THE Nativist tendency in British politics ... is now making a push against the overseas aid budget.

[pampango]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/05/british_nativism

THE NATIVIST tendency in British politics—already cross about membership of the International Monetary Fund (because IMF membership has left Britain guaranteeing a share of the bailout funds extended to troubled eurozone economies)—is now making a push against the overseas aid budget. David Cameron has been under fire from his own right-wing for a while over his decision to ring-fence the budget of the Department for International Development (DFID), when so many other bits of the state were taking cuts. This morning's tabloids decided to take a fresh whack at DFID ...

By the time the tabloids were finished, a scorecard showing Britain spending 0.56% of GDP on aid in 2010, ahead of France at 0.5%, Germany at 0.38% or America at 0.21% became "a damning report" revealing Britain's free-spending "while British taxpayers suffer through an age of austerity." The Daily Mail splashed on the story, and the Express and Sun also had a go. Angry Conservative MPs accused the government of having its priorities all wrong.

Instead, the Tories who attack DFID with the most vigour are often the same ones who want to see British defence spending preserved from cuts. Here is Peter Bone, a senior backbencher widely quoted today:

Where are the small state purists on the Tory right? I might not agree with them if I did meet them: in an alarmingly messy, globalised world I see a continuing need for spending on both aid and defence. (I even, blush, agree with the purely moral arguments for spending relatively small sums to save the lives of women in childbirth, vaccinate children, buy bed nets against malaria and so on). But at least spending hawks cross about wasted defence and aid spending would have the virtue of consistency.

[OHdem10]

1. When you have cut so much at home, people are suffering

it might be a bir difficult to convince them--Oh
we found this pile of money to send to other countries.
They have had protests over cuts at home. Banks
demanded the cuts be more deep than Cameron had
promised.

[QC]

3. Bingo.

There might well be a history of nativism in British politics, which seems to be true of pretty much every place, but what we are probably seeing here is an attempt to shame the working class into remaining silent while they are made to do without so that bankers can get another bailout.

[WatsonT]

2. Your own people should come first

when people are starving at home it's hard to convince them of the need to prevent starving abroad.

[pampango]

4. "Your own people should come first". Is that just with nationality or can race, gender, ethnicity,

and sexual orientation also be used to determine who "our own people" are?

Different folks seem to use different criteria to judge who is "us" and who is "them". Are we agreeing with British nativism that "we" deserve help more than "they" do?

[WatsonT]

5. In a representative democracy

your own people are the voters and tax payers within your nation.

I know you're trying to make me in to a skinhead or whatever, but that's clearly not what I said.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Not 'citizens', then? Let alone inhabitants

It's just a question of pandering to those who vote, and those who pay?

You're not making yourself look great, you know. You've narrowed it down to something smaller than nationalism.

[WatsonT]

10. Why do you suppose governments exist?

Serious question, what do you believe the role of government is?

And as a followup: how do you suppose a democracy should function? Should it follow the will of the people, or yours?

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. They don't exist to benefit just taxpayers, or just voters

They exist to guide the country, keep it safe in the world, and implement the laws. Part of keeping it safe in the world is decreasing the chances of major unrest around the world, for which aid is a very good tool. It also makes it clear that a country has good will towards others, rather than just seeing foreign affairs as wars or making money off others.

Since the only people inside a developed country like the UK who are anywhere near close to the level of suffering of the global poor are at a level where they buy practically nothing taxed, have no income, and are probably homeless and unregistered to vote, then saying "we must spend this money at home first on voters and taxpayers" does not indicate a concern for the truly poor of a developed country; it shows a lack of willing to spend a vaguely decent amount of money to alleviate global poverty, because you don't want higher taxes.

[WatsonT]

14. I see, so governments exist to pay off "those people"

Those darn scary brown foreigners and keep them from coming here and raping and pillaging us good folks.

That's basically what you're saying.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. Is the phrase 'good will' a brand new concept for you?

Obviously you're ignoring everything else I said about government (I guess I shouldn't have taken your 'serious question' phrase to indicate you were being, you know, serious), but it's childish to ignore what I said about aid as well to set up a straw man about what I think about aid too. Unless you're unclear on the concept of 'good will', that is.

[WatsonT]

18. At what point does our obligation to the rest of the world end?

Because as you say even our poorest are better off than millions of others in the third world.

If we're to take only human suffering in to account then *every single penny* of our budgets should go towards those in other countries as the suffering in the west cannot compare to the daily suffering in the third world.

