Comments on: When Doing Nothing Equals Increased Aid

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:46:04 +0000

I didn’t realize New York was so unstable…

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:48:56 +0000

Had to see if you’ve seen Orlov’s “Boondoggles to the Rescue!”.

Just look around and you will see boondoggles sprouting up everywhere, in every field of endeavor: we have military boondoggles like Iraq, financial boondoggles like the doomed retirement system, medical boondoggles like private health insurance and legal boondoggles like the intellectual property system. At some point, creating another boondoggle becomes the preferred course of action: since the outcome can be predicted with complete accuracy, there is little risk. Proposing a solution that might work runs the risk of it not working.

So why not, as a matter of policy, only propose solutions that are guaranteed to simply create more problems, for which further solutions can then be proposed? At some point, a boondoggle event horizon is reached, like the light event horizon that exists at the surface of a black hole. Beyond that horizon, the only possible course of action is to create more boondoggles.

By: Bill Easterly

Bill Easterly — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:34:03 +0000

Amanda, what if it’s only my wife and I and our five kids? Bill

By: Bill Easterly

Bill Easterly — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:31:54 +0000

Dear Jeff,

sorry, levity is the last refuge of the powerless intellectual. If I have to be serious to get change, I will be serious. If I have to cry, I will cry. If I have to make jokes, I will make jokes. Anything to change aid, anything.

Best, Bill Easterly

By: Jeff Barnes

Jeff Barnes — Wed, 20 May 2009 11:49:53 +0000

Bill–

As usual you treat a serious development issue with too much levity. In fact, I am a big believer in doing nothing in the absence of evidence that doing something will help. But please, no one who proposes doing something actually thinks it will make things worse, they are just paving the road to hell with their good intentions.

Doing nothing adheres to the first do no harm principle. Also when the development community does nothing it reminds everyone that ultimately every society/country is responsible for its own fate. Having Development Inc do nothing may be the opportunity the locals need to figure out their own solutions. In that sense, doing nothing is quite positive!

By: Amanda Taub

Amanda Taub — Wed, 20 May 2009 08:01:08 +0000

If the entire U.S. Congress shows up at my apartment to watch Love Actually, I hope they bring beer.

By: Texas in Africa

Texas in Africa — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:54:34 +0000

I could not agree more. Another good example is the response to piracy on the Horn of Africa. Instead of addressing the root governance problems in any meaningful sense, Western states are choosing to patrol a massive portion of the seas in a game of cat-and-mouse. I’d argue that this response has strong potential to cause at least one of the three major pirate groups to ally with Somalia’s Islamists, thus opening up a whole other bag of problems that the Godfather himself couldn’t solve.

By: Ana Majnun

Ana Majnun — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:44:31 +0000

Not to reductio ad absurdem the whole thing [Amanda's and your position on humanitarian intervention], but please explain why parents intervene in the lives of their children (with force!)… you’ll quickly find yourself making arguments perfectly analogous to justifications for intervention in the lives of friends (we care, we know, we live by moral rules, etc.) and then derive a justification for force exercised against some persons, and then from there justify force against persons not known. You may disagree at each step- that’s fine. But don’t act like such justification isn’t possible.

Also, anyone who writes Searchers with capital “s” shouldn’t be making fun of people with utopian schemes.

Ana

By: Shannon

Shannon — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:13:14 +0000

When you mention that politicians always choose Option B, that makes me think of the tendency for politics, and therefore laws, to become increasingly more complex, and therefore increasingly difficult to understand, manage, fund and measure, as well as to create unforeseen consequences. It seems to me that simplicity is a quality we should cultivate in our lawmakers, but I guess I’m a naive utopian at heart. Of course, doing nothing is the ultimate form of simplicity.

By: Noumenon

Noumenon — Wed, 20 May 2009 05:58:07 +0000

Off topic: William, you gave out rare praise to the charity WaterAid in one of your books a while back. I was very happy to see it because I had already decided to give them about 10% of my annual income and I was hoping it was worth it. I’ve continued doing that for about six years now.

Since then I’ve heard more and more from WaterAid about lobbying the government and fundraising concerts and I was wondering if they’re becoming just another typical NGO. Have you been following them? What have you heard? You can e-mail me if you don’t want a public statement attributed to you.