Category: Social Media

Voluntourism: Another Do-Good Blunder

volunteer2Apparently, for the last several years, in the upper reaches of Western society, the elite among us have been moiling away doing good works.  This is not new: the crème de la crème have always shared their largesse with the rest of us, but in the old days it was kinda ad hoc, and, therefore manageable.  These days, however, volunteerism has become a multinational business (like the oh-so- evil Walmart) and it’s getting out of hand.  I realize calling down charity is like attacking a unicorn — nobody’s going give me a thumbs up on this one — but when something becomes a destructive force, what am I supposed to do?

So, ladies and gentleman, I give you the latest in a series of do-gooder blunders: voluntourism.  This little puppy is so wrong — on so many levels — I don’t even know where to start — perhaps, a definition?

In essence, voluntourism is a thinly disguised guilt-free vacation.  Rich people can indulge themselves, eat up tons of fossil fuels and other resources and justify it by “giving back” (a vague feel good term that means absolutely nothing.)  The vast majority of voluntourists are well-meaning high school and college kids who can afford to “give back” because they don’t have to sling burgers or mochaccinos on a daily basis to pay for their education.  The voluntourism experience looks good on a CV; thus giving the voluntourist a rung up on the education and career ladders over their poor bugger peers (who couldn’t afford a semester off in sub Saharan Gabrungi.)  Plus, it gives them something to brag about until the first child goes to preppie preschool.  Everybody’s happy — except some of us are a little happier than others.

At the other end of this libero-colonial adventure, the target destinations either adapt to their newfound benefactors or they go under.  I can’t think of a better way to screw up a struggling local economy than introducing a pool of high quality unpaid labour into the mix.  Suddenly, the neighbourhood workforce (in pretty much every area except aid administration) is facing stiff competition from a gang of gungho kids from Indiana.  These boys and girls have resources at their disposal that the local folks can only dream about, and they’re undercutting shipping, handling, materials and labour by 100%.  Think about it: how long volunteer5would even a mighty Mcdonald’s franchise last if I opened a burger joint down the block that gave away Happy Meals for free?  Even when the voluntourists actually work with the locals, they’re still stealing jobs.  These are jobs that an embryonic micro-economy can’t afford to lose.

The only defence against this economic genocide is, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  Many local institutions have had to become part of the Western charity food chain in order to survive.  Frankly, there’s no advantage to solving problems and flying right if the minute you do, the voluntourists move on, the money dries up and you’re left worse off than when you started.  In fact, there are some very clear advantages to not poking your head above the poverty line.  So when the voluntourists show up and want to build yet another school, your best bet is to shut up and let them do it.  If nothing else, some local somebody is going to make a shekel or two feeding, housing and looking after these contemporary bwanas.  Besides, they might tell their friends what a good time they had sorting out the natives, and next season’s crop of Lady Bountifuls will be assured.  “It’s the Circle of Life/And it moves us all.”

I’m not against charity, volunteerism or giving my fellow human beings a helping hand.  I just can’t abide a bunch of people blundering around the world paving the local roads to hell with their good intentions.  The grinding poverty on our planet doesn’t need charity; it needs jobs — local jobs that feed the local economy.  Those people who want to help the downtrodden places in our world need to commit to more than just a vacation full.  They need to bring business with them when they come, open a local volunteer6bank for microloans, or start an export clothing business, a bicycle repair shop, or just a simple bed and breakfast.  Unfortunately, these things take time and commitment, and the positive results need years to take root.  Voluntourists have to get back to their own lives.  They have things to do that don’t include slogging it out in a minor village in Cambodia or Rwanda for five, ten or twenty years.

I don’t care how you slice it: voluntourists are tourists; that’s all they are.  The interesting thing is, since tourism adds a lot of dollars to any local economy, everybody would be a lot better off, if they just acted like it.

4/20: A Capitalist’s Dream

grassOnce again, the world has survived 4/20.  Despite dire warnings, our civilization didn’t collapse in a hail of exhaled smoke last Saturday, Bob Marley didn’t rise from the dead and Satan isn’t rolling a FatBoy (or whatever they’re called these days) on a throne of broken skulls and pure evil.  However, even as the suburban kids and the 60s-going-on-70s grey hairs are putting away their inner Jesse James for another year, I’m struck by just how bourgeois the once mighty marijuana counterculture has become.  The telling feature is the 4/20 inner circle password isn’t exactly secret anymore.  It’s so seriously mainstream, it wears Mom jeans, drives a Prius and has a bad boy Celtic knot tattoo.  There’s something just a little sorry about the gangstas at the annual 4/20 rally covering their faces with bandanas to avoid corporate disapproval rather than prosecution.  Of course, these days, smoking dope is tantamount to breaking Dad’s ten o’clock curfew rule.  The cops really don’t care who smokes what anymore (tobacco has more prohibitions) and unless you combine your recreational drug use with kidnapping and/or arson it’s practically impossible to get arrested.

There’s no real harm in the solid middle class playing one-day-a-year outlaw on April 20th: knock yourself out!  However, ever since high school, I’ve thought it was hilarious that these bad-to-the-bone counterculturists are missing the one great irony.  The world of marijuana is, in fact, the last bastion of radical right-wing laissez-faire capitalism — and it works.

