Aus gegebenem Anlass, möchte ich auf William Easterly’s beeindruckende Studie Freedom versus Collectivism in Foreign Aid, erschienen im Economic Freedom of the World 2006 Annual Report hinweisen, in der er vor den Planungsfantasien unserer selbsternannten westlichen Armutsbekämpfungselite warnt. 

“The collapse of communism in Europe with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the great success of the movement away from central planning towards markets in other places like China and Vietnam that remain nominally Communist (along with the poverty of the unrepentant Communist states in Cuba and North Korea) discredited the Communist notion of comprehensive central planning once and for all. Yet, by an irony that is not so amusing for its intended beneficiaries, the new farcical collectivism is still alive for the places that can afford it the least—the poorest nations in the world that receive foreign aid. Instead of the Berlin Wall, we have an “Aid Wall,” behind which poor nations are supposed to achieve their escape from poverty through a collective, top-down plan. (..)
Controlling only for initial income and not for economic freedom, aid has no significant effect on economic growth. Once you control for economic freedom, aid has a negative and significant effect on growth. I am hesitant to stress this result too strongly, as the previous literature has generally found a zero effect of aid on growth, not negative. Much greater robustness testing is needed before the negative result can be taken too seriously, and the problem of weak instruments also needs much more examination. At the very least, however, this illustrative exercise is consistent with the previous literature that aid does not have a positive effect on growth. (..)
Foreign aid could create new opportunities for the world’s poorest people by getting them some of such essentials as medicines, education, and infrastructure, but
only if foreign aid itself imitates the successful approach of economic freedom, by adopting a search and feedback approach with individual accountability instead of the current collectivist planning model. Even with these changes, outside aid cannot achieve the grandiose goal of transforming other societies to escape poverty into prosperity. Only home-grown gradual movements towards more economic freedom can accomplish that for the world’s poor. Fortunately, that is already happening.”