WebPoverty, Inc. (466) 1 h 31 min 2014 16+ From Toms Shoes to international adoptions, from solar panels to U.S. agricultural subsidies, drawing from over 200 interviews filmed in 20 countries, Poverty, Inc. unearths an uncomfortable side of charity we can no longer ignore. World Premiere of Poverty, Inc. in Spanish, The feedback and accountability function of pricing. This is what allows us to deem the actions of the Cambodian government as reprehensible. One example of this is regulation that raises the cost of doing business or raises the barriers of entry to the industry. The decision on how to treat is critically important, more important than simply whether or not we do treat the patient. One reason we didnt focus on education involves our attempt to focus on sides of the story that havent been told before. World Vision is a multi billion dollar organization with some concerning practices ranging from objectifying poverty imagery to the monetization of subsidized agriculture that undermines local markets in the name of food aid. Politicians need fuel. Poverty, Inc. challenges the standard response to dealing with poverty in third-world countries through charity, suggesting that a better alternative to the problem is by teaching inhabitants of those countries about entrepreneurship. This is where we end up objectifying the poor in their poverty, by turning them into the objects of our charity. We often think that regulation is the best way to put a stop to such activity, but more often than not in centralized states especially (including the U.S.), regulation ends up being written by the very people whose power is supposed to be check. I think its exciting.
Webpoverty, inc documentary transcript poverty, inc documentary transcript. 1980, Beth Portello, fl. I couldnt agree more. If you were to end subsidies today cold turkey, the stock market would crash. As Etienne Gilson writes, Piety is no substitute for technique. Too often we are content to grade ourselves on a very lenient curve because we have good intentions.
We were struck by how jaded many of them were and how discouraged. Newly minted Nobel laureate and foreign aid skeptic Angus Deaton has found no credible evidence that foreign aid promotes economic growth;indeed, he says, signs show that the relationship is negative. We know statistically that people with higher levels of education earn more.
WebPoverty is complex. You want to serve someone, not do them a disservice. It must be prevented (when we pay people with arable land not to farm), destroyed, stored, repurposed (think ethanol, high fructose corn syrup), exported as trade, or exported as aid. Director-Producer Michael Matheson Miller is a Research Fellow at the Acton Institute, a think tank focused on the intersection of market economics and moral philosophy and theology. poverty, inc documentary transcript. Its not enough to seek political change only by voting once every two years, every four years. We signed up to serve the poorest of the poor. In thinking this way, we fail to see the interconnectedness of the economy. Poverty, Inc. labels this system of aid the global poverty industry, and it distributed over $134 billion (USD) in official development assistance in 2013 alone. The Latin root word is caritas, the greatest of the Biblical theological virtues: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13). The documentary Poverty, Inc. has become so influential that it is now part of many courses at the university level. Thats no excuse to ignore it. poverty, inc documentary transcript 06 Apr. Never, ever in the history of the world has that happened so quickly, and four hundred million of them were in China.
Mostly the first adopters of organics were affluent, because organics are more expensive. Click here to watch the film.
In crisis situations like that, international support is absolutely necessary. And then we wonder why people in Latin America become so desperate that they risk their lives to come here illegally. Deferring grad school at MIT to live out of a van. If people are tweeting and writing a given politician about a given issue, that engine will eventually get started. The rationale being, if were going to spend taxpayer money helping people, we can do it in a way that provides a stimulus to our own economy and creates jobs.
Within a healthy ecosystem, people like Olga are able to rise above their lack of formal education and flourish. We love others by investing our time and energy in them, by having relationships that are reciprocal and not predicated solely on donor-recipient power dynamics. Poverty, Inc. 2014 1 h 34 m IMDb RATING 7.6 /10 688 YOUR RATING Rate Documentary History News From Toms Shoes to international adoptions, from solar panels to U.S. agricultural subsidies, drawing from over 200 interviews filmed in 20 countries, Poverty, Inc. unearths an uncomfortable side of charity we can no longer ignore. For instance, you are a white kid from Grand Rapids and you get caught with an ounce of marijuana a couple of times, you might get a couple of fines, maybe a day in jail; youre a black kid from the other side of the tracks, same exact crime but because you cant afford the fee to have your first offenses expunged from your record, youre put in jail for years due to mandatory minimums in our system that supersede a judges discretion.
in death funeral tammy faye bakker.
The biggest pushback can be when people misunderstand the film to be a blanket argument that business is the singular solution to poverty. On our screening tour weve had people from Greece, Italy, and elsewhere express the same frustrations in their own countries. Theres just one simple idea, painting with a broad brush, that might help us rethink crisis relief by thinking locally first.
