In an especially egregious case of abuse of the Op/Ed page, today's New York Times prints a real doozer from Carol Adelman (can't find link).
The subject: America's generosity (or lack thereof)...
How can we, the richest nation in the world [ranked last among developed countries in aid as a percentage of gross national income], not be more caring? The answer is simple: we actually are.
Fascinating, I must admit. I was ready to be tantalized and dazzled with the evidence of our generosity, and, by the time we came to this conclusion, I was anything but:
...rather than talking about our stinginess, the Europeans and the UN should look to increase the role of private donors. After all, the victims of a tsunami do not care whether [aid]...come[s] from a government or independent charity.
Her own evidence, unfortunately for Carol, leads to different conclusions.
After an obligatory reference to our lead in overall aid in absolute dollars, which is irrelevant to the argument of whether we're being stingy with the means we have available in relation to others, Carol brings a more innovative argument: that we more than make up for our public stinginess with private generosity:
Most important, however, Americans generally help people abroad the same way they help people at home: through private charities, religious organizations, foundations, corporations, universities, and money sent to relatives. In 2000, all this came to more than $35 billion, more than three times what the government gave.
Okay, so we have some evidence to work with (though, she only cites 1 year of aid, which could have been unusually generous for all we know). In 2000, we gave more than 3X privately what we gave publicly. Estimates of our public giving by percentage national income are around 0.17% (not sure of exact number, but this is very close if not correct).
Although official development assistance is a smaller percentage of gross national income in the United States than in other countries, it is also a smaller percentage of total giving. According to the DAC standard of 0.7 percent of gross national income, total U.S. international giving in 2000 should have been $69.5 billion. The actual total of official development assistance and private giving was $44.5 billion, or 0.45 percent of U.S. gross national income-well within
the average range for DAC donors.
According to these numbers from USAID, combined with Carol's numbers, we can divine around $10 billion in public aid, and $35 billion in private aid from America, giving us a 0.45% giving rate in terms of percentage national income, a failing grade (in terms of meeting international obligations of 0.7%), though if we grade on a curve puts us in the low average amongst industrialized nations.
Now, let's not forget that Carol advises Norway and Europe to increase the role of private donors, suggesting that our private donors somehow have taken us to the top. But Carol never mentions the numbers I cite above from USAID. The reader of the op/ed in the NY Times will not be able to come away from article without thinking we must be very generous.
But the truth is otherwise.
Norway gives 0.92%. Publicly. That alone is double our total public and private contribution. They must give something privately, which would probably add some to this number. The target industrialized nations have voiced a desire to collectively meet publicly is 0.7%. We are at 0.45%. It certainly keeps us out of last place, but to be on the low side of "well within average" is nothing to brag about.
That's not the point though. The point is that Carol's conclusions are not really supported by her argument (at least not in its short form in this op/ed), and you would never know that Norway gives 2X what we give taking into account public and private giving.
The only hope for her conclusion is that private aid is "faster, nimbler, and more directly accountable" than public aid, but she spends little time in spotlighting this portion of the argument, and no time in defending it with any evidence (and, it is likely that various forms of private aid have varying qualities of speed, flexibility and efficiency, some being better, and some worse, than public aid processes, and thus such a sweeping generalization cannot be made without empirical evidence).
Another possible point of bail out would be her contention that we give in terms of military support and medicine creation, but she glosses over this argument too.
The New York Times should either insist on this op/ed being lengthened a bit, or just not printed at all. It is an exercise in the ideology of privatization, and the massaging of facts mixed with ideology in order to paint a picture that is not in tune with reality.
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As a related item, a while back I was complaining about the truth claims of op/ed's:
...one would expect that editors would at least vet op/ed submissions for truth claims, and expect documentation to back them up. It's one thing to state an opinion on a matter, quite another to make the categorical statement (a truth claim) that "there is plenty of precedent for guerrillas trying to affect a U.S. election".
Similarly, we should keep an eye out for conclusions that don't match the argument. Perhaps I'm being too nit-picky, given the space Carol was given, but I'm willing to admit that's the problem. Provide the space for a fuller vetting (only 1 or 2 more paragraphs would be needed), or just don't print it.
Such an op/ed encourages lack of critical thinking, due to its brevity and reliance on ideology to prop it up, and should have at least been rewritten for clarity and with greater emphasis on the argument that really supports the conclusion regarding the other ways we give to the world aside from direct public and private giving.
In addition, it wouldn't hurt to insist that Carol be honest about what the overall total of direct giving really looks like in comparison to the countries she singles out in her conclusion. If she's going to give a few numbers to support her argument, she at least ought to give enough to allow a comparison to who she criticizes and patronizes in the conclusion.