Rich countries are now giving billions in aid. I am glad to see that we are willing to help,
but...
Is this too much aid? Is it crowding out other charitable causes? Is the marginal benefit from an extra dollar in aid maximized this way, or is it squandered?
More in extended entry...
No, I am not a mean-spirited Ayn Randian fanatic who thinks any government aid is worse than the extinction of humans. I want to help those in need, I want to give to them, through governments or thhrough private charities, whichever works.
But I also want that help to be efficient. I want to see that those who need help the most get the most. I want to see the as many lives as possible saved and improved. I prefer wise policy to crocodile tears.
In other words, my question is not about too much charity and too little plasma TVs. It is about emotional focus on one worthy charitable cause leaving too little for other worthy charitable causes.
The disaster in southern Asia was terrible. But it is not an isolated case of human suffering. That it reminded us (on the second holiest shopping day of the year, of all times) that there is great suffering out there, that we had forgotten about that suffering, does not mean it did not exist before the earthquake and the tsunami hit.
The number of dead in this disaster roughly equals the number of children, worldwide, who die every weak because of inadequate nutrition and public health - who die of causes preventable by modest expenditures. That is suffering that happens all the time, not once in a blue moon. Another ongoing disaster is the AIDS epidemic in Africa (and, increasingly, in South Asia as well). But those don't surprise us, so we have gotten desensitized to them.
I won't even touch the man-made disasters - wars, genocides, tyrranies - as the feasible ways of dealing with those are obviously more limited and difficult. But does anyone believe we are doing enough to minimize their occurrence and impact?
But let's compare apples to apples. Extremely devastating disasters like earthquakes and floods with tens of thousands of victims happen every few years. The world always shows some solidarity and sends aid, but, if I am not mistaken, the amount of aid per life lost (which is as good a proxy for the extent of devastation as I can think of) is much higher now that it was in recent earthquakes in Iran (2003 and 1990), India (2002), Turkey (1999) or Armenia (1989) or in the 1999 flood in Venezuela, or the 1998 hurricane in Central America. In all those events the number of dead was between 10 and 50 thousand - not as bad as in the present disaster, but not much less horrible, either. Yet, I don't recall international aid ever approaching a billion dollars.
Why?
It strikes me that this time there were thousands of Americans and Europeans vacationing in the area. Some were among the victims, but many, many more witnessed the devastation first-hand. A combination of "Oh my God, poor people!" and "Oh my God, this could have been me!" brought the horror home and spread it among those who had stayed home but could have been vacationing in Indonesia.
And Europeans, who actually take vacations, were naturally more scared than Americans. However, the dramatic increase in American aid, too, seems to have coincided with learning of the number of Americans caught in the area.
So are we more generous than we used to be or is it just that Wealthy White Westerners were reminded that disasters happen in real life and not just on the World Wide Web?
And, more importantly, if this disaster has reminded us that charity matters, shouldn't we remember that about all charity? Shouldn't we do more about helping others who suffer, too?