Huffing and puffing over aid

After four years of being tube-fed international development discourse, it quickly became obvious to me that the aid debate is one of academia's favourite varieties.  Apparently, the popular media has also picked up a taste for it as of late; of particular note is the cyber-spar that recently occurred between Jeffrey Sachs and Dambisa Moyo, two "household names" of development economics (OK, so the classification's slightly absurd - bear with me).  Sachs' contribution to the Huffington Post is a layman-friendly introduction to his conviction of the need for development assistance, which he defends primarily by pointing out the flawed positions of aid skeptics such as Moyo and William Easterly.  Moya responds in an equally terse fashion, suggesting that the confrontation at hand is only the most recent in a history of editorial animosity.

I'd like to start off by saying that my opinion of Sachs has been slow to galvanize.  Likely, this is due to the circumstances in which I've been exposed to him: aside from the occasional required-reading snippet, I wasn't exposed to his work until I cracked The End of Poverty on a rambunctious riverboat floating down the Laotian Mekong, the "crew" of which were constantly supplying debauched British backpackers with local moonshine.  Needless to say, Jeff came off as a bit dull in comparison.  

As I got more into it, though, I started to recognize qualities that also come through in the discussed article: although he is a committed free-market economist, Sachs recognizes the role that non-reciprocal financial interactions have to play in improving the prospects of developing countries.  Whether it's the forgiveness of debt or the provision of aid, offerings of resources that don't need to be paid back play an important role in increasing the capacity of countries to help themselves.  Sachs is insightful in pointing out that these resources are often the capital upon which countries like Rwanda build effective health infrastructures; he is even more profound in emphasizing that aid funds represent the immediate lifeline to millions on the brink of demise.  Although the article doesn't include the case studies and statistics to prove Sachs' points in and of itself, it serves as a useful call-to-action to Westerners to rethink their meagre contributions to global welfare.

Conversely, I found Moya's response to be smug, trite, and bordering on naive.  Her assertion that "development is not that hard" is enough to propel any development practitioner's head towards the wall, and serves to solidify her place amongst the ranks of one-dimensional conventional economists.  Although we can certainly take hints from past work in areas such as poverty alleviation, the "300 years of evidence" that she refers to is hardly the panacean canon that she makes it out to be.  Sachs knows as well as anyone that certain strategies, such as curbing inflation, have been, historically, applied with similar success in different contexts; however, he would also acknowledge that a smorgasbord of socio-economic-cultural factors come into play when these types of plans are actually implemented.  Moya displays her ignorance to this key historical fact, by attributing the effectiveness of the Marshall Plan and India's Green Revolution primarily to their brevity.

Moya's disciplinary tunnel-vision is further confirmed in her myopic diagnosis of Africa's problems of corruption and economic regression.  Although it is likely true that, in some cases, aid monies have been manipulated fraudulently by crooked officials, the conversation isn't complete unless problems such as poor transparency and judicial independence are mentioned.  The immense sums that Nigerian leaders have historically siphoned out of that country's oil industry is evidence that governments have the potential to be massively corrupt, regardless of whether the money comes from foreign sources or their own wellspring.  As for her claims that Africa is worse off now than in the 1970's, she conveniently fails to mention the effects that AIDS and economic structural adjustment programs alone have had on the continent's ills (ironically, SAP's - facilitated largely by Moya's ex-employer, the World Bank - were characterized by the kind of rapid free-marketization that she espouses).  

All in all, it seems to me that Moya is far more stubbornly attached to her ideology of African self-sufficiency than Sachs is to the idea of the importance of aid, as she alleges.  As far as I can tell, her claims that he neglects job creation in favour of aid-dependency in Africa are wholly unsubstantiated when this article and The End of Poverty are considered.  Although I'm horribly under-qualified to make any type of economic assessment on my own, it seems likely that the differences between Sachs' recommendations for Eastern European development and that of Africa are based on a recognition of the different socio-political-cultural conditions within those areas - exactly the type of broad-perspective that Moya has no apparent interest in adopting.  

Although I won't go into them in depth, I think there are also some important philosophical questions that come into play in the aid debate.  They centre largely around the concept of dependence, and whether it really is a bad thing to rely heavily upon another individual, group or country (check out my earlier post, in which I addressed this more generally).  Certainly, history is full of examples where economic powers have created dependence complexes as a means of exploiting weaker regions; however, the basic concept doesn't have to be painted this darkly by default.  Perhaps the acts of giving and receiving aid on an international, governmental scale could contribute to the development of human attitudes of altruism and humility.  There could be something to this; I think it more likely, however, that these attitudes will have to form on individual levels, before they're embodied on such a large scale.  