Do you support that? If not then you are saying our tax dollars should be preferentially spent on us rather than given out as a function of human suffering.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. But 'us', to me, is all the inhabitants of the country

not 'voters and taxpayers'. Yes, I'll accept preferential spending domestically; trying to achieve the UN goal of 0.7% GDP in international aid would still leave a government spending massively more on the people of its own country than on the world. We could go a bit further than that - we could actually give more, like the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark or Luxembourg. It's people who complain that 0.56% is too much that seem mean and uncaring.

[WatsonT]

21. So you support preferentially spending our money for the benefit of our citizens

but you take umbrage to my statement that we should look after our own first.

You no doubt believe those are two different statements. Could you please explain how putting our citizens first is different than what I first described?

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. I took umbrage at your 'voters and taxpayers' statement

I think that 0.56% is not a lot to spend on overseas aid, and that we could spend considerably more than that, while still spending more on the citizens of the UK. You, however, seem to see it as an all-or-nothing decision; and you seem to be supporting those right wing papers who say one two-hundredth of GDP is far too much. I'm glad I have a less binary view of the world than you, and that I don't support meanness.

[WatsonT]

29. .5% of the Americas GDP would come to 70 billion

how many people do you suppose that would feed here?

Right now we're firing teachers and researchers, closing food programs, and shutting down whole sections of government over shortages in the hundreds of millions.

Be sure to tell them that you have better ways to spend that money. And definitely do it around election time.

[pinboy3niner]

33. Wrong place

[nxylas]

37. All this assumes that "foreign aid" is altruistic in nature

Whereas in reality, it generally comes at a price to the recipient nation (usually in the form of a boondoggle to corporations based in the donor nation).

[Posteritatis]

46. Do you seriously think a lot of those cuts are over shortages?

If the US had a surplus of a hundred trillion a year better than half the government would still be enthusiastic about slashing education at any excuse or none, and a similar proportion opposed to any kind of food programs (especially if said programs are in schools). Those aren't getting slashed because people can't afford them; the excuse that they aren't affordable is being used to slash them by people who don't think they should exist in the first place.

Going after foreign aid expenditures is a ridiculous red herring when a lot of the other cuts are for transparently ideological reasons, to say nothing of the fact that everyone's too afraid to touch the real waste in spending.

[WatsonT]

49. So it's your contention that there is no budget crisis

that we have plenty of money but the republican minority is somehow forcing all this to happen while the democratic majority sits idly by, helpless despite public support, excessive funds (apparently), and control of both the legislative and judicial branches?

[Posteritatis]

51. More or less, actually, yes

If the US can keep hiking the defence budget by tens of billions annually and people are getting outraged over the pittance it spends on foreign aid while also feeling the need to put underpaid school librarians on literal trials to justify their employment, then yes, it's got money to spare.

Also, I can't help but want to spit on the notion of the Democratic majority at this point, considering the whole elected body of that party has maybe half a dozen functioning vertebrae to share amongst themselves. The Republicans more or less control the budgetary narrative at this point, as threads like this indicate.

[WatsonT]

52. Wow

Ok then. I guess we have plenty of money and high levels of employment. USA!

[LeftishBrit]

53. This is about the UK, not the USA

We do not have 'plenty of money and high levels of employment' but quite a lot of this is because of a current government with an ideological hatred of the public sector.

If Labour had been re-elected, or to some degree if the LibDems had resisted the Tories' seductions, there would still be some cuts but to nothing like the same degree.

Cameron isn't Obama. He is a Tory, who is allowing right-wing ideologues to control policies in this country.

[WatsonT]

55. The post I was responding to:

"If the US can keep hiking the defence budget by tens of billions annually and people are getting outraged over the pittance it spends on foreign aid while also feeling the need to put underpaid school librarians on literal trials to justify their employment, then yes, it's got money to spare.

Also, I can't help but want to spit on the notion of the Democratic majority at this point, considering the whole elected body of that party has maybe half a dozen functioning vertebrae to share amongst themselves. The Republicans more or less control the budgetary narrative at this point, as threads like this indicate."

Is that about the US or the UK?

[muriel_volestrangler]

54. They forced the continuation of the Bush tax cuts, remember?

Yes, the country has plenty of money - in the hands of the rich, and the Republicans are refusing to tax them at a decent rate that would solve the federal budget problems.

[Posteritatis]

27. "Look after our own first" in this context is generally code for "not a dime to anyone else ever"

I've yet to encounter anyone using the former phrase who did not mean the latter phrase.

