AIDS, Africa, and the National Interest

It seems that nobody much cares for Michael Gerson's attack on Fred Thompson for questioning the wisdom of spending U.S. dollars fighting AIDS in Africa. I'm actually with Gerson, roughly speaking, on the substance of the issue, and I'd associate myself with these James Poulos remarks on the subject:

In this case, I have no problem with AIDS aid. I think standing idly by while one of the most damaging diseases in human history grows freely is not a very good idea on its face. I don't like suffering, and I do like charity, but I do not think that the purpose of foreign policy ought to be explained in terms of charitably fighting suffering. This clouds clear thinking, erodes sovereignty, and makes prudent prioritizing needlessly difficult. If their cause is as important as they say, AIDS activists should be able to make the 'hard case' for aid in these terms, and I think they can. Because the AIDS epidemic in Africa also happens to cloud clear thinking, erode sovereignty, and impede prudent prioritizing. Suffering is not a foreign policy problem; order is. And some things that cause significant suffering really do a number on order. An AIDS pandemic is one of those things.

I might even go further than this, though, and suggest that even when these sort of efforts turn out to be ineffective at fostering the sort of order we ought to be concerned with, their effectivness as public diplomacy shouldn't be underestimated. Foreign aid isn't exactly cheap, but compared to some of our other foreign ventures it's a relatively inexpensive way to burnish America's image in the world's more unstable regions, and it's impact on public opinion tends to be considerably larger than all of Karen Hughes's junkets put together.

The problem with Gerson's column, of course, is that it barely attempts to make the case for AIDS aid on anything resembling strategic grounds (apart from a vague and unpersuasive reference to how "radicals and terrorists" will thrive in Africa if we let the continent down), preferring instead to bash Thompson over the head for being too "callous" to understand, as Gerson does, how Jesus's message is supposed to be applied to foreign policy.

Comments

Re: Foreign aid isn't exactly cheap

Come now. Almost by definition, given the cost structures in different parts of the world, a dollar spent in Mali or Haiti will go farther than a dollar put to almost any purpose in the United States. Foreign aid (as long as it's for fairly straightforward things like small-scale rural development, health, etc.) is actually incredibly cheap. It's a shame that we spend, what was it, 0.7% of our GDP on it?

Sure, the direct benefits to us are probably slim to none, but that isn't supposed to be the reason why you provide for your suffering brothers and sisters, anyway.

Posted by Hector | January 18, 2008 1:18 PM

But is said aid actually Constitutional? The assumption is that it would be EFFECTIVE or GOOD, therefore it should be done. That is bad logic.

Posted by Joel | January 18, 2008 1:53 PM

By the definition of good, somethings that is good to do is something that should be done. You should word that differently.

It's one thing to complain about overly emotional rhetoric, but some of you seem to be going a bit further and insisting that utilitarian justifications for foreign aid are somehow irrational or "cloudy" in a way that realist justifications aren't. Which is just nonsense. It's just a matter of starting from different assumptions, not of one type of argument being clearer than the other.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 18, 2008 2:49 PM

If I have to choose between the Constitution and morality, I believe I will go with morality. Your Constitution be damned.

Posted by Hector | January 18, 2008 3:59 PM

Joel,
Why does the aid have to be constitutional, exactly?

You're wrong about the logic. It goes like this: "It would be EFFECTIVE or GOOD, therefore it CAN be done."

Posted by Woody Bombay | January 19, 2008 1:18 AM

Ah, yes, Hector, be moral. But when your morality compels you to dip into the national coffer, it becomes something of a small-c constitutional issue.

It's always easier to be charitable with other people's money. And it's always easier to assert than persuade.

How about this for a rule: if you want to use team resources, try couching your argument in "team" terms.

Posted by JA | January 19, 2008 11:30 AM

JA,

The principle that we ought to help provide medicine to the sick, food for the hungry, etc. IS a 'team' argument. It has universal appeal to religious and secularists, right-wingers and left-wingers, as long as they share a basic set of moral principles.

For anyone who _doesn't_ share those moral axioms, their conscience is so malformed that we have no common ground, and the only language that I can share with them is the language of the iron fist of the law.

There can be no 'persuasion' of the principle that we ought to succour the sickly and the starving. Either you accept it, or you don't, according to whether your moral compass is healthy or sick.

Posted by Hector | January 19, 2008 11:50 AM

The principle that we ought to help provide medicine to the sick, food for the hungry, etc. IS a 'team' argument.

Oddly enough, it's not.

To appeal to common sense when insight and science fail, and no sooner--this is one of the subtile discoveries of modern times, by means of which the most superficial ranter can safely enter the lists with the most thorough thinker and hold his own. But as long as a particle of insight remains, no one would think of having recourse to this subterfuge.

