Good Intentions and Unintended Consequences

At Soliton, Doug Pagitt got into a discussion about free trade coffee. It is a great idea - pay the growers a reasonable amount for their coffee directly so they can live reasonably off their labor. But there is often an unintended consequence. The neighbor who grows beans which are sold in the community for food sees the coffee grower suddenly doing well financially, pulls up the bean plants and begins growing coffee. Very quickly, there is no locally grown food available. The entire community is left at the whims of the coffee market and the poorest who cannot afford imported products cannot purchase food at all.
Watching the US response to Katrina makes me think of good intentions and unintended consequences. Many Americans opened their hearts and their wallets to help those whose lives were torn apart by the storms this summer. It is a good response but there are unintended consequences. The first is that giving to other charities has dropped. Feeding programs, housing for the homeless, and many other kinds of programs that help the poor and depend upon the giving of folk in their communities have seen their receipts drop. In a real sense, it is the poorest all around the country who are shouldering the bulk of the sacrifice because the programs that make life possible for them are reeling as their constituents give to Katrina victims. Foreign mission programs and other charities are suffering also.
And then there is the other consequence which may not be unintended, at least by some. Most of the funds that go to rebuilding the gulf will not benefit the poorest folk who have lost the most. We have already seen that the lion's share of the contracts for reconstruction did not go to local companies. Instead they went to companies that have ties to the present government or those that were well conected to former FEMA heads. This, while thousands are out of work in the area... And once the area is rebuilt does anyone realistically expect that the poor will be able to move back in? Once a developer has built a multi million dollar complex, will they be willing to rent out units at section 8 prices to poor folk when the opportunity is there to gentrify and welcome wealthy, white professionals? The poor will end up being pushed out or never return to New Orleans from the diaspora they now suffer.
The final consequence, this one certainly not unintended, is that the current administration has pledged to rebuild but will not retract the billions of dollars in tax cuts given to the wealthiest 1%. Instead, they plan to fund the reconstruction through budget cuts. They won't cut the military. They won't cut the Republican's pet projects. What is left? Social services for the poor, the elderly, and the very young. Again, it is the least able who will shoulder the bulk of the burden. There is a word for this in Christian theology - sin.