Also, a country that puts a mere 0.25-0.5% of GDP into foreign aid is, by every conceivable definition of the term, preferentially spending its money for the benefit of its citizens.

[LeftishBrit]

8. 'the voters and tax payers'

You may not mean it that way, but this makes it sound as though you are excluding those too young to vote or pay taxes; those too poor to pay taxes; long-term residents and workers who may not have a vote; etc.

[WatsonT]

11. Everyone pays taxes in one way or another

unless they never purchase anything ever.

And those underage are represented by their parents, guardians, or the state in some cases.

[pampango]

28. Just trying to clarify which birth characteristics are acceptable to use

in determining who "our people" are.

I trust that you and I share the belief that using race, gender, or sexual orientation (all characteristics which we are born with and have no control over) are not acceptable for use to determine who is "us" and who is "them". If your country of birth is a matter of chance over which you had no control, why should it be more important than your gender, race or sexual orientation in determining your "us/them" status? We are all "us" people regardless of whether we are black/white/brown, male/female, or gay/straight, but not English/Pakistani/Indian or American/Canadian/Mexican?

Using your "voters and tax payers" determination of "us" status, the vast majority of African Americans would not have been "us" for much of American history. And in the many nations that are not "representative democracies" there can be no valid distinction between "us and them" based on one's status as a "voter and tax payer"? This will come as a surprise to many right wing nationalists in the world.

[WatsonT]

30. Yawn

Yes yes, saying any of our tax dollars should be spent for our benefit is no better than slavery and jim crow and why not, the holocaust too.

Boring.

[pinboy3niner]

31. I would suggest that you may be missing something--like 99.4% of GDP

The whole argument of the nativists is frudulent on its face. It's framed to pit the domestic needs of the people against help for the 'others' ( foreign people), as if that infinitessimal 0.56% of GDP is what is depriving people who are struggling and suffering of help.

How the other 99.44% of GDP is used is conveniently left out of their calculations. How much of that goes to very expensive war armaments or to subsidies to wealthy individuals and industries that might be questioned? It's a hell of a lot more than foreign aid, but it's apparently immune to review.

The bigotry, bias and xenophobia is inescapable.

[WatsonT]

32. .5% of our GDP

would come to over 70 billion dollars.

Are you saying the US (yeah I know this is about the UK) couldn't possibly find a use for that money? Like say a stimulus check to everyone earning 50k or less to help give a boost to our own economy?

You may not be watching the news but the west is in a bit of a rough spot right now. We'll be better able to help others if we get our own houses in order first.


Every line item in the budget is trivial if looked at individually.

But if you add up a lot of trivial what do you get?

[pinboy3niner]

34. The point may have gone over your head

"Every line item in the budget is trivial if looked at individually"? What does that even mean? It's a throwaway, nonsensical statement, and all the moreso in reply to a criticism of treating items individually without looking at relative merits.

And your condesencion doesn't become you. "You may not be watching the news but...." is just a cheap shot that contributes nothing to the discussion.

Nice way to avoid addressing the substance of what I posted.

[WatsonT]

47. It's not a nonsensical statement, you just don't understand it

that's fine, but just ask in the future.

What that means is that if we're looking at spending to cut so we can keep other programs any single line of the budget will not be sufficient to do so. The argument of "it's only a few million here and there" sounds sensible on the surface but what happens when you add up a few million several thousand times or more? Now it's real money huh?

"Nice way to avoid addressing the substance of what I posted."

The substance of what you posted was essentially we have money to kill so who cares how we spend it. I disagree with that.

[pampango]

43. Of course I never said we should not spend our tax dollars for "our" benefit, just questioning

the criteria you use to determine who "we" are. Nor did I compare spending our tax dollars in that manner to slavery, jim crow or the holocaust.

I did use Africans Americans as example of how restricting the definition of "us" to "voters and tax payers" is flawed.

Deciding how to spend government money based on "us" vs. "them" (no matter which "birth lottery" factor determines this) rather than on helping people (the ultimate "us") who need it the most. If you believe that many of "us" need the help as much as many of "them" then the distribution of government assistance should reflect this, but not because "we" deserve it more than "they" do.

[Romulox]

45. I've asked pampango several times for the details to her bank account.

I've solemnly pledged to use all collected funds to help those less needy here in the metro Detroit area. And yet pampango has always refused.

It turns out that when it comes to pampango's assets, she indeed subscribes to an "us vs. them" philosophy. It's other people's money with which she is so "generous". :hi:

[WatsonT]

48. Hehe

Well played.

