When are you a missionary and when are you a parasite?

I heard a fascinating piece on NPR's "This American Life" a little while back that described that over the last 50 years aid has flowed in the billions of dollars to Haiti, a country the size of Central Florida, and yet year after year the GDP per capita gets lower and lower. There are now 10,000 NGO's in Haiti trying to help and 50% of all American households donated to the earthquake relief effort (including this one), but for all that there is no lasting solution.

*CONCERNING MICRO-FINANCE*

I have been opposed to debt as a personal choice. There is a proper place for the wise use of debt for large ticket semi-necessary items. I have taken on payments for a house (in order to garden and otherwise homestead as we see that as something that we will want to export: the liberty from repressive systems that comes from owning your own sources of sustenance to as great an extent practical) and for a family car (I live in a suburb-otropolis, public transportation is definitely lacking, and bicycling is impractical). It is because of this disparaging of the flagrant use of easy credit that I see crippling so many of my American peers, I am suspicious about the euphoria surrounding micro-finance as a way of alleviating poverty sustainably. It apparently does work, I have not heard much bad press about micro-lending when its done for charitable / entrepreneurial purposes. However while I was on Kiva.org a while back, I noticed how many people already had plans relying on "the next loan." That language of continuous debt, even in small sequential amounts, is what leads to the slavery and dependency that is not in keeping with a free, prosperous household or society.

However, the NPR episode described how small infrastructural improvements (the price of potable water, the reliability of irrigation water, or proper shipping and handling of products) can really cause a big increase in wealth distribution and quality of life. Should these be done through micro-finance? The profiled NGO seemed to have too many rules and applied them too rigidly. Would cultural sensitivity be increased by putting the money in the hands of a local (with accountability by requiring pay-back)?

*AIDING VS. BAITING*

The dilemma about how to transition from relief to aid, from hand-outs after crisis to supporting a sustainable economy, was well illustrated with the water situation:

Earthquake hits.
People need access to clean water.
Aid organizations pay for water and distribute it freely.
[Pause]

[Rewind]
Before the earthquake, an industry existed to fill the potable water needs of the people through trucks with tanks making rounds and charging per gallon (or whatever). It worked, apparently. It employed people. It was a native enterprise and it required very real buy-in from the people.

[Fast Forward]
Should the government take over water distribution in order to ensure a more equitable distribution? Can the government be expected to ensure equity? Should micro-finance institutions help re-establish the pre-crisis infrastructure by loaning to the entrepreneurs whose trucks were damaged?

I think its safe to say that these questions are thorny. Subsidized American grains undercut locally raised grains in other places of the world so farmers give up their profession and fill the bread lines, but there's bread in the bread line for all. Donated discard t-shirts of sports teams that didn't win a particular championship flood impoverished nations. The corporations get a tax credit for a waste product turned charitable giving, meanwhile the local tailor and seamstress sell that many fewer garments and have that much less to feed their children. Is all aid from a rich country to a poor country bad and / or demeaning? I should think not. But we need to bolster infrastructure and not undermine existing, if inefficient or even somewhat inequitable, systems. Blatant disregard for the poor, obscene class divides need to be addressed. This is an issue of moral infrastructure.

*MORAL TO THE STORY*

Moral infrastructure: encouraging the mores of a society to be those which will support the society's continued, sustainable, and basically equitable (not in material wealth, but more in opportunity, e.g. access to market, equal protection), and (this is critical) self-reliant existence. The people should be encouraged to respond to corruption not with cynicism (because that accomplishes nothing and is indeed what those who benefit from the corruption most desire) but instead to combat any instance of corruption with vigilante violence. Yes, I say a marginalized people should unite and riot when their government is acting in openly unfair ways. That includes in America. Do it the Gandhi way or do it another way. Do not harm life but why not harm the property of those involved in nefarious schemes, subverting the God-given intent for civil government?

A society whose people are fomenting a moral revolution, requiring an equal protection and access to markets, that is the culture that infrastructural aid will benefit.

So, who comes first: the preacher, the soup-line cook, the banker or the systems engineer? I don't know, but perhaps these are the roles for the missionary. Not the laborer. Generally, economies with high unemployment or employment of uncertain duration typically have more and better labor available than what a few Americans can provide. Pay the locals. Pray with the locals. Donate the skills and / or capital that is not available. But ultimately, encourage a moral economy and just governance.

Your thoughts?