Why socialists should support foreign aid

 

If you want a sign of the political mood of the British people it is that, according to at least one survey, over 66% of people approve of the recent cut to the foreign aid budget. This includes 44% of Labour voters.

When Rishi Sunak announced the reduction of around £3 billion in foreign aid, he justified it on the basis of being “difficult to justify to the British people”. He went on to boast of how the Tories were planning to spend “over £24 billion of investment in defence over the next four years”. Of course the government have no difficulty justifying the more than £10 billion of contracts awarded without competition during the Covid crisis, including almost 500 suppliers with links to politicians or senior officials. Or the £13.8 million awarded to Seaborne Freight to run ferry services post-Brexit when it did not possess a single boat. A company that despite Chris Grayling’s support as a “new British business” which he was confident would deliver subsequently went into voluntary liquidation, according to Companies House, on 8th September 2020 without delivering a single ferry trip.

UK one of richest countries in the World

But, narrow minded little Englanders ask, why should the U.K. give money. After all, it’s true that times are tough for everybody. It is also true that they are tougher for some than for others. Whilst that is clearly the case nationally it is even more the case internationally. According to the World Bank (you’d think they might know) the U.K. is the 6th richest country in the world according to its GDP. Whilst there are different methods of calculating wealth GDP has been a standard one, only disliked by the countries that come top because it tends to show them up as mean spirited when it comes to supporting those lower down the list. Rather like rich people who like to make a big show of their charitable donations whilst at the same time doing nothing but complain about paying taxes and in many cases doing all they can to avoid them.

In 2019 the GDP of the UK was $2,827,113.18 millions. There are currently 195 countries in the World and the UK has a larger GDP than 189 of them. The foreign aid budget, prior to the latest cut, was 0.7% of GDP. This figure was agreed by the United Nations in 1970 and only by 2013 did the UK manage to meet it. This amounts to $19,789 million (around £13-14 billion). Over 70 countries have a GDP less than that amount. That includes Rwanda, Nicaragua, Macedonia, Jamaica and Afghanistan. Now you might think, why is it my responsibility to give money to those countries? It’s not my fault they are poor. But, to keep some perspective here, the foreign aid budget, and here I will use an analogy that plenty of economists will tear their hair out over, is akin to you having £100 and somebody asking you for 70p for a cup of tea. In that situation you might ask where on earth are they getting such a cheap cup of tea, but you would have to be pretty heartless (or Chancellor of the Exchequer) to believe that you could not afford it.

Indeed, the evidence is that British people are strongly disposed toward giving to charity, whilst at the same time not trusting Government to spend their taxes wisely. In fact trust in government, according to the Pew Research Centre, is at an all-time low in the so-called advanced democracies including both the U.K. and USA. In terms of charitable giving there is now a growing body of evidence that suggests that the British are fairly generous. According to the National Philanthropic Trust (NPT) around 64% of people in the UK gave to charity last year. The average monthly donation (according to 2018 figures) was around £45. The average wage in 2018 was around £29,000. After tax disposable income was probably around £24,000, giving a net income of £2,000 per month. This means the average person is giving 2.25% of their income to charity. This, for comparison purposes, is more than three times what the government is giving to foreign aid. Which raises the question if we are generous when it comes to charitable giving, then why are we so mean spirited when it comes to helping the poorest people in the World?

Charitable British

It is worth considering what charities people donate to. The most popular causes in 2018 were medical research (25%), animal welfare (26%), hospitals and hospices (20%) and children or young people (26%). The most money, however, went to religious organisations who account for 19% of all the monies given to charities. The majority of foreign aid is spent on humanitarian aid, education, health programmes and developing infrastructure so that countries are not for ever reliant on aid, which is very close to what most people are prepared to give money to charity to support. In other words, it is difficult not to reach the conclusion that people’s aversion to foreign aid is motivated by something other than the way in which the money is spent.

