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Chapter 1. Economy

#51: July - Aug. 2008 (Non-Fiction)
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Robert Tulip

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And yet, there are major inhumane reasons for not treating malaria sufferers. Foremost, pharmaceutical companies cannot make money from them because most malaria sufferers are poor. Second, some philanthropical organisations find it much easier to raise funds for work on cancer, heart disease and HIV/AIDS than malaria, so funding is directed by the emotions of the givers rather than the evidence of burden of disease or effective strategy. I think this was the nub of Thoreau's criticism - that philanthropy has a tendency to distort action to favour things which tug the heartstrings rather than those which produce best results. An excellent article on the current shambolic results of sentiment-driven policy is here. Please don't get me wrong - my aim in this discussion is to promote coordinated and effective responses, and not a retreat into selfishness, which is the risk of any criticism of charity.
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DWill

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Something not yet said, Robert, is that, if philanthropy is considered to be the activity carried out by foundations or NGOs, we need a label for the efforts of governmental bodies doing more or less the same things. And if we examine those efforts, what kind of evaluation results, compared to that of the NGOs? I can't know the answer to this question, but of course the popular opinion is that government leads the most inefficient operations of all. Going back to the success rate of the NGOs, is what we have simply a problem of an imperfect world, or is that too glib?
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I guess it's too late now, but I'm wondering if the 'philanthropy' topic, which includes the treatment of disease, aids, etal, shouldn't have had a separate thread.

The posts here are intriguing, certainly not boring, but it's way off the chapter's 'economy' theme.
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