We have long been told a compelling story about the relationship between rich countries and poor countries. The story holds that the rich nations of the OECD give generously of their wealth to the poorer nations of the global south, to help them eradicate poverty and push them up the development ladder. Yes, during colonialism western powers may have enriched themselves by extracting resources and slave labour from their colonies – but that’s all in the past. These days, they give more than $125bn (£102bn) in aid each year – solid evidence of their benevolent goodwill.
This story is so widely propagated by the aid industry and the governments of the rich world that we have come to take it for granted. But it may not be as simple as it appears.
The US-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI) and the Centre for Applied Research at the Norwegian School of Economics recently published some fascinating data. They tallied up all of the financial resources that get transferred between rich countries and poor countries each year: not just aid, foreign investment and trade flows (as previous studies have done) but also non-financial transfers such as debt cancellation, unrequited transfers like workers’ remittances, and unrecorded capital flight (more of this later). As far as I am aware, it is the most comprehensive assessment of resource transfers ever undertaken.
What they discovered is that the flow of money from rich countries to poor countries pales in comparison to the flow that runs in the other direction.
In 2012, the last year of recorded data, developing countries received a total of $1.3tn, including all aid, investment, and income from abroad. But that same year some $3.3tn flowed out of them. In other words, developing countries sent $2tn more to the rest of the world than they received. If we look at all years since 1980, these net outflows add up to an eye-popping total of $16.3tn – that’s how much money has been drained out of the global south over the past few decades. To get a sense for the scale of this, $16.3tn is roughly the GDP of the United States.
What this means is that the usual development narrative has it backwards. Aid is effectively flowing in reverse. Rich countries aren’t developing poor countries; poor countries are developing rich ones.
Foreign aid from the West is literally a scam to cover up vast flows of money and resources away from the developing world and towards developed countries. It is the equivalent of the Gates’ of the world donating 0.00000001% of their daily income to charity and the media getting on their knees and fellating them for it. And, as others have said, even the absolutely paltry sums of money donated in foreign aid by the West merely ends up back in the hands of their own investors, because developing countries exist merely as debt peons to be endlessly harvested, without meaningfully developing them.
Your life must be so simple. Never had to form a complex thought, eh?
The level of projection is real. It must be so simple for you to just follow the status quo right? Just have to keep your head empty and mindlessly repeat state department talking points. No commie propaganda can enter if you keep filing your skull with imaginary accomplishments and a constant reminder that being American definitely makes you very, very, special.
It’s PR to fool people like you. The US is a fucking cancer, and even their foreign aid is mostly used to employ US citizens and to perform PR for image conscious billionaires. I actually work in foreign aid and it disgusts me how much of the budgets we are assigned goes straight back to Western companies.
You have to be so fucking shitlib to acknowledge that USA provide humanitarian aid to some country without any ulterior motives. They are not just aids but debt traps, that those countries repay by giving USA the access to their country’s resources and market at any cost. And if those countries don’t comply then USA starts providing more aid to groups opposit to govt and ultimately topple the govt.
The solipsism is sounding here. The world was not always as it is now. Conquest was the way the world worked for a very long time. You think these people had any concept of the damage they were doing? All you have to do is take the one extra conceptual step. Don’t be so lazy.
Even in the earliest days of European colonialism, there was very much a concept of the damage being done, look up Bartolomé de las Casas and educate yourself.
They knew damn well what they were doing, this is basically genocide apologia. Arguing in good faith, they say while blatantly ignoring what the settlers were doing.
Also I thought liberals hated “whataboutism”, every time a leftist makes a good argument about the immorality of the west, liberals call it whataboutism, yet that’s exactly what you’re doing right now. “Whatabout your people huh?”.
Fuck YOU ameriKKKan, kiss my ass you worthless pathetic fool. Your country has killed thousands. You bombed the countries of MY people and you ignorant statesians DARE to call us terrorists and make bomb jokes about us? You truly are an ignorant mindless IDIOT. Not to worry though, your empire of “freedom and democracy” shall fall and your allies will fall too. DEATH TO AMERIKKKA! DEATH TO THE WEST!
The USA is the most evil country in the world. No other country comes close it. And most of the “aid” goes back to the same pockets of the investors who give it, but now it is all tax free. Just check out all the tax evasion for millionaires that the Gates Foundation and many others have done! The USA fucks over every single country, especially poor ones!
Then why the hell is the US the largest contributor of global humanitarian aid? They’re not just evil right? They’re even bad at being evil.
