MGibson’s remarks and my rather qualified apology to him and felt a bit of a cad. Sorry, I was a tad riled up and I was out of line.

picmr

59 
That's ok. <sniff>  Let's never fight again!! <hug hug hug>  It isn't a difficult thing to sound harsher then you mean when typing. I'm certainly not innocent.

Marc

60

Put it in another term:

When you have to pee, I mean when you REALLy gotta go, how much help is it to have somebody tell you that you shouldn’t have drank that whole Big Gulp before getting on the bus for a four hour trip?

It doesn’t help at all. Your need is immediate.

If you are starving it is the same. The long term solutions may be difficult and complex, but in the short-term there is only one answer. You feed them.