Furthermore, according to the popular Marxist notion of Western guilt for the exploitation of the poor nations, the Third World has a right to Western wealth. It now seems beyond question that the massive wealth transfers to Third World governments have not, in general, helped the poor. Primarily because sustained economic development is not the result of having or being given material resources, but rather the fruit of the long-term workings of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Economic freedom and prosperity are inextricably linked to a society obeying God's laws, including His laws limiting the scope of civil governments, protecting private property, and allowing economic freedom. On the economic level, this book shows demonstrates that aid has failed because most developmental institutions lend to governments, and not to individuals.
International aid is in effect, a subsidy to bad economic policies and a bloated public sector.
It succeeds, not in alleviating poverty, but in extending and prolonging bureaucratic control over the poor of the Third World. This is something like an international welfare program, not for the poor of the Third World, but for their governments. He also brings to light the Bank's complicity in the brutal collectivization policies of Vietnam in the late 1970 s. Doug Bandow demonstrates how the IMF relieves the political pressure on Third World governments for a much needed reform of their economic policies. Surely Western taxpayers would be outraged if they knew that their money was going not to help the poor but to finance international socialism.