Whilst I was doing some research for this article (okay I googled it), I did find an interesting paper which has some relevance. In 2011 the Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy based at City University, London produced a fact sheet exploring the relationship between household income and charitable donations. What they found was not overly surprising. As a household’s income rises so does their proclivity to give to charity. But, one of their key findings was that among households that do give to charity, those on lower budgets gave more as a percentage of their spending than do households on large budgets.

So, why do people feel so strongly about foreign aid when many would hand over 70p for a cup of tea to somebody they have never met in an instant?  An obvious reason is that they are encouraged to think of acts of charity as a good thing which make them feel good about themselves; but encouraged to think of anything ‘foreign’ as, by definition, a bad thing (well, obviously not cars, TVs, computers, quite a lot of foodstuff, doctors, nurses etc.). If being poor is seen as a personal failure being both poor and living on a different continent with different coloured skin represents the ultimate in failures. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the almost two-thirds of the population who oppose foreign aid are motivated by petty minded racism coupled with a sense of, largely undeserved, British superiority.

Foreign aid works

Quite often, and backed up by very little independent research it is asserted that aid programmes do not work and that they are riddled with corruption. This is often asserted by Tories who really should try looking in the mirror. Steve Radelet of Brookings Institute argues “There is lots of evidence from independent research showing the positive impacts of aid on development and raising living standards.” But he is not claiming that every aid programme works. As he points out: “..not all aid-financed projects work, some completely fail, and not all of the evidence points to positive outcomes. This is to be expected, just as some diplomatic efforts fail, not all military interventions work, and not all private sector investments succeed. So don’t be fooled by people who point to examples of individual aid projects that have not worked as evidence of systemic failure any more than someone who would point to Enron, Lehman Brothers, or any of the 20,000 U.S. companies that file for bankruptcy every year to argue that private investment doesn’t work.”

This is a really good point and whilst the majority of ordinary voters probably spend, on average, no time at all looking at the success or otherwise of aid programmes, they are highly susceptible to negative media narratives from billionaire funded “newspapers” which have an opaque racism at their heart. The Daily Express, for example, was positively salivating over the cut to foreign aid announced in the spending review. On November 25th it justified its opposition to foreign aid in a story headlined “Foreign aid budget cut was right thing to do say Express readers -'Charity begins at home'“ The shock result of their online poll being that Express readers are a bunch of racist, bigots, 98% of whom supported the cut. 

Whilst Express readers, in common with, it has to be conceded, many ordinary people, think the money should be spent closer to home this ignores two inconvenient facts. First, cutting foreign aid will not result in a single penny being diverted from projects abroad to good causes in this country. On the contrary, public spending (which funds the good causes so close to Express readers hearts) is also being cut. Second, if they are under the illusion that as a result of this mean spirited penny pinching the money might end in their own pockets, think again. The spending review contained no tax cuts for ordinary people at all.

Aid saves lives

To claims that foreign aid is ineffective Steve Radelet gives a number of examples of documented success stories. This is just one: “The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which among other things provides antiretroviral treatment for 11.5 million people, has been a key reason why global deaths from the disease have fallen by almost half since 2005.” Not that such evidence would convince the average Express reader (and here I should in the interests of balance point out that other racist, bigoted newspapers are available) because frankly those who dislike the very idea of foreign aid don’t give a damn about its successes. What a cut in foreign aid represents is an attack on ‘them’ by ‘us’. It is motivated by a kind of reverse envy in which giving even a small amount by those with the most  to those who desperately need it, seems to threaten the very status of the elite.

Those who dislike the idea of foreign aid hate only one thing more: refugees. Immigration, as we now know, was a key driver of the Brexit debate and subsequent decision to leave the European Union, a disastrous decision now less than a month away. The Vote Leave campaign homed in on a long-standing media obsession with so-called ‘illegal’ immigration to galvanise ordinary voters in a belief that leaving the EU would reduce the number of immigrants to the U.K. Most people do not make a distinction between legal and illegal immigrants or between illegal immigrants and refugees. What they do make a distinction between is the country of origin of immigrants. As the Migration Observatory points out the distinctions are racist in origin: “At the preferred end of the scale are those who are white, English-speaking, Europeans and Christian countries while at the least preferred are non-whites, non-Europeans and Muslim countries.”