I don’t think anybody needs a primer on capitalism; it’s been the bogeyman since Western youth got the two Lennons (Lenin?) mixed up — back in 1965.  It’s the system that sophomores love to hate.  However, many of the same people who wouldn’t be caught dead endorsing the free market have been indulging in it up to their rolling papers for at least three generations now.  Let’s take a look, shall we?

Marijuana is a huge international commodity.  Yet unlike all other agricultural products on this planet, it is devoid of government interference, intervention and/or regulation.  There are simply no governmental rules set up for the cultivation and sale of marijuana.  Therefore, there are no agricultural subsidies, no marketing boards, no tariff barriers, no packaging regulation and no other bureaucratic etceteras getting in the way of the dedicated business person.  In fact, as a commodity, the marijuana industry is governed, in its entirety, by the free market forces of supply and demand.  Not only that, but the price and profits of the industry are completely controlled by how efficiently the marijuana entrepreneur brings his product to market and how 4/20 at the University of Coloradoeffectively he handles his (or her) competition.  But wait: there’s more!  Taxation, the Holy Grail of all left-wing social planners and the bane of all free marketers is – OMG! — nonexistent.  The marijuana entrepreneur is not forced to share his profits with anyone.  If all this isn’t greedy bastard capitalism at its very best, I don’t know what is!

Now, here’s the kicker: not only has the marijuana industry survived for these many decades without government intervention, it has thrived.  The retail price has remained relatively low, the profit margins have remained relatively high and the market is stable.  Plus, at a time when the entire world is playing chicken with economic collapse, marijuana remains a growth industry.   Looks to me as if there’s some pretty convincing empirical evidence that, in fact, capitalism works.

So for all those “capitalism is worse than crap” wannabe economists out there: you might want to take a closer look before you run your mouth.  And for all those “I’m so baaad” middle-class muffins praying for the legalization of marijuana: careful what you wish for.  Once the government gets a hold of 4/20, the price will go up, the quality will go down and they’ll probably turn it into (3X – 2)/(6X + 8) — just to complicate things!

Bitcoin: I Guess I Missed It!

bitcoin1Like so many trends, the Bitcoin phenom was born, lived — and now has nearly died — before I ever got a handle on it.  The world’s first virtual currency was virtually wiped out just as I was beginning to understand its significance.  And now it looks as if it’s not going to matter.

Ironically, although the concept of Bitcoin (I’m not sure if there is a plural) is very simple, the actual nuts and bolts of the thing are impossible to understand.  For example, I have no idea how Bitcoin is generated, and nobody I’ve talked to does either.  Even the mighty Wikipedia is so convoluted as to be useless.  Not only that, but I have yet to find a place where I (or anybody else I know) would spend Bitcoin, assuming of course that we had any.  These are two serious problems with a currency which is supposed to take the place of sweaty twenties and good old-fashioned Visa™.  However, let’s put the thing into perspective. because even though Bitcoin may be going the way of the iPod, virtual currency is the way of the future.

As far as I can tell, Bitcoin is the brainchild of a group of Uber-nerds who created it as virtual money — money that exists without ever taking tangible form.  Their concept is an anarchist’s dream: a People’s Free-Range Currency, untethered to any bank or national monetary system.  It is money that follows the ebb and flow of the marketplace; its value dictated by its purchasing power.  This is not a radical idea.  It’s merely contemporary capitalism at its fundamental best.  Let me explain.

As we all know, in simplistic terms, money is nothing more than faith.  We believe that the piece of plastic in our pockets will buy us Big Macs™.  We’re allowed to buy them because McDonald’s believes they will get their money from our bank.  Our bank gives McDonald’s the money because they believe we will pay the bill when it shows up.  Everybody’s happy, and we’ve had lunch.   In this entire sequence of events, no one has actually handled any money.  The reality is our national currency is virtually virtual money already.

So why did Bitcoin fail so miserably?

The answer is quite easy.  The creators of Bitcoin forgot one simple overwhelming principle of economics: money is only worth what it can buy you.  Since currency itself has no intrinsic value, if it can’t be exchanged for Big Macs™, it reverts to its original incarnation – a rectangular bit of plastic with your name on it.  Thus, when it became apparent that Bitcoin couldn’t be exchanged for anything beyond a few esoteric Internet specialities, it ceased to be a currency.  However, since it was tied to a tangible dollar value, it became a commodity and — in a marketplace (the Internet) without any rules — the object of wild-eyed speculation.  Bitcoin was a bubble waiting to burst, and last week it did.  Today, it doesn’t matter how Bitcoin is generated or what people say it’s worth; it’s virtually valueless.

Bitcoin didn’t fail just because ordinary people couldn’t buy anything with it and therefore lost their faith in it.  It actually failed because we don’t need another virtual currency.  We have one already.  In fact, aside from street corner drug deals, we live in a cashless society.  We no longer need tangible money to go about our business and, in reality, very seldom use it.  So it doesn’t really matter that I missed it: Bitcoin was redundant before it began.