Inequality In Angus Deaton's The Great Escape

Hardin informs us that the well- intentioned of helping is actually counterproductive. When the United States gives international aid to third world countries, we cause more suffering in the end. The poor country that receives aid is not growing wealthy or

In her piece, “Why Global Inequality Matters,” Nancy Birdsall argues that global inequality is an issue because it can negatively affect the social life, the political process and the economy of countries (especially developing ones). She looks at “how global integration affects poor versus rich countries (and people within countries), and on the resulting limits to poor countries’ (and poor people’s) ability to capture the potential benefits of globalization.” In order to argue her point further, she expounds on why global inequality matters and explores the possible role that globalization may have in perpetuating global inequality. Inequality matters, especially in developing countries with already weak institutions, because it may runs “the risk

Riddell, Roger C. 2007. Does Foreign Aid Really Work? 1st ed. OXFORD: Oxford University Press, USA.

There are billions of dollars that developed countries give to the developing countries to say that they are helping the poor and that they are bring the poor countries up out of the dirt. But studies have shown that giving money alone does not help, it could actually make the country worse off. Foreign countries should not give money to developing nations because the developing countries become too reliant on the developed countries, it does not help the developing countries, and with money, comes corruption. The better way for foreign aid to work which is to give technological aid. A quote from Maimonides, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” This quote tells a tale of how society works and the importance of learning. This can be applied to a multiple of things like how a developed country needs to teach another country how to survive. The developed countries are just giving money and food instead of teaching the public about how to grow food and how to have a stable economy. Countries around the world that depend on foreign aid are now

‘The White Man’s Burden’ is a book by William Easterly. The book explain why Western relief has done more harm than good. There are high poverty levels in Africa where millions of children are dying from easily preventable diseases despite the increase in foreign aid. Gordon brown called for doubling of foreign aid which was a Marshall plan to help the world’s poor countries. According to Easterly, the West spent around $2.3 trillion on foreign aid for the past five decades and has not yet managed to get affordable medicines for children to prevent half of deaths caused by malaria. The West spent that amount and had not managed to buy cheap bed nets for poor families or give three dollars to every mother to prevent massive deaths. Easterly also argues that, despite the doubling of school fees, students from poor families do not go to schools.

The United States is one of the strongest standing superpowers that have existed in the past few decades. Many people believe that the United States is declining from being a continuous super power; however according to Zakaria the United States is not declining. This is because they remain to have one of the strongest standing army, they have risen culturally, and economically the United States has been emerging enormously. According to Zakaria the United States has dominated the politics, and the culture in the 20th century, nonetheless he believes countries such as China, India, European Union, Russia, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, South Africa, and Turkey will rise in the 21st century. Zakaria states “-industrial, financial, educational, social cultural- the distribution power is shifting, moving away from American Dominance” (5). Thus he is proving his point about how the power is shifting to the other 124 countries. Furthermore, Sachs Jeffery mentions the “poverty trap” and the many possible ways to help the countries that really need it. One way to help these under developed countries is by providing for these republics. The developed nations need to assist the poor economic states just enough so their living standards may rise. The United States doesn’t have a lot to worry about the “rise of the rest”, therefore helping countries under the poverty trap should still be aided by the developing nations, because countries such as the sub-Saharan African nations are under

In the New York time’s I found an article that talks about the trouble social scientist must go through to get their clinical studies approved. “Some Social Scientist Are Tired of Asking for Permission,” by Kate Murphy focuses on the why social scientist shouldn’t have to get all their clinical studies approved by the institution review board (I.R.B) a committee used to formally approve, monitor, and review studies that involve humans. Kate Murphy focus her article on the why social scientist don’t need approval for their clinical studies. Therefore, I believe her desire audience is those who work for the I.R.B. And the purpose of her article is to pursue them into changing the rules.

