From
The Dictator's Handbook: Why bad behavior is almost always good politics by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. A MUST READ if you want to understand the truth behind politics and how it
really works.
In this chapter we explore five questions about foreign aid. Who gives aid to whom? How much do they give? Why do they give it? What are the political and economic consequences of aid? And what do the answers to these questions teach us about nation building?
For any who were starting to think of democrats [in this context, democrats refers to democratic leaders or politicians] as the good guys, this will serve as a wakeup call. Most of us would like to believe that foreign aid is about helping impoverished people. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the primary organization for allocating US aid, advertises itself as "extending a helping hand to those people overseas struggling to make a better life, recover from a disaster or striving to live in a free and democratic country. It is this caring that stands as a hallmark of the United States around the world." Making the world a better place for its inhabitants is a laudable goal for donors. Yet the people in recipient nations often develop a hatred for the donor. And recipient governments (and donors too) often have different views about what the money should be for. As we will see, democrats are constrained by their big coalition to do the right thing at home. However, these very domestic constraints can lead them to exploit the peoples of other nations almost without mercy.
Heart-wrenching images of starving children are a surefire way to stimulate aid donations. Since the technology to store grain has been known since the time of the pharaohs, we cannot help but wonder why the children of North Africa remain vulnerable to famine. A possible explanation lies in the observations of Ryszard Kapuscinski. Writing about the court of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, Kapuscinski describes its response to efforts by aid agencies to assist millions of Ethiopians affected by drought and famine in 1972:
Suddenly reports came in that those overseas benefactors who had taken upon themselves the trouble of feeding our ever-insatiable people had rebelled and were suspending shipments because our Finance Minister, Mr. Yelma Deresa, wanting to enrich the Imperial treasury, had ordered the benefactors to pay high customs fees on the aid. "You want to help?" the minister asked. "Please do, but you must pay." And they said, "What do you mean, pay? We give help! And we're supposed to pay?" "Yes," says the minister, "those are the regulations. Do you want to help in such a way that our Empire gains nothing by it?"
The antics of the Ethiopian government should perhaps come as little surprise. Autocrats need money to pay their coalition. Haile Selassie, although temporarily displaced by Italy's invasion in the 1930s, held the throne from 1930 until overcome by decrepitude in 1974. As a long-term, successful autocrat, Selassie knew not to put the needs of the people above the wants of his essential supporters. To continue with Kapuscinski's description:
First of all, death from hunger had existed in our Empire for hundreds of years, an everyday, natural thing, and it never occurred to anyone to make any noise about it. Drought would come and the earth would dry up, the cattle would drop dead, the peasants would starve. Ordinary, in accordance with the laws of nature and the eternal order of things. Since this was eternal and normal, none of the dignitaries would dare to bother His Most Exalted Highness with the news that in such and such a province a given person had died of hunger.... So how were we to know that there was unusual hunger up north?
Selassie fed his supporters first and himself second; the starving masses had to wait their turn, which might never come.
