I just finished Dambisa Moya’s short book, Dead Aid, which comes bound in fulsome praise from Niall Ferguson, but still it’s well worth reading.

It won’t be news to anyone who’s thought much about Africa to read that development aid has done more harm than good in the continent; providing a constantly growing pile of cash for corrupt governments to steal and fight over and stifling any real efforts to change things. But still,  there is so much detailed evidence here; and it makes the position so clear, that it shouldn’t be ignored. Obviously the governments and agencies providing aid have been well aware of the truth for a long time, but they find it easier to continue than to change.

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Apparently there´s going to be an election in the United States quite soon. Reading what the Republican candidate had to say in debate and how it was received, I started to worry about truth. Perhaps that´s an outmoded concern in these relativist times, but still I am often struck by these bold statements that display a robust contempt for the speaker´s own previous comments or the observable facts of a case, but succeed in impressing listeners to the extent that what is said becomes true for the moment; usurping a more objective reality for so long as the “charismatic” speaker chooses to stand by his words: which at an earlier stage of North American history would be the time it takes to sell all the bottles of patent medicine and get out of Dodge before the customers try to use it.

In business, they say that you are being a salesman, or a visionary leader, depending on the size of your bonus pay. Tell them anything, close the deal and afterwards who cares what´s true. In politics, if there is any real distinction between business and politics, it´s more or less the same deal.

Maybe it´s always been that way: deceit starts with society, at latest when the first crafty shaman convinces the first burly chieftain that he can make rain, and then has to find someone to blame when it doesn´t happen (inventing organized religion and religious persecution in the same day). History is written by the winners and it was a long time before anyone tried to fact check what Julius Caesar claimed to have done for Rome in his various military campaigns. Read More→