by Pavel Podolyak

Created on: May 12, 2009   Last Updated: May 16, 2009

Lack of focus on aiding fellow citizens instead of foreigners has hurt the richest and the poorest countries of the world.

Let's say somebody forced you to give 500 dollars away but gave you the option to choose who to give it to. Let's say they also gave you the option of giving same amount in the form of a gift or labor. Would you give it to your loved ones and/or friends, or would you give it to total strangers? It might seem like a no-brainer since you can help your family out with something they need, brighten the day of somebody you know, see tangible results and improvements right away, and even get a bit of that money back through improved relations and reciprocity. The benefit of improving a stranger's life, pales in comparison from the perspective of self interest.

We all know how people shriek when other people force them to give away their resources through the muscleman of the government. We are familiar how many Americans would rather give the same resources to somebody close to them (themselves or their families) than other fellow citizens. This is not a piece about that. Neither is it about the philosophical debate on possibility of unselfish action. All human action is done to expand influence within the world in a variety of creative ways. Even something like suicide, that seems blatantly against the person's self interest, expands that person's influence after death since it is such a powerful act.

This piece is about proper prioritizing of private humanitarian aid. This type of aid is considered non-coerced and voluntary giving of personal resources to others. Many individuals around the world, particularly Westerners, seem to have their prioritizes of this type of resource giving mixed up.

Let's start with describing 3 of these primarily Western humanitarians (although non-Westerners have been making inroads recently when it comes to giving):

1) Religious people - In United States in particular, they are a large number since poorer education in large swaths of the country allows such demographic to be numerous. They point to how much Americans contribute to private charity compared to other countries. They are these Americans. They say since Americans are so generous on average, compared to Europeans, government shouldn't get involved in humanitarian aid. A point is made that people who already give a lot would give more if it wasn't redistributed under the barrel of the gun and if citizens could personally decide on the target of the aid.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• Next Page >>