Hypocracy in Democracy

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New Organization
2007-03-08 19:04:00
I apologize for the lack of published blogs recently. I have been focusing on the creation of a new organization. It is called AidMarket. It corresponds to the proposal posted in Dec. I could use your support.Thank you!
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Improvement
2006-12-14 22:48:00
In my quest for a new practice or method for international aid and intervention, I have come to the conclusion that we need an education-based initiative that supports bottom-up development and improves Feedback from the poor; Monitoring of agents as well as project process and progression; Visibility of the situation, of people's condition, of particular projects and their outcomes; Accountability for the particular outcomes and necessities; Donor Incentives by establishing an a prestigious award, allowing them to choose which form of aid, and observe the outcome of their contribution -- making the donor an active agent; Transparency because donations must correspond with particular work order or responsibility, the books for international funds must be public information; Independent Evaluation with the authority to hold individual agents and agencies accountable for their contribution and responsibilities; and Educational Material available to the unfortunate children. I wou...
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The Proposal
2006-12-14 22:47:00
An education-based initiative, or the preferred 'point of entry,' would be the physical presence of a school. Not so much a school as most would think of it, but an Education Center serving the entire local community. As opposed to the universal curriculum that is being developed today, I believe that a curriculum and educational resources extended out into the community through the internationally supported Education Center should be tailor-made to address local needs and interest. These Education Centers will enable us to focus on what matters: endowing a new generation of learners with knowledge, strength, and values. All of which, in the long-run, will translate into the wider population with positive effect. For international interventions and aid to be more successful, it is extremely important to empower the local intellectuals and support development from within the given community. Over time, the Education Center will have empowered locals and formed vital contacts with...
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Education Centers
2006-12-14 22:45:00
Accountability Consider the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These lofty goals lack individual accountability for particular outcomes and necessities. They lack independent agencies with the authority to hold individual agents responsible for the efforts and outcomes of particular interventions. Collective responsibility for goals doesn't work for the same reason that collective ownership of farmland in China didn't work. Xiaogang 1978 - individual farming - 1982 Communist reform - 1984 there were no communes left; "tragedy of the commons." Collective Responsibility for many goals draws from the weight of pride in doing a good job and weakens the incentive, as well as competence, to accomplish particular objectives or projects. It is good to have a noble goal in mind when engaging in the solution of any problem. However, if the problem is not your own, then the goal, based on your values and experience, is irrelevant and the solution unlikely to resonate. We must place o...
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Education is integral to Development
2006-12-13 20:31:00
Development requires learning, learning requires education.Education is empowering.Education drives development by extending resources to embrace the needs of the larger community.An infrastructure that advocates information and promotes learning is aligned with both democracy and development. We must give up on utopian planning in favor of piecemeal education-based intervention.
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Bottom-up Construction for Development
2006-12-13 16:40:00
We talk about developed and undeveloped countries which makes the difference between countries and cultures seem somewhat binary. For the sake of this example, imagine that the development of countries is analogous to the development of a house that is being constructed. It's a big house that is never quite fully developed, there's always room for more construction, for more development. I am not trying to universalize cultures or the means of development. I am simply attempting to enlighten you with another perspective. You see, there's an obvious difference between a five story house and a house that has yet to build on top of its base. But their similarity is most important. The construction of both houses must start at the bottom and build on top of the established base. Imagine that the surface of the base is determined by, and reflects, local traditions, norms, values and rules. The base is relative to the particular culture. When constructing, one must understand t...
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United Nations Development Programme and Their Capacity Assessment
2006-12-11 14:45:00
UNDP produces a Capacity Assessment (CA) from which they work out the development plan. This, in it self, is a vast improvement from the previous top-down planning under the assumption that successful reforms were universally applicable. The CA "focuses on the current and desired levels of capacity in a given system or institution, the gap between them, and most important, the resulting capacity development strategies and actions ? how the improvements will occur and how much such will cost to undertake." First, the CA must Assess & Analyze, it is "a tool, not a solution. It requires a prior understanding of the political context within which capacity is deployed and a clear rationale for why certain capacities are desired in the future." Quite obviously the CA depends on local understanding of the politics, institutions, and societal capacity as well as the feedback from these particular communities. In fact, it seems to be the very grounds on which everything else depends and...