Life in uniform: not just guns 'n roses

I was checking out baseball scores on ESPN's website today, and decided to look at the power rankings to see if editors were giving the Jays the credit they're currently due.  Despite their usual bias against teams north of the border, the ESPN pundits pegged Toronto at a lofty #3 on the list, which was very conspicuously brought to me by the recruitment division of the US Army.  Out of appreciation for their thoughtfulness, I decided to indulge the sportscaster by checking out their sponsor's website.  The experience that followed bewildered me far more than the Jays' recent success on the field, which is significant to say the least.  

At first glance, the homepage of GoArmy.com strikingly resembles the interface of a military-based real time strategy video game, along the lines of Command and Conquer or Warcraft.  Upon entering the website, I immediately embarked on a nausea-inducing approach from the perspective of some kind of attack helicopter, eventually being presented with a bird's-eye view of what is, ostensibly, a typical desert US army installation.  This interface acts as a type of virtual graphical sitemap: by clicking on a section of the "base", the user is directed to related occupational info.   A click on the link hovering above the MP station, for example, lead me to a video narrated by an ambitious young military policeman.  The video game-feel of the site is further advanced by the columns of soldiers and battalions of vehicles moving around in the background - overall, I wouldn't be surprised if they had contracted Electronic Arts to design the darned thing.

Initially, the whole spectacle seemed comical.  The awe-inspiring graphics, zealous accounts by bright-eyed recruits - it all came across as harmlessly over-the-top.  The biggest laugh came when I started talking to "Sergeant Star", the virtual guide who's job is to tell you anything you'd want to know about a potential career in the trenches.  Truly a marvel in web-based artificial intelligence technology that's worth checking out: click on the link on the bottom-right of the main page.  Just don't call him too many names - three strikes, and it's off to boot camp, private!

As I thought about it more, though, I realized how strongly the website affirmed some common critiques of US Army (indeed, western) recruiting practices.  My mind immediately went back to those World War II-era soldier's letters I read in Grade 10 history, in which farm-boys-turned-riflemen spoke of the excitement of leaving for foreign lands; the thrill of fighting for one's country.  Is GoArmy.com the US military's attempt to piggyback this timeless fantasy?  Apart from a few sober caveats on the part of Sgt. Star (which I really had to pry out of him, by the way), there really doesn't seem to be much on the site emphasizing the physical and psychological risk one inevitably takes on by signing the roll.  

Also, as classist as it may sound, the format of the site seems to have set a certain demographic clearly in it's sights.  Can anyone say uneducated, suburban, upper teens-early 20s male?  Not to say I didn't / don't currently play video games: I've had my share of Goldeneye-induced all nighters and LAN parties.  However, is any well-informed, thoughtful person going to give serious consideration to a career in the army because of a super-cool recruitment website?  I'm not in any way suggesting an average member of the said demographic would fall for such sensationalism, but it's pretty clear the army is trying anyways.  At the very least, I'd describe it as vanity; more critically, it could be seen as insulting to the intellect of potential recruits.  

Above all, I view GoArmy.com as a gross misrepresentation and glorification of the business as a whole.  Even if the army's chief role isn't simply to "kill people", as Canada's former Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier once so controversially asserted, the fact remains a life in the military is ominously filled with tough decisions and lose-lose scenarios.  "War is hell" is a truthful cliche, and a soldier's job is, all things considered, an unfortunate one.  The world of the army may very well be characterized by "courage and honour", as the voice-over on the discussed webpage claims it is; however, many have also experienced it as one crawling with death and despair.  The salient message of GoArmy.com simply fails in conveying this core truth.

I suppose I could be rebuked by a claim that a job in the army is "just another job" that millions of ordinary people work at every day, and should be treated as such.  There is, of course, truth to the second part of that statement: I know plenty of people who currently work, or have worked, in the military, including my best friend and family members.  I can confirm that they are (or were) in it just as much for an honest living as anyone else.  However, I refuse to accept that it's "just another job".  The reason that I reserve so much respect and admiration for members of the military is that by taking that gun into their hands (or wrench with which they fix a fighter plane, or microphone with which they call in an air strike), they're shouldering a degree of responsibility not experienced by other members of society.  Exceptional nature of the beast considered, GoArmy.com's "bed of roses" - or more like "guns 'n roses" - portrayal just doesn't fit the bill.