Or so wrote Kant.

And in case I haven't made myself clear, by all means, send your own money. Be moral. Succour the sick. Serve the poor.

But to use the mechanism of state, which compels its citizens, on pain of imprisonment, to cough up a percentage of their earnings for the "general welfare"? That is a different matter altogether.

And to then sneer at the arrangement, and snarl at the idea that another citizen could possibly expect a rational justification using the same terms with which his money was confiscated...

That's just disrespectful and stupid.

Posted by JA | January 19, 2008 12:32 PM

JA,

It's not _your_ money. _Your_ money is whatever the government decides is your portion, after taxes. If the Federal government decided to lower the rate of inflation by taking your tax money and burning it in front of the Washington Monument, that would be their prerogative, and you have no right to complain about it. Much less when they are actually doing something good with the money. What would you be doing with it- buying a new car? Sorry, I think healing sick kids in Africa is a little bit more important.

I do send _my_ money, but I want everyone in this society to send their money too. Morality isn't just an individual matter.

Posted by Hector | January 19, 2008 7:06 PM

It's not _your_ money. _Your_ money is whatever the government decides is your portion, after taxes.

This has to be the best thing I've read in the blogosphere. Do people really believe this?

Posted by JA | January 19, 2008 10:39 PM

But is said aid actually Constitutional? The assumption is that it would be EFFECTIVE or GOOD, therefore it should be done. That is bad logic.

The way it is phrased, this is rather ridiculous.

Let me rephrase it to say what I think Joel means:

But is said aid actually Constitutional? The assumption is that supporting these causes would be EFFECTIVE or GOOD, therefore it is the government's job to do it. That is bad logic.

Hector- It's not _your_ money. _Your_ money is whatever the government decides is your portion, after taxes. If the Federal government decided to lower the rate of inflation by taking your tax money and burning it in front of the Washington Monument, that would be their prerogative, and you have no right to complain about it.

So Hector believes that we all ought to be slaves to the government?

Woody Bombay- Why does the aid have to be constitutional, exactly?

Because if the government doesn't live up to the limitations it set for itself, it will recognize no limitations. (Although I suppose we can all live in happy state-slavery with Hector).

Posted by Glaivester | January 19, 2008 10:58 PM

Christian teaching tells us that we should care for the poor - it doesn't specify particular mechanisms for implementing such care, which is what I took Thompson to be arguing.

Whether or not aid dollars spent by the federal government are effective - or whether they end up doing more harm than good - is a necessary consideration in determining the proper course of action. There is some evidence that the vast amounts of AIDS dollars distorts health care priorities in Africa, such that less-publicized diseases and efforts to improve drinking water get neglected. And of course there is the problem that simply sending money simply enables the kinds of behaviors and dependency that causes so much of the misery in Africa in the first place. Teach a man to fish and all...

I think it is unlikely that our typical foreign aid expenditures buy very much in public diplomacy. For one thing, a lot of those dollars end up in the hands of a very small number of people. For another, people will still resent the hyperpower, no matter what we do - there will always be disease and sickness and misery that someone will claim the U.S. ought to eradicate.

Posted by Mike S. | January 20, 2008 10:41 PM

Mike S.,

Very possible. In fact, I regret my somewhat strident tone. It really pisses me off to hear arguments like 'it's my money and I'll keep it if I please', or alternatively people fetishizing the Constitution. It's quite another thing to make arguments that in practice, U.S. aid often does more harm than good.

It would be fair to say that U.S. donations of food and clothing have often thrown peasants and textile workers in Third World countries out of work. It would be also fair to say that _borrowing_ money from Western or international institutions has generally been a very bad idea for Third World countries, drawing them into a debt trap that they can't escape. It would be fair to say, too, that aid from Western countries that comes with _conditions_ (say that a country needs to privatize, cut social services, etc.) are generally not a good idea and that Third World countries are generally better off not accepting such gifts. Much of the foreign aid that the US and other countries give do in fact end up in the hands of elite classes and seldom make their way to the people for whom they were intended.
For all these reasons I'm generally less suspicious of a foreign aid project when I hear that it was funded by the Catholic church, or the Adventists, or the Lutherans than when I hear it was funded by the US government, or the French, or the Chinese or the Saudis. (This isn't a right wing argument by the way- Marxists and radical leftists have always been among the most skeptical critics of US foreign aid programs).

So yes, while I am viscerally hostile to the idea that we have no social obligations to the Third World _in principle_, in practice I am open to the idea that U.S. aid donations frequently do more harm than good, and perhaps one might have more of an impact is by personally donating to a faith based or a non-governmental development organization.

Posted by Hector | January 21, 2008 4:48 PM