Your life must be so simple. Never had to form a complex thought, eh?
That would be China, buttercup.
China is #1 raw numbers and Norway is #1 per capita
They aren’t.
I literally have this link bookmarked for dipshits like you.
Aid in reverse: how poor countries develop rich countries
Foreign aid from the West is literally a scam to cover up vast flows of money and resources away from the developing world and towards developed countries. It is the equivalent of the Gates’ of the world donating 0.00000001% of their daily income to charity and the media getting on their knees and fellating them for it. And, as others have said, even the absolutely paltry sums of money donated in foreign aid by the West merely ends up back in the hands of their own investors, because developing countries exist merely as debt peons to be endlessly harvested, without meaningfully developing them.
This is the face of modern imperialism.
The level of projection is real. It must be so simple for you to just follow the status quo right? Just have to keep your head empty and mindlessly repeat state department talking points. No commie propaganda can enter if you keep filing your skull with imaginary accomplishments and a constant reminder that being American definitely makes you very, very, special.
It’s PR to fool people like you. The US is a fucking cancer, and even their foreign aid is mostly used to employ US citizens and to perform PR for image conscious billionaires. I actually work in foreign aid and it disgusts me how much of the budgets we are assigned goes straight back to Western companies.
It’s not lmao
https://english.news.cn/20220923/c3265b00ba9d4538a25e35060b3103e5/c.html
https://m.economictimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/ugly-truths-of-ngo-funding-helping-hand-vs-foreign-hand/articleshow/12125056.cms
You have to be so fucking shitlib to acknowledge that USA provide humanitarian aid to some country without any ulterior motives. They are not just aids but debt traps, that those countries repay by giving USA the access to their country’s resources and market at any cost. And if those countries don’t comply then USA starts providing more aid to groups opposit to govt and ultimately topple the govt.
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I think that you might have shared the wrong article, comrade
I did not. The US purposefully starved my people. I don’t see that as a great contribution to global aid.
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The amerikkkan genocide of the indigenous (along with Jim Crow South) were direct inspirations for a certain axis leader.
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And they have the absolute gall to blather on about how communism kills. The propaganda is infuriating.
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Oh, my bad. I see what you mean now.
The solipsism is sounding here. The world was not always as it is now. Conquest was the way the world worked for a very long time. You think these people had any concept of the damage they were doing? All you have to do is take the one extra conceptual step. Don’t be so lazy.
Even in the earliest days of European colonialism, there was very much a concept of the damage being done, look up Bartolomé de las Casas and educate yourself.
Oh, they knew.
You know full well that they had no idea what damage they were doing to the ecosystem. If you’re going to argue, do it in good faith.
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they literally did
The US has committed multiple genocides.
You were just indoctrinated by it’s propaganda to believe they haven’t.
They knew damn well what they were doing, this is basically genocide apologia. Arguing in good faith, they say while blatantly ignoring what the settlers were doing.
Cracker apologetics get me fucked up every time.
Your country commited ethnic cleansing on my people, and you gloss over it like this while preaching about humanitarianism? Fuck you.
😠
If you think your people didn’t do the same to whoever was there before them, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s fun to be a victim though, right?
Cracker moment.
Here is a picture of your glorious ancestors.
Liberals when they get confronted with the facts about just one of america’s programs of ethnic cleansing: Literal genocide apologia
Death to amerikkka, death to liberalism
Extreme fragility detected.
Also I thought liberals hated “whataboutism”, every time a leftist makes a good argument about the immorality of the west, liberals call it whataboutism, yet that’s exactly what you’re doing right now. “Whatabout your people huh?”.
https://lemmy.sdf.org/comment/1847252
This you?
Literally two comments ago you were making excuses.
Fuck YOU ameriKKKan, kiss my ass you worthless pathetic fool. Your country has killed thousands. You bombed the countries of MY people and you ignorant statesians DARE to call us terrorists and make bomb jokes about us? You truly are an ignorant mindless IDIOT. Not to worry though, your empire of “freedom and democracy” shall fall and your allies will fall too. DEATH TO AMERIKKKA! DEATH TO THE WEST!
thousands? you’re off by at least 3 orders of magnitude. thousands this month, maybe.
The USA is the most evil country in the world. No other country comes close it. And most of the “aid” goes back to the same pockets of the investors who give it, but now it is all tax free. Just check out all the tax evasion for millionaires that the Gates Foundation and many others have done! The USA fucks over every single country, especially poor ones!