A new film from The Acton Institute. It's available online.
Some background videos are
Andrew Mwenda at TED 2007
George Ayittey at TED 2007
Herman Chinery-Hesse
The speakers above advocate local solutions to the local problems in Africa. Most of those local solutions involve "capitalism": jobs, entrepeneurship and free trade. The current aid system is run by people who are successful capitalists, but who are suspicious of capitalism. Let's be honest: the rat race sucks and a different system would be nice. The rich donors seemingly wish to use their aid as a test bed for a post-capitalist system. Not quite socialism, but not quite capitalism either. Crony capitalism, perhaps.
The film itself makes a case against paternalism: a feeling that rich countries and donors know better than poor countries. This ties in with the skepticism about capitalism. There's always risk in capitalism. People will get rich, but other people will go broke. The rich donors don't want risk: they want everyone to succeed. That's an odd position for successful people to take. Why is bland subsistence with no chance for success acceptable for Africans and Haitians but not for Bono and Bill Gates?
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