[John Locke]

I first encountered Oxfam as a schoolboy, observing their real estate speculation in North Oxford. Understood then my mother's advice, "If you want to know where your charity goes, give it to a beggar"

Met them next in Africa, as the Oxford Committee for Famine Creation. Let me explain.

There is a bad harvest. Food is scarce. In comes Oxfam to dump free food on the population. Many already stressed farmers go out of business; they and their children move to the city and become scroungers and vagrants.

A couple of years later, there is another bad harvest, and an even worse situation thanks to the farmers who are no longer there.

After independence, the game changes. The local politicians demand bribes, hidden in the accounts as "public relations". They then take the food, distribute it to the villages loyal to their tribe, and let the others starve. Oxfam looks on and does nothing, not wanting to be racist neo colonialist bad guys.

And the people get poorer. Welcome to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

[wally_bert]

Thank you for the education on Oxfam.