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Kevin comments on Efficient Charity - Less Wrong
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Let's see how rationalist people are here...
Without anything coming remotely close, the single most amazing success story in sustainable reduction of abject poverty for largest number of people, most rapidly in history of humanity is - without any doubt - People's Republic of China. They're as effective now as they've been over the last four decades, and they still have plenty of work to do - coastal provinces are pretty well off, but Western parts of China are still spectacularly poor.
Is anybody convinced by this that one of the best kinds of charity would be donating dollars directly to the Communist Party of China which is responsible for this spectacular dead, or falling that to poorest provincial governments, or is anyone at least convinced enough to change their purchasing habits to buy more goods from China (and other rapidly developing countries like India), even if they are of inferior quality (price is usually not a problem)?
I understand that it's possible to rationalize it all away, but if you do, do you really care about people in abject poverty?
Donating money to the CCP wouldn't improve the lives of Chinese rural denizens. The CCP spends exactly the amount of money needed to sustain their power. Any donated money would go to rich Chinese, not poor Chinese.
Why not "Village Reach spends exactly the amount of money needed to keep donations flowing". It's exactly the same logic, and equally wrong.
The facts are - CPC has amazing track record of lifting rural poor of China out of poverty, mostly by providing them with jobs in rapidly developing cities.
I don't see the connection. If Village Reach had millions of extra dollars, they would spend it on developing world poverty. If CCP had millions of extra dollars, it would benefit wealthy Chinese.
You made the comparison by saying it would be like if Village Reach did that, but that is not what counterfactual Village Reach would do the extra money where it is what counterfactual CCP would do with the money. Do you dispute the ability of Village Reach to not spend extra money corruptedly?