Aid has unfortunatelly followed the path of focusing on geographically based symptoms rather than systemic and cultural causes. And this is a beautiful path of change. Thank you!
Will this is heart breaking. It is a powerful reminder that external finance on its own can be more like fentanyl than medicine.
When money substitutes for social relationships—when it arrives without place-based economic knowledge, without context-specific norms, without governance or guardrails—the “controls” that emerge are competition, power, fear, abuse, rather than collaboration. External finance can become a kind of fentanyl: potent, destabilizing, and socially corrosive destructive to a relational ecosystem.
Your emphasis on reciprocity really landed with me, and highlights economic relationships. Even more so a framing of a commitment-pooling protocol—a structure that exists between a membership, with governance, due diligence, and clear mechanisms of giving and receiving - or settlement. Closer to endogenous financing without debt build ups, and abiding by the 'golden rule' or as you call it - I am because we are.
Where I hesitated was on the term “allocation.” Do you mean "scarcity" ? Allocation via an external manufactured scarcity—money that appears suddenly and vanish abruptly; open to corruption, not connected to the internal dynamics of the community's economy, and unpredictable, pulls people into impossible moral positions. It forces gatekeeping where there should have been stewardship.
This occurs at all levels, not just the very poor. Ruling out external finance is not the answer, but there needs to be a better way than the intravenous short cut. I know that you, groups like ECSA (https://ecsa.io/), and many others, take these lessons seriously and are looking at ways to moderate and build a better bridge to external money injections.
Many thanks to both of you for your courage in telling this story.
I agree that the word "allocation" nails the problem. It implies a gatekeeper with power over all those who receive, from the top-down.
I'm not sure "reciprocity" nails the solution in the same way. Saida describes what sounds like reciprocity with her family: I put my kin on the list, because I know they have done things for me in the past, and will continue to do so in the future. Even the corruption could be described as a kind of reciprocal exchange, "pay to play". But it is forced reciprocity.
So maybe "voluntary reciprocity" is a better name for it? The concept of democracy also comes to mind as the opposite of rule by elites and their allocations to favorites. "Democratic reciprocity"?
Its definitely in the way the protocol is written. There is an interesting paradox in that we always describe the protocol as tapping into the best aspects of humanity's natural instincts: our urge to help each other out, and keep things fair. But often the purpose of the protocol is to *prevent* our natural urge towards favoritism. In some ways we want the protocol to be a heartless, unemotional robot, so that no one takes this personally, our kin and friends are not angry at us, instead we can blame the lack of favoritism on the protocol.
Very interesting!
Aid has unfortunatelly followed the path of focusing on geographically based symptoms rather than systemic and cultural causes. And this is a beautiful path of change. Thank you!
Will this is heart breaking. It is a powerful reminder that external finance on its own can be more like fentanyl than medicine.
When money substitutes for social relationships—when it arrives without place-based economic knowledge, without context-specific norms, without governance or guardrails—the “controls” that emerge are competition, power, fear, abuse, rather than collaboration. External finance can become a kind of fentanyl: potent, destabilizing, and socially corrosive destructive to a relational ecosystem.
Your emphasis on reciprocity really landed with me, and highlights economic relationships. Even more so a framing of a commitment-pooling protocol—a structure that exists between a membership, with governance, due diligence, and clear mechanisms of giving and receiving - or settlement. Closer to endogenous financing without debt build ups, and abiding by the 'golden rule' or as you call it - I am because we are.
Where I hesitated was on the term “allocation.” Do you mean "scarcity" ? Allocation via an external manufactured scarcity—money that appears suddenly and vanish abruptly; open to corruption, not connected to the internal dynamics of the community's economy, and unpredictable, pulls people into impossible moral positions. It forces gatekeeping where there should have been stewardship.
This occurs at all levels, not just the very poor. Ruling out external finance is not the answer, but there needs to be a better way than the intravenous short cut. I know that you, groups like ECSA (https://ecsa.io/), and many others, take these lessons seriously and are looking at ways to moderate and build a better bridge to external money injections.
Many thanks to both of you for your courage in telling this story.
I agree that the word "allocation" nails the problem. It implies a gatekeeper with power over all those who receive, from the top-down.
I'm not sure "reciprocity" nails the solution in the same way. Saida describes what sounds like reciprocity with her family: I put my kin on the list, because I know they have done things for me in the past, and will continue to do so in the future. Even the corruption could be described as a kind of reciprocal exchange, "pay to play". But it is forced reciprocity.
So maybe "voluntary reciprocity" is a better name for it? The concept of democracy also comes to mind as the opposite of rule by elites and their allocations to favorites. "Democratic reciprocity"?
Nice catch ... I would have written commitment pooling protocol.
Its definitely in the way the protocol is written. There is an interesting paradox in that we always describe the protocol as tapping into the best aspects of humanity's natural instincts: our urge to help each other out, and keep things fair. But often the purpose of the protocol is to *prevent* our natural urge towards favoritism. In some ways we want the protocol to be a heartless, unemotional robot, so that no one takes this personally, our kin and friends are not angry at us, instead we can blame the lack of favoritism on the protocol.