Cast Away : For These Reasons. Lambert Timothy James
side of the globe, where I found naïve characters who see themselves as miracle laborers and benefactors of third world countries. As talented as these individuals might be, the flaws in their conceptual approach is the bigoted view of less developed nations' challenges and needs. They base their models of development on the deep-rooted passion for Capitalism and sense of cultural superiority. This mindset reminded me of the aphorism "if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail."
What is more hazardous to poor nations than smart ass westerners? Immigrants from god forgotten countries; self-enslaved and adoring conformists, with the little access to modern amenities and western taste that they have acquired, who dare vocalize that living on a dollar a day is "just how it is" in their home countries. I have found a high concentration of these stupid individuals in England, where Engel's account of the living conditions only a century ago sent chills down my spine.
In the United States, which was not too long ago a shit hole with a putrid stench of racism, sexism, and bigotry (the stench still lingers in the air). Lastly, if you are one of those monkeys from a repressive authoritarian regime which is walking down lit up streets in the west, delighted from the addictive sense of protection and freedom and yet has a firm conviction that developing nations need a "strong man" for peace and development. Before you read the rest of the book, repent.
It has to be noted that, throughout time, a dominant society has always knighted itself the prestigious "exceptionalism" status. I would applaud this gut and bravura if their economists took on the leadership responsibilities of dissecting the world around accurately and, accordingly, prescribe effective interventions that would lift us all up.
The intent of both socialist and capitalist nations has been to globalize its influence and inclusive reach. Socialism in the political militaristic fashion, while Capitalism choose to do it through business hegemony. Globalization has no more benefitted the socialist enterprise than the capitalist endeavor. For the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics neighborhoods received their first sewer systems and running water, 100 years after the great socialist victory in St. Petersburg. In shocking similarity large areas of capitalist nations in the western hemispheres both north and south have large populations in not so dissimilar situation. This while St. Petersburg and Moscow enjoy gold encrusted bathroom fixtures to be rivaled only by those in Paris, London, New York and Los Angeles.
While socialist athletes enjoy all the benefits of stardom and wealth their western counter parts do, the western athletes rising up from shoeless beginnings bed themselves in palaces that pale those of African, Asian, and Caribbean national palaces.
What do we have right now? A total fuming global mess where Cost-effectiveness and Gross Domestic Product (an insane way to gauge citizens' life betterment) are at the center of leading initiatives. I have to underline the overused excuse, "globalization," since it has added elements of scope and speed into the mix. What to say about humankind when, time and time again, leading nations turn a blind eye to the imposition of inhumane practices, which was slavery in past centuries and now Self-deprecating is added to the load, as long as it benefits them?
I get angry when westerners are surprised that development programs, which are shoved down the throats of problematic countries, do not lead to prophesied outcomes. I become angrier when solutions for inhabitants' needs can be addressed in an integrated way. Instead, from their desks in Washington, DC, economic druids clean the data up and develop simplified models, which abstract from the complexity of observable reality.
Time and time again, critical studies conducted by no other than the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank insiders have poured out evidence of the leading international financial institutions' programs effectiveness1. These guilty consciences decry how a country economically faint is treated as a coma, rushed into an international organization emergency room, locked into unplugged financial incubators, and knocked out by an addictive overdose of aid, is then molested and gangbanged by frantic necrophiliacs and is used as a testing ground for irrational experimental reform programs. God forbid, a vegetated nation shows any sign of life after these unnecessary open-heart surgeries as what the Argentine Republic did; it will be at the mercy of ferocious vultures who would try to pull its eyeballs and intestines out.
The Failed State Solutions of the UN
What is the standard antidote injected into a nation once deemed as a "failed state?" Let's look at Haiti after Hurricane Sandy blasted through this voodoo nation that was already socio-politico-economically wobbling for a century. First, it was quarantined and put under the supervision of spooky eyes of international trusteeship. After what powerful nations imposed via douceur (democratic elections) to millions of illiterates, a charismatic buffoon whose brightest idea was to organize carnival celebrations all over the smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, while serious decisions were taken solely by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund emissaries. The social, commerce and trade, and political crimes committed in Haiti are far from being an isolated case; international assistance funds have been used by predator nations to extract that sort of concessions from the crippled nations, which often are not willing to offer in healthy times.
What we have seen in Haiti and in other black holes where those same approaches were taken is that remedies produced a worse net result than the problem itself ever did. Primarily because these nations' kleptomaniacs and technical "partners" often implement contradictory dogmas and reforms that cause poor countries to fall further behind. I should not be the first one to tell you that John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White offsprings and other international financial institutions act at the whim of their backers and backers' backers' interests. This, in turn, leads to another round of despicable resource waste and mismanagement. If you are craving to get a sense of the magnitude of this mess, please take a tour of Cite' Jalousie, Port au Prince, Haiti, and compare it to villas rented by United Nations "peacemakers" a few miles away.
It matters little, socialism, or capitalism, greed is greed, avarice is contagious with power and the political pathway to the ability to have it makes little difference. The end result is the glorification of heroesâ feet be they in the athletic shoes of Nike or the Wingtips of a politician. The result is the continued suffering under a disparate economic system that consistently shells out to the privileged few and discriminates against the disadvantaged many. What to say about humankind when, time and time again, national leaders turn a blind eye to the continuance of inhumane practices. Slavery still exists. It isnât as open, there are no ships full of black or brown retched incarcerated humanity, now days they are transported in containers aboard ships freely traveling the high seas finding homes in the most fashionable cities of the world.
"I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men."â Richard Baxter
Nowadays, economists claim that a theory can't be developed except in a purely numb way; any phenomenon that can't be reconstructed in a mathematical model is deemed illogical and trashed. If in a sense, nothing is explained unless everything is stated in a mind-bending equation frame, this book is read as a suicidal letter. I am not depressed enough either to jump in front of a subway train or to make a journey to a Buddhist monk temple. I have to thank the classical and prodigal political economists who were not inclined to this constraint and who aesthetically birthed essential principles and, unfortunately in most cases, robust diabolic treatises.
In third world countries, the contrast between the misery and despair of the many and the level of opulence and waste of the few is not a complex abstract, but rather an observable reality on an insane scale amounting to a moral abomination.
Western revered revisionists under the umbrella of international organizations such as UNDP (United Nations Development Program) are suggesting that third world countries nightmares have nothing to do with colonization. The pathetic excuse is held as the truth even when we see post-colonial social layers mirroring the caste system inherited from colonizationâs ruthless exploitive social construct. Little has it done, other than imposing a maniac head of state, to help the marginalized evade a bleak future. Social, commerce and trade, and political anthropophagy (Capitalism) is an exogenous concept proven not fitting for developing countries' realities and potentials.
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