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The Ineffective Reaction to the World's AIDS/HIV Epidemic
2006-12-11 14:38:00
AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome HIV - Human Immunodeficiency Virus Although the foreign aid community can advertise a few successful health initiatives that have done much good, their failure to sufficiently react to the AIDS crisis continues today. We are faced with an epidemic. This crisis is so important to the world's population, to humanity, that it must not be left up to politicians. Before discussing why the West didn't act more vigorously early on in the AIDS crisis, I want to quote a few of the news articles that I've read lately. This gives us a perspective on today's situation and issues. The Guardian reported that there "are now 39.5 million living with HIV infection, according to the annual UNAIDS report, released ahead of World Aids Day on December 1, and 4.3 million of those were infected in 2006. That is 400,000 more than were infected in 2004." Their front page story said that "in recent years the message on condoms has been diluted in fa...
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The Problem
2006-12-04 21:38:00
(William Easterly "White Man's Burden")"A patient who is already HIV-positive is a highly visible target for help-- a lot more visible than someone who is going to get infected in the future but doesn't yet know it. The rich-country politician and aid agencies get more PR credit for saving the lives of sick patients, even is the interest of the poor would call for saving them from getting sick in the first place. This again confirms the prediction that aid agencies skew their efforts toward visible outcomes, even when those outcomes have a lower payoff than less visible interventions." A 2004 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, while generally positive about treatment in developing countries, sounded some concerns: "Finally, how will the tens of thousands of health care professionals required for global implementation of HIV care strategies be trained, motivated, supervised, resourced, and adequately reimbursed to ensure the level of care required ...
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A Fit of Religious Zealotry
2006-12-04 21:24:00
"In a fit of religious zealotry, Congress also required organizations receiving funds to publicly oppose prostitution. This eliminates effective organizations that take a pragmatic and compassionate approach to understanding the factors that drive women into prostitution. Programs that condemn prostitutes are unlikely to find a receptive audience when they try to persuade those prostitutes to avoid risky behavior... To make things even worse, the religious right in America is crippling the funding of prevention programs to advocate their own imperatives: abstain from sex or have sex only with your legally married spouse... Studies in the United States find no evidence that abstinence programs have any effect on sexual behavior of young people, except to discourage them from using condoms... The religious right threatens NGOs that aggressively market condoms with a cutoff of official aid funds, on the grounds that those NGOs are promoting sexual promiscuity. Pushed by th...
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Why Treatment?
2006-12-04 21:02:00
From William Easterly's "White Man's Burden":"The total amount of foreign aid for the world's approximately three billion poor people is only about $20 dollars per person per year. Is the money for AIDS treatment going to be 'new money' or will it come from these already scarce funds? President Bush's 2005 budget proposal increased funding for the American AIDS program (especially treatment), but cut money for child health and other global health priorities by nearly a $100 million dollars (later reversed after protest)... Bush's cut in other health spending was particularly unfortunate when two and a half times as many Africans die from other preventable diseases as die from AIDS... Granting life though prevention of AIDS itself costs far less than AIDS treatment. The medicines that cure TB cost about ten dollars per case of the illness. A package of interventions designed to prevent maternal and infant deaths costs less than three dollars per...
