The former charity - now a far left political activist group - issued more of this sort of drivel on the same day:
No, inequality isn't keeping people trapped in poverty, you economically illiterate wretches. As any fule kno, economics is not a zero-sum game. Listen very carefully: the thing about capitalism is that - unless the state plunders profits or establishes a Caprillia-style crony-capitalist monopoly system or attempts to abolish private property or seeks to micro-control all aspects of economic activity from the centre - the economic pie expands. This heartening aspect of the world's most reviled economic system explains the following graph:
Kindness, compassion and charity may have played a small part in this - but the main cause is capitalism: it isn't Oxfam or foreign aid or bedwetting Western left-wing virtue-signallers who are currently, finally, dragging Africa out of the economic mire - it's ordinary Africans using smartphones to circumvent their corrupt, incompetent, kleptocrat governments and banks. If mercantilism, feudalism, socialism, theocracy, fascism and communism were all to be made history, the downward trend in world poverty would undoubtedly accelerate.
If you think less poverty in the world is a good thing, forget about equality of outcome, stop blaming the rich for everything, grow up, hold your nose, and support capitalism. You don't have to love it: capitalism is by no means a perfect system, and, when unfettered by checks, balances, laws and a reasonable level of supervision, it can do some truly ugly things. There are many aspects of it which make traditional conservatives (including myself) feel distinctly uneasy. But it is demonstrably and inarguably the least worst economic system when it comes to giving hopeless, oppressed people a chance to rescue themselves from a life of grinding, crushing want.
If you don't mind people dying of hunger or despair just so you can carry on loudly and extravagantly demonstrating your infinite capacity for compassion and empathy, and if your wonderfully enlightened attitudes haven't entailed genuine personal sacrifices on behalf of those who suffer, you might consider leaving off shrieking about the motes in everyone else's eye while you carefully examine the dirty great beam sticking out of your own.
If Oxfam wants to educate the Great Unwashed why are their second hand books so pricey.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid my reaction when this story broke last week was to raise an eyebrow and mutter 'what kept you?' to whichever journalist was telling it (in the Mail, perhaps?).
ReplyDeleteI once worked with a woman who went to work for Oxfam (this was getting on for 30 years ago) and she loved it. Let's just say that she was somewhere to the Left of Rosa Luxemburg.
I do see signs that, finally, people are starting to work out what these charities are really for and are pushing back by switching their support to the small, local ones which genuinely do 'good work' and whose covert role is not just to support a rump of Common Purpose cultural Marxists.
A brief visit to the UK in the 90's had me seriously wondering about it's moral health. Proudly displayed in an Oxfam shop was an enormous poster designed to wring every ounce of guilt - because of course it was our fault - from the genocide in Rwanda.
ReplyDeleteI'm not one to brow beat two middle age ladies but I did question why Oxfam chose as its poster boy(s) those lovable rogues the Hutus many of whom had engaged in the most unspeakable acts of barbarity against mostly Tutsis, then discarded their bloodied hoes and machetes to claim refugee status in what was then Zaire.
Oh that magic word 'refugee,'a cloak to stifle all dialogue lest one be called horror on horror a racist.Looking at me as if it was I holding a bloody Parang in my hand one lady declaired with all the moral superiority she could muster (virtue signalling not being a phrase one heard in those days) "they still have to be fed."
I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Reading your comment, Southern Man, I immediately thought of Mrs Jellyby, who was so occupied in setting up missions to Africa that she neglected her own family, and I resolved to read Bleak House again. I imagine she would be fairly high up in Oxfam these days, with a title like New Atrocities Programme Co-ordinator.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame because as with some other charities, especially those involving animals, the original intention was a noble one but has been subverted. At my daughter's local church recently, I was struck by the uncritical acceptance that some organisations like the UN and charities were good things by definition and should be supported whatever they did. It's difficult not to agree with the PJ O'Rourke model of charitable giving: find a lorry driver who is driving to Kosovo with a truck full of tinned food and fund him direct, thereby cutting out the cost of the lobbying, PR and admin staff overheads of conventional charities.
Thanks Ex-KCS.Noted.
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm here may I clear up one point in case there are any outraged Feminists out there by "then discarded their bloodied hoes" I meant: then threw away their gardening tools which were covered in the blood of their victims.
Thank you for clearing that one up, southern man! I see that, since I posted this, Oxfam's reputation has soared, thanks to allegations of widespread sexual abuse by its staff in Haiti (four employees have already been dismissed). Once again it seems that far too many professional do-gooders, encased in the armour of self-righteous piety, seem to be imagine that if their heart's in the right place and they're helping "victims", they can lecture the rest of us on morality while behaving like absolute swine. There's a really good article by Juliet Samuels in the Telegraph today about her experiences as an aid worker and the weird, privileged, unreal existence enjoyed by charity workers abroad.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, Ex-KCS - the O'Rourke model sounds robust.