Poverty Isn't Charming

Here is a trailer for the movie Mine Your Own Business:

Mine Your Own Business, a film produced by New Bera Media in association with the Moving Picture Institute, looks at the dark side of environmentalism. It talks to some of the worlds poorest people about how western environmentalists are campaigning to keep them in poverty because they think their way of life is quaint. It is the first documentary to ask hard questions of the environmental movement.

Don Boudreaux saw the film and writes:

Yesterday, Karol and I attended a screening of the new movie "Mine Your Own Business" -- an entertaining documentary exposing the arrogance, greed, cruelty, and irrationality of many environmental activists.

One of these activists insisted that poor people really don't want better housing, better nutrition, and better education. Instead, says the well-housed, well-fed, highly educated "environmentalist," poor people really prefer their quaint, traditional ways of life.

Martin Wolf and Deepak Lal are among the prominent, sound scholars whose comments enrich this film.

For anyone who has every traveled to the third world, you know that poverty is never charming. The attitude of people wanting to protect the "quaint way of life" of others against their will is little different from trying to keep an animal in a zoo so you can visit it anytime you want. It violates all notions of freedom, dignity, respect, and is arrogance of the highest degree.

I find it particularly interesting that so many people who claim those to think so highly of the "quaint way of life" of the world's poor never seem to want to abandon their air-conditioning, running water, education, and international travel to go live among them. A look at their revealed preferences goes a long way towards illuminating what they really think.

Be sure to check out the movie's website and associated blog to find out more. Here is a list of press coverage of the film and you can buy it on DVD here.