"Foreign Aid for Scoundrels"
Foreign-aid critic William Easterly in The New York Review of Books:
The idea of aid is that, along with the necessary funds, the donors have superior knowledge—about health, agriculture, technology, institutions—that they are conveying to the recipients. Why let the ignorant recipients vote on what to do when the donors already know? As the future Nobel laureate Gunnar Myrdal said in 1956: "Super-planning HAS to be staged [with]…a largely apathetic and illiterate citizenry…this is why [planning] is unanimously endorsed by experts in the advanced countries."
Of course, today's "experts" can no longer be so frank, and have to use code words. One code phrase is "benevolent autocrats," a concept sometimes disguised even further with code words like "developmental state" or "strong leadership." The World Bank Growth Commission Report in 2008 gave as one of its few unambiguous conclusions: "Growth at such a quick pace, over such a long period, requires strong political leadership." Unfortunately for this view, as Dani Rodrik of Harvard has recently summarized the academic consensus, "authoritarian growth" is not a generally workable formula but a "myth." For every Lee Kuan Yew there is a Paul Biya.
Hat Tip: V is for Vanneman!
Take us away Penetration, who over 30 years ago counseled us, "Don't Dictate!":