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One of the things that make blogs particularly interesting are series. The “series” series recommends series at related blogs. “Blue Collar Professor” Shawn Humphrey is the initiator of the student-oriented Month of Microfinance and the Two Dollar Challenge. He teaches a variety of development-related courses in most fascinating ways, among other things having his students sleep in cardboard box shelters and (for better or worse) roping them into the operations of a Honduran microfinance institution.
Usually narrated in a personal, essayistic style, Humphrey’s blog offers candid and often bravely self-critical insights into the vicissitudes of trying to “do good” and “development” – and of teaching American students how/how not to do it. Even though they’re hardly always up my alley (as with the suggestion that “doing good” is a “market”) and not always palatable, Humphrey’s musings are ever thought-provoking, sometimes philosophical, and overall highly relevant given this blog’s consistent interest in ethical questions over social justice and philanthropy. It is my pleasure therefore (as the ninth instalment in our occasional series about great series on other blogs) to introduce “Do-Goodernomics / Do’s and Don’ts of Doing Good” with this reprinting of parts of some of my favourite posts.
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We were just finishing up our conversation with Clementina when another van full of Gringos arrived. A middle-aged man in a ball cap and shades bounded over to us. “What are you all doing here?” he asked with a hint of accusation. I introduced myself and my students. I began a review of our microfinance program. And, somewhere between “no fees” and “no penalties” he lost interest. “You know” he interrupted me. “Before we got here…,” there was a dramatic pause and a deep draw of breath “they had nothing.” He swept his hand over the small community of 30-plus families in makeshift shelters. “We built that meeting house. We built those two public restrooms. We are building that home.” He turned to place his eyes on my eyes. He removed his shades. He raised his cap. “You know without us I do not know whether or not they would have survived.”
A colleague forwarded an excellent article by Peter Buffett (son of the “Oracle of Omaha” but also someone with his own list of impressive achievements) in the New York Times. Peter Buffett critiques what he calls the “Charitable-Industrial Complex”: a global feel-good industry in the business of alleviating guilt.
Ironic illustration from the op-ed
©2013 The New York Times Company
The failures of present day large, organised philanthropy, Buffett argues, extend beyond just naively transplanting unsuitable ideas (“philanthropic colonialism”) to new places. Particularly the business-infused variant of philanthropy feeds a desire for cheap “conscience laundering”, making the rich and powerful complacent about their own part in creating social problems. Analogously to medieval indulgences, the Charitable-Industrial Complex promises easy absolution from wrongs committed in the pursuit of profits:
As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s what I would call “conscience laundering” — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity.
The Buffetts aren’t exactly known for mincing their words. Warren (the investor and father) is known for his television statement “there’s been class warfare going on for the last 20 years, and my class has won.” (See also: the Daily Show’s take.) “Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction” – also Warren B.
governancexborders.com 