La Ceiba envisions a world in which every individual can realize their potential through hard work. As a microfinance program that provides financial, social and educational support, La Ceiba empowers struggling Hondurans to overcome the inequalities that have denied them this right.
All of us are here for the same general purpose, of course, but the slight differences really begin to stand out when it comes down to simple phrasing and word choice. The space between ideals and realities, economics and sociology, academic and altruistic reasons; seemingly little differences became magnified in a long and arduous road to consensus. Not to stir up what we all pray is settled, but why are we here? The root of every disagreement and revision comes down to that simple question. So where am I coming from?
I’m not a particularly altruistic person, so what am I doing in a non-profit development project? I like microfinance because I don’t believe that charity has any sort of long-term beneficial effect (and I hesitate to call microfinance charity.) I like it because I don’t believe in any doctrine of inherently deserved equality, but I believe strongly in egalitarianism. I was sold on the phrase “a world in which every individual can realize their potential through hard work,” as steering the ship away from a charity program and towards something intended to level the playing field for those who wanted to put forth the effort to take the opportunity.
The first draft of our final statement began “We believe in a world” etc, but we don’t. Here’s the difference between and ideal and reality. If we believed that this egalitarian world were real, we wouldn’t be here. We envision it, we intend to do our small part to realize that world, but we sure as heck don’t believe in it. This small change met with some resistance, and carried great meaning for me, personally. We can’t operate a company on ideals. We have goals, absolutely, but we need to be realistic and pragmatic about every single thing that we do if we want to succeed in the long run. When you’re dealing with people, especially struggling people, that mindset is hard to keep, but it’s one that I believe we need to try our hardest to hold on to it if we intend to stay in business and expand to even more clients. If the right decision is emotionally hard to make, we still have to make it. If we’re failing, we need to look realistically at why we’re failing and change what we’re doing. Not to channel Rand, but the business of mysticism gets us nowhere. We need to remember that we operate in a cruelly objective reality.
The greatest controversy, of course, was over the replacement of “poverty” in the final sentence with “inequalities.” I agreed wholeheartedly with Dr. Humphrey that it had to come down to a rational economic determination of causation. Philosophically, I’d love to reference my belief in egalitarianism as the reason to choose “inequalities,” emphasizing my personal reasons for participating in these projects. That would contradict my previous assertion that we can’t run a business on ideals, and we do need to be able to explain our word choice. Still, in terms of pure economics, I’m willing to throw my lot in with “inequalities” as both the original root of and the perpetuating factor of the cycle of poverty. Geographic and environmental inequalities are largely to blame for stunted or non-existent economic growth, and that poverty which first stems from inequality breeds more inequality. It’s something of a “chicken or the egg” question, but unless we’re willing to concede that people become poor by choice, it’s clear to see that inequality is the egg. (Fun Fact: the egg came before the chicken; it’s science.)
This post was written by Hart on October 7, 2008