Lal saw World Bank aid as Western self-soothing rather than genuine assistance

Evidence

In a recent article warning of the “threat to economic liberty from international organizations,” Lal offers a critical assessment of the World Bank, writing that the institution’s “foreign aid arm—IDA—largely serves as an instrument for assuaging Western guilt. A useful analogy is with the money people give to street people, knowing full well that this will be used to fuel their drug habits or alcoholism, as it makes them feel virtuous” (2005, 517). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1776

Categorization

• SHARE: The street-person drug-money analogy is a vivid, quote-ready nugget for anyone interested in aid skepticism.
• XREF: connects to: Property rights theory flowed from academia through Peru to the World Bank and Egypt. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 164