Perhaps not stupidity, but ignorance. I am afraid I am ignorant of the
hurtful effects of sending money to help the poor and the beneficial effects
of letting the poor move to a place like the United States.
Keith Burbank
Adjunct Instructor in economics
Indian River Community College
Fort Pierce, Florida
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From: Robin Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Why not develop them here?
>Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 14:18:59 -0400
>
>I can understand people disliking foreigners, even going so far as to hurt
>themselves to hurt foreigners more. I can also understand people feeling
>altruistic toward the poor of the world, and wanting to spend resources to
>help them. These both seem to have clear evolutionary roots. But I have
>more trouble understanding the desire to send money over there to help
>them,
>while also hurting yourself via not helping others even more by letting
>them
>move here.
>
>There are lots of reasons people in poor countries are poor, including
>tropic climates which make health and farming harder, and bad
>path-dependent
>choices of culture and institutions. Some of these problems might be
>helped
>by sending money from here to there, but most of these problems can be more
>easily solved by encouraging people to move from poor places to rich
>places.
>When people move from poor places to rich places, they will tend to switch
>to better climates, cultures, and institutions. This solution should
>actually on average benefit those in rich places. And yet rich places both
>send money to poor places, *and* actively prevent people from moving from
>poor places to rich places. Is this just pure stupidity?
>
>Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hanson.gmu.edu
>Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
>MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
>703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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