As Kerrie Holloway and Christopher Smart of the Overseas Development Institute pointed out in a briefing paper last year: “Many people overestimate the number of immigrants in the UK and underestimate their economic contribution: respondents in a 2018 poll believed that 27% of the population is foreign-born, when the actual number is closer to 13.5%.” This is not an accident. In the same way that the media have convinced the public that the Labour Party has a significant anti-Semitism problem, it has, over the years, created what can only be described as a ‘hostile environment’ for people from overseas by a concerted campaign of partial and wrong information.

This is all important in the context of foreign aid for if the public want to keep refugees out of the U.K. the best way to do so is to support programmes that encourage them to stay in their countries of origin. As the International Food Policy Research Institute have pointed out: “..aid can help address the issue of migration: It can promote long-term development that improves living conditions for those that would otherwise migrate.” But, of course, the racist mindset that dislikes foreign aid is mostly concerned with it being foreign, and no national newspaper is going to sell copies on the basis of supporting refugees, immigration or doing anything as, dare I say, “Christian” as supporting our neighbours.

Socialism and foreign aid

What of a socialist perspective on foreign aid? There are some who regard themselves as ‘on the left’ who if not in total agreement with the xenophobia certainly do not support foreign aid vocally. One reason for this might be that socialists need to be where the class is, and that means accepting some of their racism. But, if socialists need to be talking to the working class they should not merely be nodding along in agreement. Neither should they treat them as children to be chided. We need to engage the arguments with alternative arguments. To argue against foreign aid is to forget two of the central tenets of socialism: internationalism and solidarity.

In comparing aid to charity in this article I have perhaps added to the illusion that we are always the givers in a global charitable movement of resources. This allows us a moral superiority and puts the receivers in our debt. Charity, as we all know, is voluntary. You can choose whether to give, how much and what to. Aid has the same sense. Those who are more able give aid to those unable, for whatever reason, to help themselves. It is, though, in the givers gift. But, the history of exploitation of the parts of the planet where aid is now directed suggests that what is needed is not charity nor aid but rather reparations. 

Britain was undoubtedly a net beneficiary of years of Empire which raped and plundered other parts of the World. Their poverty was our doing. As socialists we should stand in solidarity with those who have been oppressed, even where we are, collectively if not individually, part of the oppressor group. Marx and Engels did not end The Communist Manifesto with the cry “Workers of the rich parts of the World give charity to workers in the poor part, whilst stopping them from leaving their country to better themselves.” Rather they issued the simple battle cry “Workers of the World unite!” 

Most socialist thinkers throughout the years have seen that cry as relating to trade union and revolutionary struggles where workers in the U.K. or USA have more in common with other workers in Afghanistan, Nicaragua or Rwanda than they do with the ruling class of their own country. As Rosa Luxemburg wrote many years ago: “..I feel as close to the wretched victims of the rubber plantations in Putamayo and the blacks of Africa with whose bodies the Europeans play ball..”  But workers in those other parts of the World need clean water, homes, and education in order to join the global struggle. Defending foreign aid in that sense is not defending capitalism but preparing the ground for workers to develop their own socialist organisations.

In an age of a global pandemic there might be another unintended consequence of a cut to foreign aid. As the U.K. rushes to get the Pfizer vaccine to its population and as other countries queue up to buy the coveted drugs, poorer countries may, once again, be left behind unable to afford to vaccinate their own populations. As we emerge from the darkness of the Covid pandemic it is more important than ever that we remind ourselves that the virus did not affect only rich or poor countries, it affected everywhere. If we deprive poorer nations of the ability to vaccinate against the virus then we do not protect home first but rather leave a dangerous virus to continue to mutate in ways that might later be uncontainable. Foreign aid is necessary to repair the damage ‘we’ did, it is necessary as a sign of solidarity with struggling human beings with whom we have more in common than we might realise, it is necessary because it’s existence challenges racism, xenophobia and bigotry and, in the final analysis, it is necessary because levelling up is a prerequisite for socialist transformation.

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