Poverty, Inc.is now available on Amazon,Amazon On-Demand,iTunes, and other platforms. Somebody will come up with a new idea and everybody gets excited about it, but often it is just a repackaged idea within the same broken system, so we can end up making harmful things more effectively harmful, more efficiently harmful.
She did all of this with a kindergarten education. WebPoverty is complex. Then if consumers rally to vote for ethical clothing, the bigs will be forced to step up their game or lose market share. There are good nonprofits and bad ones. Access to financial services (not just credit but savings, checking, microinsurance, etc.) Home Blog poverty, inc documentary transcript. There is no donate here button at the end of Poverty, Inc., nor is the whole story of poverty and development covered in 91 minutes. So while FDI in and of itself can generally be considered a good thing, current conditions may not yet support it well enough. Rather, orphanages are simply not a good solution for children.
WebDrawing on perspectives gathered from over 150 interviews shot over 4 years in 20 countries, Poverty, Inc. explores the hidden side of doing good. It was all about income inequality, corrupt dictators, and geopolitical chess. We need to capture and amplify the perspectives of every day people. You cant win every game. First we need to change the culture of development, the way we think and talk about it with one another. From what I gathered, most were discouraged because they got into the sector thinking, We are going to end extreme poverty. The good news is that at universities we apply critical thinking to the information we receive (or we are supposed to). But youve given them something far more valuable than a couple of bucks. I think thats where we can use our influence for good. But are we overlooking struggling human beings right in front of us? 2003-2018, Matthew Stillman, 1967- and Richard Castro, fl. 0 Likes. You are voting for something you want more of or something you want less of.
But we crush them by subsiding our agriculture to levels of one hundred percent or more. Try to never look past that person or avert your eyes. The body can literally shut down. Many if not all of them of them had received microloans of some sort, but that didnt mean they were flourishing. Is it championing how many items they purchased and distributed, or are the people working there building meaningful relationships with people over time in a way that promotes the self actualization of the individuals in hardship? Webpoverty, inc documentary transcript; poverty, inc documentary transcript. 1980, Beth Portello, fl. Her story was very interesting. I knew her as the proud and friendly owner of one of my favorite restaurants in towna Haitian-Creole restaurant in a fashionable neighborhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
WebDrawing on perspectives gathered from over 150 interviews shot over 4 years in 20 countries, Poverty, Inc. explores the hidden side of doing good. Do not fall prey to the idea that you arent doing anything when you do that. I encourage you to look into each of these and others with everything else youve learned from the film in mind. Poverty, Inc. challenges the standard response to dealing with poverty in third-world countries through charity, suggesting that a better alternative to the problem is by teaching inhabitants of those countries about entrepreneurship. Theyre one of the largest organic foods providers in the world. "I see multiple colonial governors," says Ghanaian software entrepreneur Herman Chinery-Hesse of the international development establishment. Personally Im no longer convinced that it is indeed a hard and fast prerequisite for integral human development. in death funeral tammy faye bakker. It means decrying big companies that curry special favor from governments. But thats no license for indifference. January 19, 2023. In both the Dominion Farm case and the Shukaku Company case, the important thing to notice is that institutions of justice were weak or nonexistent. Poverty, Inc. wins $100,000 Templeton Freedom Award. 1980 ; produced by Philippe Diaz, fl. Webhow did early photographers cut costs when producing daguerreotypes? Found out about his or her name and story.
But I think that what I was really encouraged by during our timeand I think there is something we can do everydaythat the most simple thing that you can do to engage somebody who is in poverty, whether it is somebody up in Harvard Square or somebody in Nigeria, is to stop and take a moment to look him or her in the eye, see them - like really see them - as the unique human person he or she is. Thus, regulation often becomes a favor to the establishment companies. I would just like to know your thoughts on FDIForeign Direct Investmentand value chains. Check out the organization called Building Marketsformally called Peace Dividend Trustthat is trying to create databases of local producers.
Broadly speaking, the series asks why poverty still exists for over a billion people around the world.
If your purpose in visiting another country and spending time there is to learn and build relationships based on cultural and intellectual exchange (as opposed to relationships predicated on donor-recipient power dynamics), that is time very well spent. The problems largely involve the manner in which the acquisition of lands took place and then negative externalities such as flooding associated with the companys activities there. These economic mechanics factor into the difficult task of changing something as seemingly basic and common sense as aid procurement. Then theres the added dimension of piety versus technique i.e. Is it utopia? But what lowering tariffs does is it allows smaller companies like this one to compete for market share. Or are they parachuting goods and services in without really becoming part of the fabric of the economy and society? Remember, choosing to not volunteer within the traditional volunteering model is not the same thing as doing nothing.