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A Generation of Undereducated, Undernourished, Underparented Orphans
2006-12-04 20:08:00
Here's the truth people. The terrible truth of the unethical "fight against AIDS."The West largely ignored the humanitarian crisis as it was building up, only to focus on treatment - an expensive, inefficient, and politically biased attempt that neglects the prevention so critical to stop the epidemic from spiraling out of control.Public health principles and democratic logic is based on utilitarian reasoning, we should save lives that are cheap to save before saving lives that are more expensive. With the limited funds available, we must maximize the benefit and positive outcome. We must save as many as possible. Simple cost-benefit analysis."The advocates for treatment stress the universal human right for HIV - positive patients to have access to life-saving health care, no matter the cost. This is a great ideal, but a utopian one...There are also other ideals-first of all, prevention of the further spread of AIDS. And what about the universal human right for health care for oth...
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The Initial Reaction
2006-12-04 19:54:00
"The World Bank did its first AIDS strategy report in 1988. The report said the crisis was urgent. It presciently detected "an environment highly conducive to the spread of HIV" in many African countries. It noted that the epidemic was far from reaching its full potential and that "the AIDS epidemic in Africa is an emergency situation and appropriate action must be undertaken now." The World Bank gave $1 million to WHO to fight AIDS/HIV 1988/9. Then saying in 1992 that the 1988 "Strategy Paper has been reasonably well implemented." ... The World Bank's 1993 World Development Report, whose theme was health, notes that "At present, most national AIDS programs are inadequate, despite international attention and the significant effort by WHO to help design and implement plans for controlling AIDS." Translation: it's the WHO's fault... Part of the problem was probably that aid agencies didn't know what to do to address the crisis, but the above examples show little evidence t...
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The Kitty Genovese Effect -- Collective Responsibility
2006-12-04 19:41:00
William Easterly drew an analogy between the long period of inaction on the AIDS crisis and a true story of a 28 year old bar manager in Queens, killed 1964?"Moseley first stabbed Kitty , neighbors came back and stabbed her some more, till she died. Police later identified 38 neighbors who saw or heard part of the attack. The eyewitnesses' failure to call police became a symbol of the callousness of urban America... Each of the 38 people might have been willing to bear the cost to save Kitty's life, but preferred that someone else make the call. With so many witnesses to the scene, each person calculated a high probability that someone else would make the call and save Kitty. Therefore, each person did nothing... The Genovese effect can also operate within aid bureaucracies. Each department might wish that results happen, but would prefer that some other department achieve them, with glory for all. Departments then get into the game of shifting responsibility for difficul...
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Poor's Interest Sacrificed to Political Convenience
2006-12-04 19:29:00
Before taking a good look at the organization, accomplishments, and efficiency of international aid agencies I thought that the UN, World Bank, IMF, and other agencies were doing a great job -- I was wrong.There is almost no feedback from the bottom. There is minimal monitoring of project progress and outcomes. There is limited individual accountability - collective responsibility shifts blame and weakens the incentive to perform well. There is lack of visibility and quality educational material.At the center of these problems is the fact that the money spent (input) is more important rather than the cost-effective initiatives that really benefit the poor (output). Politicians and aid bureaucrats react passively to dramatic headlines, utopian ideals, and ambitious global-objectives rather than according to where the scarce aid budget will benefit the most people. The poor people suffer because of politics! Is it that this is the only way to receive donor's money, or simply beca...
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The Legend of The Big Push
2006-11-30 16:57:00
"The poorest countries are in a poverty trap (they are poor only because they started poor) from which they cannot emerge without an aid-financed Big Push , involving investments and actions to address all constraints to development, after which they will have a takeoff into self-sustained growth, and aid will no longer be needed. Argument: [If POVERTY TRAP --> BIG PUSH] v [If BAD GOVERNMENT --> NOT BIG PUSH] Over 1950 - 2001, countries with below-average aid had the same growth rate as countries with above-average foreign aid. Poor countries without aid had no trouble having positive growth. The solution to this conundrum is that the identities of the poorest countries at the start of each period shown keeps changing. It doesn't help the poverty trap legend that 11 our of the 28 poorest countries in 1985 were not in the poorest 1/5th back in 1950? If the identity of who is in the poverty trap keeps changing, then it must not be much of a trap. The UN Millennium Project...
