Philanthropists must find the temptation to tackle the seemingly worst problems – those that result in the most pronounced or widespread human misery – irresistible. They stand the best chance of benefitting either the most people or the most “deserving” of relief. Problems that simultaneously affect many people and cause great suffering are especially attractive targets. Usually one or the other of these conditions is present in a third-world country, or parts of developed countries that have been left behind in the march of progress.
The presumption in taking on human-suffering problems is that people in such straits will be motivated to resume productive lives once their underlying affliction no longer saps their individual and collective energies. This is what “we” would do, as citizens of developed countries. The developed world has so many, deeply ingrained support systems, however, that it’s easy to take them for granted but difficult to imagine, once we attempt to do so, progress without any one of them:
- The rule of law, which anchors all of the following.
- Governance by more-or-less democratic processes at local through national levels.
- Banking and other financial systems that provide efficient, secure, and reasonably stable economic transactions.
- Educational systems serving all people.
- Competitive, reasonably efficient markets that provide access to essentially all required goods and services, year-round, within a range of choices and prices.
- Finally, a society full of people who are accustomed to life under these support systems, and who support them politically, financially and behaviorally to at least some degree.
With all of these advantages, and a limited need to call on philanthropists to help solve endemic problems, progress in developed countries should be virtually assured. Sadly, we are all too aware that failure to respect these support systems, alone, with no help from disease, famine, and the like, can derail progress and demoralize the citizenry of the most advanced economies. If we so readily sabotage ourselves, how can we expect third-world citizens to transition from some crisis, once relieved, to full functionality? To go a step further with the example of the latest financial meltdown, we have still neither fixed the problems that created this crisis nor punished the perpetrators, with the exception of some very low-hanging fruit. Further still, we have also failed as yet to put the engines of progress back on track.
All of this discussion is simply a way of raising the question of whether philanthropy, corporate public service, etc. might better serve humanity by helping improve the fundamental systems by which people relate to one another, first within their own societies, and then across societies. Without doing a better job of refining and managing our basic institutions, developed nations will fall short of the capability and resources to truly raise standards of living across the globe, and the pain and suffering of the third world could very easily just take on other forms as present ills are alleviated.