Not Charity, but Solidarity

I was at a party last week that capped a hectic, but thoroughly fascinating week at the UN MDG Summit. The party was actually a happy-hours MDG gig organized by a forum cheekily called BYOC, or Bring Your Own Cause. After a week of hobnobbing with the who’s who of global health and development (I met Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO thrice!), this party was a refreshing off-off-UN Plaza affair. Nobody talked about advocacy, nobody uttered ‘leveraged partnerships’ and most importantly, nobody said anything about ‘new money’. It was all very laidback with most people younger than me, bringing with them the youthful enthusiasm that somehow gets diluted the closer one gets to UN Plaza.

Sometime during the evening, I got drawn into conversation with a hulk of a human being. He was German, of course, and standing at well over 6 feet, he literally towered over me. I recall him telling me that he was studying International Affairs, and our conversation drifted to social systems as he was keen to know about the caste system of which India is the unfortunate heir. He then proffered that the class system in Germany wasn’t very much different than the caste system, and it was difficult, if not impossible to rise above the class that you were born into. Of course, I would argue that in India, one gets bogged down by the double whammy of the caste AND class system, but I was intrigued to know that social mobility was a deep concern even in a society as advanced in Western values of individualism and freedom as Germany. My German friend then made an interesting argument, which I thought held its fair share of water. He said that social mobility was difficult because the folks at the top of the pyramid were afraid of relinquishing their top-dog position to those from lower levels. Continuing with the argument, he said that those at the top are all too happy to share their resources with the ones below, as long as their positions are not challenged. When they fear for their own supremacy, their generosity dries up, and they become protectionist and would do all within their power to hold on to the reins of power. Legitimate logic, I thought. He then extrapolated this pattern to international aid. He predicts that with the rise of the Asian powers of India and China, traditional donor countries like the US and Europe would be wary of helping these countries in their ascent and international aid flows would see a precipitous decline. I have to say, I could find no fallacy in his argument, and it sounded pretty convincing at the time.

However, my doubts about continued international aid were soon put to rest by President Obama’s address to the UN General Assembly. They were further allayed as I read through the US Global Development Policy, the first of its kind issued by a US President. It was quite a relief to see that the most powerful man in the world does not view international power politics as a zero-sum game. The Obama administration realizes that there is place for all nations in the evolving global geopolitical landscape, and doesn’t necessarily view the world as a hierarchy, but rather as a comity of nations whose collective prosperity would always surpass the wealth that any one nation could generate for its citizens, acting independently. You may claim that I’m naïve to believe the politically correct posturing of an astute politician, and I realize the validity of that claim. For all we know, perhaps the developed countries may take on a stance of protectionism to hold on to their positions at the top of the ladder in the years to come. That, however, would be their own undoing. The unprecedented prosperity that the developed nations have seen over the last century or so is the result of them allowing each market to feed off the prosperity of the other, thus leading to a hyper-functional system where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. If Adam Smith taught us anything, it’s that an economically formidable partner is more of an asset than a threat. In his speech to the General Assembly, President Obama pointedly asserted that the aid that was being given to the South isn’t really an act of charity, but rather, an act of self-interest. That one line tells me, more than anything, that Obama gets Adam Smith, and is a far cry from the socialist that he is so often accused of being, and that I wish he was. At least, he seems to be the good kind of free-market advocate.

My guess is that seeing developing countries actually developing, the rich nations will drool at the prospect of growing markets for their products thanks to increasing purchasing power, and that will spur them to push the process along even more quickly. So, Holger, rest assured that international aid will not dry up. If anything, it will further increase, continuing the trend that recent years have seen. Your job and mine are secure as long as a market remains to be created; and that shall remain a prospect till kingdom come.