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What is the Problem With Democracy?
2006-11-30 15:38:00
This post closes my discussion on the democratic transformation in Iceland. I will now undertake the messed-up subject of foreign aid and international development.The question ignites various answers, most of which relate to, and reflect, last century's split of democracy into participative and representative rule. This separation highlights a distinction between democracy as a social idea and political democracy as a form of government. The debate between John Dewey and Walter Lippmann in the 1920's explicates this democratic split. Whereas, Lippmann's books, Public Opinion (1922) and The Phantom Public (1925), raised doubts about the possibility of developing a true democracy in a modern, complex society. Dewey's work, The Public and Its Problem s (1927), defended democracy and suggested that "when the machine age has thus perfected its machinery it will be a means of life and not its despotic master. Demo cracy will come into its own...(p184)" In its embedded ambiguity, 'demo...

Iceland in the News
2006-10-30 23:18:00
The historian Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson has accused the Danish newspaper Ekstra-Bladet of racial discrimination against the Iceland ic Nation. The paper said, among others, that "On that windblown paperisland out in the Atlantic some 300.000 Icelanders clearly had the idea that they coild take over most of the World." As it reads (my translation from the icelandic) on the newsweb: Nyhedsavisen. Vilhjálmur said that these statements were gross generalizations against a whole nation. "As an Icelandic citizen, I am innocent of these accusations. Nor have I had the idea that I could take over the world." from http://mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/frett.ht ml?nid=1231601> Environmental activists and concerned citizens from across Britain, Iceland and Trinidad and Tobago converged on Sloane Square in London on Friday the 27th of October to protest against the aluminum invasion into these islands. Miriam Rose, from the campaign 'saving Iceland' said, 'today was very import...
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Some of Iceland's Qualities
2006-10-23 23:45:00
From the Belfast Telegraph: Iceland : The secret of happiness Iceland has everything - hot springs, cool bars and a nation of healthy, beautiful people. Oh yes, and it's the safest place on earth, too. Is this the modern world's answer to paradise? John Carlin reports 23 October 2006* Iceland is the only member nation of Nato that has no armed forces, these having been abolished in the 14th century. * Only a tiny fraction of the country's 679 police officers - an elite crisis unit called the Vikings - carry guns. * With an annual murder rate below five, the sum total of the country's prison population is 118. * Iceland has the highest density of mobile phones per capita in the world (there are more mobiles than people) and three quarters of the population is on the internet. *Infant mortality is the fifth lowest in the world and life expectancy higher than in all but 10 of the planet's 226 nations. * Reykjavik is the most northern capital in the world and Iceland is fur...
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Iceland Hunting Whales -- Damn Right!
2006-10-18 17:43:00
Wow, so little Iceland is receiving international attention once again. Before, it was the unsustainable growth and overheating of the economy. Now, for hunting whales - again. Let's throw this into perspective.Iceland declared Tuesday it was issuing licenses to hunt about 40 fin and minke whales in the year ending August 2007.Japan on Wednesday welcomed Iceland's decision to resume commercial whaling, saying Iceland's catch will "in no way endanger the whale population." The Japanese government plans to kill 1,070 minke whales in 2006, as well as a total of 170 Bryde's, sei, sperm and fin whales.If you, dear reader, think that Iceland has made the wrong decision, you must consider this:The International Whaling Commission, provides information on whale populations -- you will see that Iceland's action will in no way endanger whales.Controlled whaling is environmentally sustainable and a right of whaling communities -- a 'collective human right' to uphold cultural tradition a...
