Hartmut Elsenhans and a Critique of Capitalism by Neil Wilcock & Corina Scholz

Author:Neil Wilcock & Corina Scholz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

8

Nongovernmental Organisations

Elsenhans sees nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) as being no different in their economic basis to the more idealistically minded members of the state classes that make up rent-based states. This economic basis consists of a rent acquired in their societies of origin and at the international level (United Nations, government aid budgets, private foundations, etc.). The donor–recipient relationship forces the NGO to adhere to the power structure of the West to receive funds. He sees a growing disillusionment with NGOs, stemming from their bureaucratisation and the increasing dominance of middle-class perspectives, which is caused by NGOs ultimately having to answer to international donors. Elsenhans conceives the challenge of globalisation as the ability of developing countries to reach a state of high employment; while acknowledging the good intentions of NGOs, he sees them not only as doing nothing to increasing employment (read: developing), but actually acting as a hindrance in achieving it as they occupy political spaces that crowd out alternatives.

We have spoken about development, about how to overcome underdevelopment. What comes to mind in terms of development cooperation, and what we have not addressed yet are NGOs. We would now like to speak about the nonprofit sector, or more broadly development assistance and what role they play with regard to your models.

To start with a general point: your argument is that NGOs have the capacity to channel resources.

They channel resources which are rents into these countries.

Why is it rent?

Because the money does not circulate on markets. It is a political circulation process as if the government is distributing money.

According to that definition all development assistance would be rent.

Yes, naturally. The NGO sector is a rent-based structure. The use of the money is the result of a political negotiation process with specific interests. In this case, the NGO wants to survive so it wants to appear as worthy of obtaining more funds. Therefore, the NGO will do something good so the aid recipients voice their appreciation of the NGO.

It is a mechanism of distributing rents in the system, which is basically supplied by foreign money. Your project’s outcome for the target population is the entry ticket, which is subject to negotiation with the donor.

But in that sense you regard NGOs as agents that act in favour of the redistribution that you are always advocating for.

To some extent yes, but limited. What they are doing is not the necessary mass redistribution required in the developing world or constituting an internal market. They are helping some people, like the catholic and the protestant church here, or the Salvation Army, but they are not the vehicle to development they believe they are. They implement projects but they are not able to cause structural changes.

Let’s be more specific about what NGOs do or don’t do.

The NGO in the third world is a provider of resources. It channels resources to target groups [aid recipients]. The target group on its own would not be able to get the same resources that the NGO channels through, so the

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