[LeftishBrit]

9. Except that it isn't the people starving abroad who are responsible for the cuts

Cameron is not taking money from the British poor to give it to the even poorer overseas. He is taking money from the British poor to give to the rich, and to satisfy right-wing 'free market' ideology. If the government gave absolutely nothing to foreign aid, they still would have the domestic cuts, because it's their ideology to do so!

The amounts proposed for international aid are very small in comparison with the cuts. They are of course being used by right-wingers as a way of whipping up hostility to poor people of other nations, rather than those who are *really* causing the cuts.

[WatsonT]

12. I have X amount of money coming in

I spend some amount pretty close to that to stay alive.

That means I have little left over to end poverty in the third world.

Is it the third worlds fault that I don't make more/spend less? No.

Am I punishing them by looking after my own needs first? No.

That is how this whole thing works.

They aren't being punished for our fiscal problems. We in the west just don't have all that much money to spend on them right now.

And frankly any one item will be small compared to our overall fiscal woes. We aren't getting out of this by cutting one thing and doing nothing else.

[LeftishBrit]

You are assuming that all the government cuts at home are because we literally 'don't have the money

Not true. Like everyone, we are in economic bad times, but the scale of the cuts is ideological. This government wants 'smaller government' and to cut the public sector for the *sake* of doing so. If absolutely nothing went to foreign aid, they'd still be cutting just as much at home.

[pinboy3niner]

36. Worth saying four times :) nt

[LeftishBrit]

self-delete (dupe)

[LeftishBrit]

22. self-delete (dupe)

[LeftishBrit]

23. self-delete (dupe)

[sendero]

26. This is the part.

... that most people, especially Americans, don't get. All of these austerity programs, including the ZIRP ripoff here in the US, ARE A DIRECT TRANSFER OF WEALTH FROM THE TAXPAYER TO THE BANKSTERS.

If people really understood what is happening there would be full scale riots in every one of these countries, and there eventually probably will.

[Posteritatis]

16. Yeah, that one two-hundredth of GDP really makes all the difference there. (nt)

[BOG PERSON]

19. there are literally zero starving british people

[LeftishBrit]

6. Divide and rule

The amount proposed to spent on health in poorer countries is small, and would not significantly impact the money available to people in this country (the amount being spent on wars is another matter). But when people hear the 'Cut! cut! cut' message here, and see their jobs and public services slashed, they can become suspicious of anything earmarked for abroad. So this is a good way of diverting the attention of poor or struggling people here to blaming even poorer people abroad, rather than the government or the financial sector, while Cameron presents himself as the Good Guy.

Add to that that we indeed do have a nativist, or as I call it xenophobic-isolationist, tradition, and that it is seriously whipped up by the tabloids.

'the Tories who attack DFID with the most vigour are often the same ones who want to see British defence spending preserved from cuts'

True enough!

[craigmatic]

15. That spending isn't even 1% of their GDP and they're puissed. I guess conservatives are all

heartless no matter where they come from.

[LeftishBrit]

25. Yes, right-wing tends to equal mean-spirited on both sides of the pond.

[Shagbark Hickory]

35. You can think of it in terms of a restaurant giving out leftovers in the back alley each night

The restaurant should make decisions that keep the customers happy and coming back.
If there is a surplus of food, giving it away to homeless is a nice thing to do.
If the restaurant is buying extra food just so there's a surplus to give it away whilst reducing portions to the paying customers so that there's even more food to give away, then clearly that doesn't make a lot of sense.
At least not in my view.
In this example, the customers are the taxpayers and the restaurant is the government.

[pinboy3niner]

38. Poor analogy

It has "the homeless" getting ALL the surplus food. To be more accurate, it should have the homeless getting 0.56%, with the other 99.4% going to somebody else.

[Shagbark Hickory]

39. Why? it's 0.56 of GDP.

But I digress, you can't please everyone.

[pinboy3niner]

40. It doesn't take into account the other 99.44% of GDP

Or it relies on a false assumption that all of that 99.44% is devoted to meeting the needs of the people in their economic struggles.

In reality, that 99.44% goes to a lot of other things besides social welfare--yet only the paltry share of the homeless is questioned.

[Shagbark Hickory]

41. I'm talking about the GDP, not the budget.

[pinboy3niner]

42. Your analogy responded to the OP issue, which is in GDP terms nt

[Shagbark Hickory]

44. I know. GDP. Not a budget.

[WinkyDink]

50. This is DU, right, not DU: UK? Anyway, the UK is suffering. Let her deal with her problems as she

sees fit, after being bamboozled into our illegal wars.