We were invited to contribute in a two-day meeting organized by Save the Children UK last year solely focused on the problem of short-term volunteering in orphanages. This applies to corporate corruption as well. DVD available in North America with Spanish subtitles and dubbing. Heck, no. poverty, inc documentary transcript 06 Apr.
WebThe End of Poverty directed by Philippe Diaz, fl. I am still involved with certain charitable organizations. ", Student honored with sustainability award for POVERTY, INC. thought leadership. As I said, now she is a leader in the community, highly successful entrepreneur, and a philanthropist. This isnt to say that the organic industry is flawless; the government labelling regulations is fraught with problems, but this is a beautiful example of the responsive, democratic nature of the market economy.
From Fair Trade to microfinance, when it comes to business we tend to think small is good and fair while big is bad and corrupt. Of course. WebDrawing on perspectives gathered from over 150 interviews shot over 4 years in 20 countries, Poverty, Inc. explores the hidden side of doing good. The other problem with microfinance is has to do with the Western bias for smallness when it comes to the developing world (not so when it comes to the Wests own business activities). International Justice Mission is doing work here, as is the U.S. Department of Justice. It may seem off mission to be engaging Canadian-educated Haitians like Jean Ronel Noel and Alex Georges (co-founders of the solar panel company ENERSA featured in the film) but notice how many people and how many families are sharing in the success of that single companyfar more than any single NGO or government could program could ever hope to benefit. In the aid versus trade debate, theres a lot blanket statements made on FDI. You saw in the film some of the misunderstandings in the orphan care and adoption realm. Imagine what this can do to a child with attachment issues. We know we can get what we need from you because you need us. We have to be realistic about how long that will take. is critically important, but if you get in thinking microcredit alone is going to somehow lift everybody out of poverty, then youve romanticized entrepreneurship to the point that your mentality can actually be harmful. We think the problem that needs to be solved is food. People here in the U.S. are highly educated, but they still dont tend to represent themselves in court. We think of left and right on a plane, but really its more like an almost closed circuit. Michael holds graduate degrees in philosophy, international development, and international business. They encouraged people to instead give cash to trustworthy local organizations (not necessarily the biggest ones, but ones you have some sort of relationship with or connection to) that were been embedded in the Nepalese communities long before the tragedy. Rather than latching on to new silver bullets, we invite you to join us in embracing the complexity and engaging in a more nuanced dialogue. In reality, these are the fruits of development. Think of the NBA, which has made an effort to invite players and fans from all over the world; it is becoming more and more of an international league. Outside North America? The first pitfall involves our moral grasp of that which is an authentic good, versus that which is a perceived good. That's when I decided to defer MIT and spend the year touring with the film, engaging people around the country and internationally on these ideas. However, there are some dangerous pitfalls to be aware of. I have, however, seen people within companies compromise their morals.. I know of cases in Bangladesh, especially encroachment on the lands of the Mondi tribe, where an American ambassador comes in and they back off. As the Better Care Network explains, "The research demonstrates, there are not bad and good orphanages. In the case of adoption, has this organization made extraordinary efforts to keep the family together? Poverty, Inc. now available on DVD and On-Demand! He previously taught philosophy and political science at Ave Maria College in Nicaragua and was the chair of the philosophy and theology department.
So even just a small injection of economic and social freedom brought four hundred million people out of poverty almost overnight. These types of votes add up very quickly. Because the tariffs are too high for the company to afford it and unfortunately, Bangladesh isnt being included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. On a personal level, yes. It means being angry about what happened in Cambodia. We think there was a food shortage after the earthquake; in reality, tons of Haitian food went to rot because the distribution mechanics of the market economy were suspended by the lost medium of exchange (cash) and then the aid only made it worse. It is very hard to just dismiss these people. We also need political and social fuel from the developing world itself. We shouldnt think that it is off mission to support larger companies that are doing good things, pending that they do have an infused sense of their work and are not simply exploiting their employees and robbing them to create products of little to no real value. by . An interview with a Haitian peanut butter entrepreneur, An Open Letter to the USDA and USAID on planned peanut shipment to Haiti, Visiting orphanages is bad for kids (and other lessons from the making of Poverty, Inc.).
