African Famine (1 Viewer)

[chubbaraff]

I wanna break it down... probably to a level where im going to be bagged out by every eco student here but ill do it anyway. Imagine every consumer good in your house. If you, like I live in a house of 5, imagine that for every 5 people there was 1 comupter, 1 fridge...

This would mean 1.2billion of each of these... where the hell would we get the labor to do this... at the moment some of this is being done by no where except the third world who suffer for our consumer binges. Now tell me people, do we really need that internet fridge...

 

[neo o]

I love the left's assumption that there is an obligation upon governments to give aid.

1) The $ value of aid is irrelevant, what matters is how it's spent.
2) Ignoring for a moment that America dolls out the most aid in the world (the % it makes up of their GDP is irrelevant) your statistics only account for government spending. Absolution*, how much more do you think that the people of America give towards charities?

Anyway, there isn't much I can do here but agree with addymac and go (damn you all for getting to this thread before I could). Democracy is the West's greatest export. All we can do is hope that countries such as Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria set the pace for the rest of the continent.

As well as lowering trade barriers however, I think that the West can actually further help Africa by paying experts to work there and aid governments. i.e. experts in high intensity agriculture, mining exploration etc.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Well I don't think there are any "internet fridges" being made in Africa. But I suggest reading Lawrence Eubanks "The Case against Capital".

The purpose of this book is to show that Marx's central accusation against capitalism - that it enables capitalists to become wealthy only via their exploitation of laborers, by extracting from them unpaid "surplus value" - is a fallacy.

 

[katie_tully]

It's pretty obvious that continuously handing out billions of dollars to these nations is going to achieve nothing. We need to be more strict, we need to dictate where they spend the donated funds and we need to make them keep records of expenditure.

If we keep handing them money to use at their own disposal, their corrupt governments will keep abusing it.

 

[katie_tully]

I was going to say something about why we should feel obliged to keep handing out aid, and why people bitch when governments spend more on their own nations than other nations...but it seems I was beaten.

Carry on.

 

[Comrade nathan]

Actually there is a good reason why the imperialist nations of 1st world are obliged to help the nations of the 1st world.

1) Colonailism
2) Slavery
3) US interference through the use of covert action of the CIA to better the wealth of the US at the expense of stability in the 3rd world.
4) The countries that veto in favour of their own nations wealth over the development of poor nations.
5) Exploited resources at rediclious wages for labour or by use of slavery.
6) Aparthiad countries.

Now im not going to go on for ever.

The point is the imperialist nations owe the world to the poor nations. It is however false hope to think the 1st world nations are ever going to give back what they have taken, so the 3rd world must unite to bring the imperialist to their knees.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

It is a different question as to how the aid is controlled and how it will be spent - than to whether aid should be provided at all. If the aid can be provided in a way in which we see it put to effective use, I think the wealthier countries do have an obligation to step in and take measures to inhibit poverty and poor living standards.

I mean that makes moral sense to me, I assume no-one is objecting to us helping at all?

 

[paper cup]

I love the left's assumption that there is an obligation upon governments to give aid.

1) The $ value of aid is irrelevant, what matters is how it's spent.
2) Ignoring for a moment that America dolls out the most aid in the world (the % it makes up of their GDP is irrelevant) your statistics only account for government spending. Absolution*, how much more do you think that the people of America give towards charities?

Anyway, there isn't much I can do here but agree with addymac and go (damn you all for getting to this thread before I could). Democracy is the West's greatest export. All we can do is hope that countries such as Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria set the pace for the rest of the continent.

As well as lowering trade barriers however, I think that the West can actually further help Africa by paying experts to work there and aid governments. i.e. experts in high intensity agriculture, mining exploration etc.

idealism is the bestest isn't it?

 

[Not-That-Bright]

idealism is the bestest isn't it?

I never said "stop giving aid", I think Aid (to a certain extent) does have some purpose. I was just trying to attack the "give aid, save the world" sort of thing that is bandered around the place.

 

[chubbaraff]

Our best export is democracy

How about this from John Pilger

At present, for every US$1 of “aid” to Africa, $3 are taken out by Western banks, institutions and governments, and that does not include the repatriated profit of transnational corporations.

Take the Democratic Republic of Congo. Thirty-two corporations, all of them based in G8 countries, dominate the exploitation of this deeply impoverished, minerals-rich country where millions have died in the “cause” of 200 years of imperialism. In Ivory Coast, three G8 companies control 95% of the processing and export of cocoa, the main resource. The profits of Unilever, a British company long in Africa, are a third larger than Mozambique's GDP. One US company, Monsanto — of genetic engineering notoriety — controls 52% of South Africa's maize seed, that country's staple food.

Those experts are there honey.. they are in africa, making the superprofits and sending them back to the motherland... Pure Ignorance

 

[monkeyface]

Until sudsidies are significantly reduced, there won't be a considerable change to the state of the nation. I heard us farmers were paid $530 million last year...shheeshhh