More than 3 million lives have been saved every year through programs relating to foreign aid. In addition to, more than 50 million couples are using family planning because of the aid. Lives are being saved every day because of the little bit of money we take out of our paychecks. If we can as a country can help save lives, then that’s something we should be willing to do. Statistics continue to show that we’re saving lives, not hurting them. For example, “During the decade, under-5 child mortality declined from a mean of 109.2 to 72.4 deaths per 1,000, or 36.8 fewer deaths among those children in the countries that received the most health aid, the researchers found (a 34 percent reduction). In the countries receiving the least, under-5 mortality fell from 31.6 to 23.2 deaths per 1,000, or 8.4 fewer deaths per 1,000 live births (a 26 percent reduction), the researchers reported”(Richter). During this decade, we saved more lives than we caused harm to, therefor foreign aid is being put to a good use and it is being used for exactly what it should be. The more Aid donated to the health and well-being of other countries, the brighter future we can have as a

Daina Stukuls Eglitis states, “It is surely the case that poverty does not have to exist. But while we in the West derive the benefits and bonuses of these economic inequalities, it seems likely that our efforts to support, advise, and assist the less developed states will remain at levels that are financially and politically convenient and feasible.” (Chapter 37 page 228), which explains how we as a country have grown to only care about ourselves and weaken others. It's heart-breaking to see that our country completely takes advantage of those who need our help and make sure that they are always dependent on

On one side of the issue the supporters of developmental aid believe that the United States is doing more than a great job by offering economic assistance to countries that need help to develop. These individuals are aware of the unfortunate poverty levels in many countries abroad. They believe that it is the duty of the American people to help reduce the poverty levels in countries in which people live with less than a dollar a day. In fact, some supporters believe that the U.S. is not offering enough support to the poorer countries. Many have

However, the effectiveness of aid in countering these problems is seen to be small as the effect of Western economic dominance on restricting developing countries trade is seen to be too great. Libertarian Johan Norberg wrote, ‘According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, EU protectionism deprives developing countries of nearly $700 billion in export income a year. That's almost 14 times more than poor countries receive in foreign aid.’ Norberg is showing that even with aid, developing countries are still in a state of perpetual famine and lack of development as Western protectionism is causing them to lose billions of pounds in lost revenue each year, something which can only be improved through liberating the markets instead of giving more aid.

Over 20 percent of the global population live in unsustainable impoverished conditions, surviving on less than a dollar a day, with approximately 50 percent living on less than two dollars. Over 2 ½ billion people have a 10% infant mortality rate versus the 0.006% of infant deaths in developed countries. As conditions worsen the poor-rich gap widens through progressive decades, reaching an average per capita income of 74:1 in 1997. A debate has emerged as the whether developed countries possess a duty to ameliorate the living condition of the global poor and on what grounds said duty is justified. This inquiry prompts an ethical analysis of the world order’s role, as well as individual institutions role in worsening or failing to improve

Most of the developing countries are mired deeply in economical obstacles, which prevent them from development significantly. In order to overcome those embarrassments world’s society struggles to find the efficient solution for poor countries’ economies. Historically, developed countries undertook policy of giving aid to their colonies, afterwards by the end of The Second World War the United States and United Nations embarked the global sponsorship to the developing countries and countries of the Third World due to humanitarian considerations. Since then many other countries have joined in the effort to provide financial aid to lesser developed or poverty ridden countries. But none of those countries that received an aid had experienced a prosperity phase and rapid economic growth.

There is no set definition for development, but they mostly do agree that it revolves around improving a country’s living standards, economic growth, and human development. But the main definition of development used for this paper is given by Allen & Thomas (2000, p29) who state that there are three senses of the word “development”, one of them being “as consisting of deliberate efforts aimed at improvement on the part of various agencies, including governments, all kinds of organisations and social movements”. Development will be discussed from the viewpoint of international development policy and not from the broader sense of the word. This paper argues that modern international development policy is a tool that is used by mainly rich countries to further their own interests. The paper first briefly gives background information on the start of modern international development. The main body then explains some of the ways that international development policy is being used as a tool by rich donors e.g. as a ‘soft’ power to exert their influence, to promote national businesses, to slow the growth of developing countries, and to prevent the spread of other ideologies. The paper then counters three main criticisms of the argument, namely that rich countries are increasingly trying to provide less aid, that real gains in

“Aid undermines the social contract that holds countries together by inserting donors into the relationship between states and citizens. In fragile states, a relationship that is already an Achilles heel risks being made weaker.”