A small epiphany about poverty

As I was preparing yet another business school application essay, I caught myself making an assumption; I suggested (incorrectly) that poverty is an easily addressed problem, because it is a simple lack of resources. It's just a matter of figuring out how to get the resources from the rich areas to the poor areas.

Now, I don't actually believe that, but I caught myself thinking it for a moment as I brainstormed the essay. Then it made me think -- that's a pretty common misconception, isn't it? I think it has implications in charitable giving. I have no evidence to back this up, nor the initiative to do the research, but I think that people donate to poverty-related charities in large amounts in part because it seems like a very effective use of the money. Why? Because poverty appears to be a simple problem of unequal distribution of resources. I have a lot, you have very little, so I'll give some to you and this problem will go away.

Of course, this simplistic thinking ignores the fact that charitable giving is non-sustainable and can often have the adverse effects of creating dependence and causing abandonment of productive activities. Then when charitable giving drops in an economic downturn, or when the program the poor people were receiving aid from is shut down by the government, things are worse than they were before, because while they were receiving charity, they reduced their self-reliant productive output, and now have to scramble to raise their incomes or face dire consequences. (To give a rather simplistic example to counter some simplistic thinking)

People are probably more hesitant to donate to causes like drug-user clinics because there is a natural suspicion that the money will not be as effective in solving the problem, in part because it's not a simple equation of more -> less. They also know that it's a more complex problem, involving various difficult-to-control factors, such as addictive behavior, socioeconomic inequality, and education. On the other hand, overseas poverty appears to be simple; just send the dollars (or food, or clothing, or whatever) where they don't have enough! There isn't as much questioning of efficacy of the program, because it's somewhere far away, and because the expectations are lower for immediate resolution of the problem because the donor thinks "it probably hasn't been solved yet because other people aren't as generous as I am!" (well, maybe I shouldn't be that cynical... It's a joke!)

But really, it's just like gangs, drugs, crime, or any other seemingly intractable social ill -- it can't be solved by just throwing money at it, however logical that solution may seem...