Life and Debt

I watched Life and Debt, a documentary about how IMF and World Bank funding works, and how the goal of that funding is government policy change to allow first world countries to access the markets and resources of third world countries; economic sustainability just isn't their problem.

The same now seems to be true of aid. Canada has committed $520 million dollars in aid to Haiti (up to 2011). I want to believe that when we say "aid", we mean "charitable gifts to another country, because they're suffering and we can afford to help." That doesn't seem to be the goal of government aid; instead aid organizations, like CIDA, are deeply involved in getting governments to agree to free trade and globalization programmes.

I think we should stop calling it "aid"; we're simply paying good money to buy the government policies of other countries, with the expectation that we're going to get return on our investment. I mean, we don't call the stock market "aid"; we call it ownership.