The Road To Hell

Book Review:
The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity

I’ve looked high and low, questioned everyone from Hong Kong factory owners to Congolese priests to Salvadoran campesinas, and haven’t found a clear explanation of how the exploitation works. I’ve been reading plenty of articles and the leading books on the topic. Who is responsible, how does it work? I bought Perkin’s Economic Hit Man, which I reviewed a few days ago, but that was not credible.

Now I’ve read THE ROAD TO HELL by Michael Maren. Finally, there it is. Everything from exploited child labor. The starving children. The war. The bloodshed. The horror, the horror. Who is behind it? Well, no wonder I could not arrive at an answer. I was looking in the wrong place. Michael Maren, was there, names names, dates, people. How it works. And who is responsible: the charities.


Yes. Save the Children. CARE. USAID. AfriAction. AmeriCares.. Christian Children’s Fund. Save the Children. UNICEF, and more. I am not assuming anything, he is most explicit, and the subtitle of his book is THE RAVAGING EFFECTS OF FOREIGN AID AND INTERNATIONAL CHARITY and that is exactly what Maren proves.

This is how it works in a nutshell. The USA shows up in a country, wanting a military base or something else. Our Harvard MBA’s work with their Harvard MBA’s to bring in something wonderful, like free food for the poor, for the children, to prop up and bribe off the leaders, most of whom are Harvard MBA’s or some such.

In the USA, a charity raises say 4 million dollars to “save the children.” At the same time, wheat farmers have their excess bought by taxpayers at inflated prices. The charity is given say $96 million dollars worth of wheat to distribute overseas to some country. $96 million in free wheat, plus $4 million equals $100 million. The charity spends every cent it took in cash donations on itself, locally, here in USA on limousines, caviar, private jets, etc for the charity leaders. (Does this start to explain those televangelists?) Then the charity boasts only 4% overhead, 96% goes directly to the starving, when in fact they blew every donated cent on themselves.

Maren gives several documented cases, cases of charities still operating! But first, it gets better! The wheat must be, by law, shipped on USA vessels, owned by the wheat farmers consortium, and the freight rates are three times the going ocean rates. More income for Archer Daniels Midland!

When the $96 million in wheat does arrive, their Harvard MBA’s begin selling it off to the highest bidder. Immediately, local farmers cannot compete. People move to the cities where food is cheap and plentiful. Dislocation breeds instability. A gang with pistols steals some wheat. The dealers get rifles. The thieves get rifles, and soon everyone has AK47’s and RPGs. In this milieu warlords emerge, and this is in essence the story of Siyaad Barre of Somalia, and countless others. Not all efforts go as bad as Somalia, most are rather mild. Usually the results are just chronic poverty, exploited workers and such.

But often enough it is a quick trip to the pictures of the slaughtersed, the starving refugees, the lost children, etc. The worst case scenarios. The scenes of mere exploited labor are merely better managed versions of this crime. It sickened me to learn many of the scenes of want are staged and coordinated with pledge campaigns.

Charities and NGO’s are mere conduits for USA surplus, the introduction of which causes disorder. And it isn’t just wheat. When your corporation overproduces, or produces something unsafe, “donate it” to a charity, they will unload it on the poor overseas, and you can take a tax deduction. One CEO was delighted with this plan since the cost to destroy the merchandise and send the packaging to a landfill here would be fairly expensive.

Maren gives examples from right here in USA as well, perhaps what your favorite charity is doing to your neighbors.

Maren is credible because he was there. He started in the Peace Corp, transferred to Catholic Charities and other outfits, and when his friend’s son was murdered in a horrifying way (another malcontent who was objecting to the way things are done) he began studying foreign aid and charity closely. I’ve read African writers who have outlined the same thiing, but never as thoroughly as Maren, what with Maren having superior access to inside information.

The complexity is laid out in detail, Maren tells the story well. It is a pretty outrageous thing to say the civil wars and attendant starvation and such is the fault of the charities and NGOs. What is worse, the people who run these organization are perfectly aware of the harm they are doing.

This book came out ten years ago, but I only learned of it last summer. The book has stood the test of time. Reading the Amazon reviews, a common theme is Michael Maren is an angry young man. (His picture on the end-flap looks like he’s been worked over by the mob). OK, but does anyone dispute his story? No, only some add-on tales by others. I got angry reading it.

There are some good guys in the field, but not many. Maren proposes a solution; an inernational body that qualifies NGO’s. But that won’t work, because we have it now. People this wicked will simply get around the rules, like they do now. The solution is to simply end all foreign aid. End all tax write-offs for charity. End all subsidies. Lift all restrictions. Cut taxes by that much. then let private individuals do what they can, what with more money in their pockets.

Anyone interested in how exploitation works should read this carefully, because if you wish to improve things, you’ll have to start with the way things really are.

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