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Collective Right
2006-10-18 15:59:00
Even though they reflect the general understanding of individuals, the collective right is the right of a group, not an individual. The claim needs to serve the interests of the group, and not allow for individual gain. What the liberal mind often fails to observe, is that, for the same reason that we are individuals, we are also all different; and there are communities within our society that do not share the normative understanding of the majority -- the liberal individual often fails to recognize other communities of different 'shared understanding.' There are mainly two types of collective rights that are being claimed: the indigenous group seeks to protect its distinct existence and identity by limiting its vulnerability to the decisions of the larger society;the indigenous group may seek the use of state power to restrict the liberty of its own members in the name of group solidarity. Will Kymlicka argued, the latter is a matter of 'internal restrictions,' and the former...
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Rousseau's Articulation
2006-10-17 19:54:00
"The cooling off of patriotism, the activity of private interest, the largeness of states, conquests, the abuse of government: these have suggested the route of using deputies or representatives of the people in the nation's assemblies. It is what in certain countries is called the third estate... The English people believes itself to be free. It is greatly mistaken: it is free only during the election of the members of parliament. Once they are elected, the populace is enslaved; it is nothing... As for you modern peoples, you do not have slaves, but you yourselves are slaves."-- "Social Contract" (III, XV)
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Dewey's "The Public and its Problems" (1927)
2006-10-17 19:49:00
When the great philosophers of our past imagined what would be the ideal national administration, they were faced with a series of conditional constraints or obstructions. Without any constraints they used the language of 'equal rights to all' and 'rule of intellect.' Ideals are often realized in theory, but fail to apply as intended in practice. There's a distinction between democracy as a social idea and political democracy as a form of government. Dewey said that "the idea has influenced the concrete political movement, but has not caused it (144)." There were several obstructions on the road of practical realization. First, it would have taken much too long to ask the opinion of all citizens; not to mention how few of those citizens could read and write; very few possessed the ability and knowledge needed to participate in, and/or make, political decisions; on top of all of these obstructions was the cost of such an effort; and last, but not least, if hi...
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Minimize the Role of Representatives
2006-10-17 19:33:00
When the great philosophers of our past imagined what would be the ideal national administration, they used the language of 'equal rights to all' and 'rule of intellect.' As a solution to various conditional constraints, most democracies have developed and adopted a form of representative rule. This form of rule entails that the citizens elect decision-makers, a ticket of people mostly unknown to them. The citizens employ politicians, but then, due to the organization of representative rule, the employee assumes control of the nation - the citizens as a collective. Citizen's access to political decisions is not denied on the grounds of her individual lack of political competence, but because she belongs to that class of people who can be labeled as mere 'citizen,' thus dismissed. The organization of representative rule enables politicians to monopolize decision-making power - an institutionalized categorical inequality that reinforces the distinction between politicians an...
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New Technology
2006-10-17 19:31:00
New technology would mediate and disseminate information directly from politicians to citizens. Politicians publish a political report by means of journals, essays, question ares, and digital video. When citizens are presented with a question, they must have access to a video and an essay from each, and every, political party. This information should reveal the stance taken by that particular party on that particular matter. The digital database collected could easily be computed and used to advance political science. The media can report the news based on these political reports.Today, much of the necessary information dissemination is through the media and we all understand that any communication is more at risk to be distorted or abused when mediated through more entities. This method of information dissemination will make it much easier for the citizen to approach the necessary information, it also enables her to make a deliberated and a responsible decision on that particular m...
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Eradicating Much of the Black Market
2006-10-17 18:52:00
Making all financial transactions digital would effect all facets of society in ways that are unprecedented in history, thus a pleasure to contemplate. Perhaps, the interesting feature of this development is that it would eliminate the incentive responsible for almost all armed robberies. In most cases, the robber's incentive is to steal cash. In recent years, robberies have been a growing problem. This growth correlates with that of the 'black market.' I understand that the 'black market' is a broad definition, but much of it is influenced by the supply and demand of illegal substances. To successfully break down this black market and reduce the violence, developing a cash-less economy can merely be the first step of four.The development will make drug-dealer's tradeoff much worse; the 'pushers' must resort to new methods. Here, that would involve bartering goods or digital transactions - both of which would leave a trace in the transparant e...
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