And yet, at least some real harm has been done. If you can spare thirty seconds or a few minutes, stop and chat with that person. There is nothing free or entrepreneurial about that. Is it really so impossible that they could develop their own countries? Bad companies wont be beat by bigger and bigger governments; theyll be beat by better businesses who take the market share by serving customers better. January 19, 2023. Director
If we look closely at the most powerful corporations in the world, many if not most have very strong political connections. As a development economist, I share here my views on this famous documentary. As a development economist, I share here my views on this famous documentary. Director There is something good about the activity of investing in one another. [1] The following transcribed questions and answers have been selected from some of our post-screening discussions. Imagine the sheriff whose power has gone to his head: I am the law! he yells guns blazing. The film challenges current perceptions of global charity and promotes entrepreneurship as an effective alternative to alleviating world poverty. Poverty, Inc. points out the flaws in certain forms of aid and how organizations and governments can fix them.
We have to pay close attention to all kinds of violencehard violence and soft violence. When companies and people are getting wiped out not because of the competition between the people and the marketplace but because the government has decided to pick winners and losers, you cant call that a free market economy. It is very much an arm of the State Department. poverty, inc documentary transcript. Theres an excellent essay I highly recommend called The Law by Frdric Bastiat. I think you are seeing the government losing that iron grip as a totalitarian state. Increased competition then drove prices down, making organics more affordable for everyone. Too often the poverty industry has fallen into a social engineering approach to problems, but people in the developing world are not problems to be solved; they are persons with individual destinies beyond mere material comfort. One of the major themes in your film is including the poor into networks of productivity. There is an active revolving door between government and business. We cant throw money at a problem and call it charity, which is love. Considering China, which shifted from a centrally planned to a market-based economy in 1978, accounts for approximately 80% of the aforementioned poverty reductions, its difficult to conclude that aid played a big part, even if you erroneously gave it credit for the remaining 100 million people. It was interesting to see the reaction to the Nepal earthquake compared with that to the Haiti earthquake a few years ago. This is where we from the POVERTY, INC. team like to hang out and the film is demonstrating the hunger for this type of dialogue. Some 80% of agricultural subsidies are gobbled up by 10 companies We subsidize our industrial agriculture so heavily that we create an incredible surplus. There is no donate here button at the end of Poverty, Inc., nor is the whole story of poverty and development covered in 91 minutes.
After all, one of the things we are criticizing is the very idea of the big idea. Then poof, theyre gone. But if each of us starts by seeing each person and the fullness of who they are, their destiny, their potential trajectory, not simply their lack, then we will start to identify solutions that are much more effective. : This is actually a series of eight documentaries about poverty that are available for streaming on the PBS website. Now, if you start a nonprofit, a company, or an effort of any kind, do you appreciate when people invest in that? Poverty, Inc.co-producer Mark R. Weber discusses orphans, microfinance, fair trade, social entrepreneurship, and other lessons learned making Poverty, Inc.at the Jubilee Professional conference in Pittsburgh.
Theres a documentary called Good Fortune which, among other things, examines the deleterious effects of Dominion Farms investments in Kenya.
Tons. Now you have beautiful, well-dressed people arriving with smiles and gifts, hugs and kisses, taking pictures, playing games, doing arts and crafts.
The general rule of thumb is to apply your unique talents in a way that helps others develop theirs. Our screenings managers from Causumentary are here to help! Our goal is to nuance the conversation a bit by bringing attention to the institutions of justice that make for more optimal economic ecosystems in which FDI can provide net benefits for society. Read More . Too often we dont ask those questions and therefore the organizations dont apply those principles in their work. Foster families, extended families, and other arrangements.
By the way, this isnt strictly a developing world issue either. Its important to think charity less as an exercise of the will and to form the will in truth of the good of the other. We exercise our will to be charitable upon other people who become faceless and nameless, somebody in a commercial. Home Blog poverty, inc documentary transcript. Beyond the political economy, there is a more personal, moral dimension to FDI. Remember, when we say, rule of law, this is distinct from the rule of men. This isnt whatever the government says. You make them to change culture." Theres a good documentary called Life and Debt that gives you an up-close look at the power dynamics at the WTO. No. We often think of development prerequisites in terms of infrastructure, education, health, etc. Precisely because charity is love, which is intrinsically relational, industrial models of growth and expansion risk the loss of the person in the midst the cause. But when were talking about helping people move out of abject poverty, it may very well not be the most important thing. The anthropologist in Haiti made the point that all of these things that he was talking about are not new or unknown; in fact, many of the points that he made have been written about for decades now. A letter from Director-Producer Michael Matheson Miller: Dear Friends of Poverty, Inc., thank you for joining our short-list of people committed to a cultural shift in charity and development. The question is why do people keep on doing it? Some are better than others. ignoring Cambodian law) to the company and then gave notice of eviction to the residents along with a pittance of money.
poverty, inc documentary transcript