Poverty Inc.
1.Poverty Inc is a documentary that goes through the process of assessing global help. It breaks down what actually happens to things we donate to established GNOs and how they go into countries who need “help” but ultimately does not help them in the long run. This documentary gives a different side of the story than what we are used to hearing. As Americans we are used to seeing the black and white slide show of kids who look sad and then at the end of it, it asks for donations. We usually don’t think anything of it and give because we think it's helping them out and also it makes us feel good when we give generously. This documentary actually gives the other side of the story as they interview a lot of people in Haiti and other so called 3rd world countries. It shows that even if your heart is in the right place and you want to help out, a lot of times it ends up turning into a bad thing for their economy but we never hear about that after we donate. It was entrepreneurial because it showed us many types of businesses/ businesses that got prevented. One example is the egg farmer who was just getting his business profitable and then a church came along and donated a lot of eggs and it made the market for eggs plummet because people were getting them for free. He then had to sell all of his hens and his business. Another example is when the people at the orphanage made bracelets and necklaces and they started a profitable business doing that. 2. This film is interesting because it's a completely new viewpoint of the unseen that happens when organizations go overseas and try to help out 3rd world countries. It's crazy that they can profit off of these things just by government funding alone. Also when they are over there it's crazy to see the effects it has on the economy. A lot of disruption happens because people that have businesses in Haiti and then their product they are selling becomes available for free for an extended period of time, why would the people in the 3rd world countries buy products that they can get for free. It creates less of an incentive to work because they are not relying on a paycheck to put food on the table because they can get food for free. 3A. Entrepreneurship in terms of people in the 3rd world being entrepreneurs has massive effects on society because it gives people hope. When someone sees a person making actual money and providing for themselves rather than being provided for, it makes them more incentivised to not keep living off of someone else’s gifts and that it is possible to create a business in that economy. 3B. Society affects entrepreneurship in a bad way. When society comes in and tries to help, it ends up being bad for entrepreneurs who already have businesses selling what society gives them. It puts the entrepreneurs out of business and forces them to rely on the help of others. Society also makes them feel like they aren't capable of doing business and need the help of America to survive. Americans view 3rd world countries more as objects to make them feel good because those people don't have hope when in reality they are just as capable as any American is but society has put a limit on their capabilities.3B. The interaction between society and entrepreneurs is muddy in this movie because society believes they are helping them out and they don't know the damage that is done or as we call it in class the unseen. The seen is when we get videos of people passing out food and happy kids running around with new toys. The unseen are the toy makers who went out of business because no one was buying their product or the food producers because they can't be profitable. You also don't see that when these businesses shut down that it creates less job opportunities which creates reliance in the organizations and it is consistent across a lot of 3rd world countries.
