Aid Watch: Be Careful What You Export Adam Martin
Our distant ancestors had a biological constitution awfully similar to our own, and, like us, only 24 hours in a day. Arguably the main reason we have so much better lives than them is that we have better ways of doing things (broadly conceived). So it makes a great deal of sense that much of the work in development planning and foreign aid consists in exporting ways of doing things. Technology and scientific know-how are the most easily obvious examples, but we also export methods of organization and governance. …
… One problem with this approach–one among many–is that it assumes that our every institutional and organizational innovation is beneficial. We call this “Whig history.” And while it’s hard to argue that wealthy nations don’t have an overall mix of institutions better adapted to producing wealth, it’s quite another to assume that they’re superior (at wealth production) to poor nations’ institutions on every margin. It could be that the evolution of our ways of doing things has taken a wrong turn in one or more spheres of activity. …
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