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EU unemployment is a problem. | 70 comments (70 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: EU unemployment is a problem. (none / 1)
We don't need even more demand in industrialized countries, but to raise the standard of living (and demand) in the third world.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Mar 29th, 2006 at 04:00:50 AM EST
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Mmmphmm. (none / 0)
I know you mean well, and I agree, but it sounds... condescending somehow. "We" don't need to raise the standard of living in the third world for them - that's reaching back to imperialism. We want them to do it themselves - even if we don't agree how that turns out for us. Based on what I've heard from expats living there, at least in countries in the horn of Africa, humanitarian aid from the west is a politically exploited tool, and one that by enlarging the "pity factor" during a crisis stymies the motivation to independent development. Europe and the rest of the western world are their heart machine which kicks in action whenever the next best crisis looms - and it comes for free. Countries practically count on the hand that feeds.

The current drought in eastern Africa is different, but only a little.

by Nomad (Bjinse) on Wed Mar 29th, 2006 at 04:55:48 PM EST
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Re: Mmmphmm. (none / 0)
Right. I don't mean "we in the west" but "we all".

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Mar 29th, 2006 at 05:05:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Mmmphmm. (4.00 / 2)
Well, I've heard that view from some expats.

But, at the same time, they rarely back it up with proposals to stop the Western (government and corporate) stanglehold on the economies of said nations. Thus, whilst it sounds very righteous to say that these people are "spoiled by charity" it's not clear that any proposal for them to develop survival without charity is being made.

Amartya Sen said it best, the market mechanism for dealing with a food shortage is... starvation...

by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Wed Mar 29th, 2006 at 05:07:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You too? (none / 0)
Perhaps we know the same expats, non?

And that's the crux of it, of course. Decoupling the humanitarian machine instantaneously means starvation - but not for the bastards with the gold teeth and in their palaces who keep plying the milk machine. Always the innocent first, assemble in lines of three.

But should "we" instead hand them the brilliant survival plan for the future? Isn't that similarly wrong as also here the tickling of motivation is completely absent? Part of the reason why products in communist countries were crappy because no one was motivated enough to do it right themselves...

What a fix.

by Nomad (Bjinse) on Wed Mar 29th, 2006 at 05:16:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: You too? (4.00 / 2)
Well, I agree that we cannot "hand them the plan." But there are things we can do:

a) Stop handing them the arsenic, as it were.

b) Set a good example, by implementing sensible rather than wingnut policies here (and indeed stop promoting wingnut ones through the IMF etc.)

c) Hand them the ideas, we are a think tank after all. I'd like EuroTrib to one day be the seed of AfricaTrib!

by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Wed Mar 29th, 2006 at 05:32:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

EU unemployment is a problem. | 70 comments (70 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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