For fiscal year 2011, the U.S. State Department requested almost $40 billion for its foreign operations budget. This request includes almost every form of assistance America provides to the developing world, from food aid to military financing. But with members of both political parties looking for expenditures to cut, would it make any difference to the developing world or to U.S. interests if we halved this budget? The likely answer is no.

“No,” because creating wealth in poor countries has nothing to do with how much aid rich countries contribute. The foreign aid industry, however, wants you to believe that every dollar is essential, and that America needs to do even more to unleash prosperity in poor countries.

Consider, for example, a recent essay by Thomas Carothers in the New Republic on how “Real Conservatives Don’t Slash Foreign Aid.” In it, he shows that even right-leaning administrations like David Cameron’s Tories in the United Kingdom are increasing aid outlays during times of fiscal austerity. But this is no reason for America to do the same. What Carothers in fact proves is that no one, neither liberal nor conservative, seems to get how prosperity works.

There are two ways to view this world: either as a world of entitlement or as a world of duty.

Metrics are the new mantra of the 21st century development world. This is an improvement, to be sure; but for the most part, development technocrats prefer to talk about themselves rather than their beneficiaries. It has even become modish to accept the failure of older aid models while proposing new aid innovations; yet honest discussion about the United States’ ability to catalyze true prosperity remains taboo. The State Department’s recently released Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review is filled with recommendations to “get things right” through better monitoring and evaluation, better planning, and better bureaucratic organization. The ONE Campaign, evangelical Christians, and even Capitol Hill Republicans and Democrats talk about aid in terms of “getting things done,” “impact,” and “smart development.” All explicitly eschew politics.

But human beings, whether billionaire philanthropists or farmers in Africa, are political by nature. Whether they know it or not, they see the world through a political lens. And there are two ways to view this world: either as a world of entitlement or as a world of duty.

Georgia’s leaps toward prosperity did not begin with signing its first $295 million compact with the Millennium Challenge Corporation in 2005, but with a ‘mental revolution.’

Citizens in a poor country who see the world through the entitlement lens see “development” as the process of becoming a social democracy. Living in a country that lacks basic infrastructure, health services, and a functioning economy, they begin to see the future as a time when these things are resolved because of a better functioning, more “effective” government. In these nations—Venezuela, Pakistan, and Nigeria are just a few of many examples—populism drives politics, and technocracy is the perceived solution to the challenge of development.

Citizens in a developing country who see the world through the lens of duty face the same technical problems, but they understand that development will come as a result of entrepreneurship, individual initiative, and a strengthened moral fiber. They do not expect to see government become more effective until their communities and families are more effective. They may live in a society with limited property rights and corrupt bureaucracy, yet they understand this will only change when their society’s worldview changes.

The path to prosperity begins when citizens change their worldview from the lens of entitlement to the lens of duty. Take Georgia, a country that has become a poster child of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), an American agency founded in 2004 that selects aid recipients based on their progress on a series of economic, governance, and human-capital indicators. Georgia’s leaps toward prosperity did not begin with signing its first $295 million compact with the MCC in 2005. Instead they began through what the country’s President Mikheil Saakashvili calls a “mental revolution” at home many years earlier. Saakashvili notes that his citizens made a conscious decision to reform governance and become a meritocracy. This set them on the right path. Several years later, the United States came in through the MCC and provided needed support by building roads and helping farmers increase their productivity, for example.

Not one bit of decisive evidence shows American aid creating prosperity in poor countries in the more than half of a century we have tried to do so.

Not one bit of decisive evidence shows American aid creating prosperity in poor countries in the more than half of a century we have tried to do so. The U.S. aid apparatus, despite its intentions, is impotent when it comes to this broader goal. It is too focused on the simplistic idea that problems are bad, and thus fixing them is good.

It is true that because of the enormous bipartisan effort to improve effectiveness, our technical solutions to discrete problems such as HIV/AIDS or primary education have indeed improved. But technocratic solutions do not change mindsets. Leading by example does. Why not, then, lead by example, support those who choose to follow our lead, and keep a rainy day fund for emergency and humanitarian assistance with an aid budget half what it is today? It is certainly possible.

Yet our aid system continues to ask for more resources to fight the windmills of development. Often, it is politically expedient to call for more aid. More often, it is a result of the impassioned goals of our faithful and our idealistic. This makes perfect sense, for America is a society of duty. We see it as our obligation to help those less fortunate. This is our worldview. But until the countries we desire to see prosper change their own worldview, most U.S. foreign aid will continue to be money down the proverbial rat hole.

Apoorva Shah is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

FURTHER READING: In “Kashmir on Fire,” Shah discussed violent protests in India. He also says India and Pakistan were “A Signature Away” from better cooperation, and offers “A Reality Check on India, Pakistan” with Ahmad Majidyar. He writes “U.S. and India—Still Just Friends with Benefits” and discusses “Putting the ‘Kerala Model’ to Rest.”

Image by Rob Green/Bergman Group.