If There Is Nothing Left To Burn You Have To Set Yourself On Fire

When addressing the problem of global poverty, it is better to concentrate on modifying structural conditions over meeting people’s short-term, basic needs.

On the one hand, everybody needs things like food, water and health care. That’s undeniable. And, while some would disagree, I suppose, I personally think that we should do our best to provide said food, water and health care to impoverished states. No person should go without a full stomach, when we pay farmers not to produce corn; no person should have a parched throat, when fresh water lays abundant; no person should have a disease to which we know the cure.

However, if one examines the matter at hand at an even slightly deeper level, it becomes apparent that short-term handouts or programs are vastly inferior as a method of implementing effective change as compared to modifying structural conditions, such as infrastructure and trade routes. It follows the age-old aphorism of “if you give a man a fire, he will be warm for a day. If you teach a man how to make fire, he will be warm for the rest of the life.”

My version, which is significantly less poetic, would be something like: “If you give a man food, he will be full for a day. If you give a man increased capacity to produce food in the long-term through disaster prevention/control, advanced agricultural technology and techniques, and improved road/port systems through which he can produce and trade his produce for other goods, he will be full for the rest of his life.”

In short, it is better to concentrate on modifying structural conditions than on meeting people’s basic needs, simply because the former will lead to the latter while the latter, on its own, would not lead to the former.