Mistaken identification of government with people

The facile identification of governments with the population they supposedly represent results in large-scale maldistribution of foreign aid. Official foreign aid is received by governments. They are not the poor, destitute or starving people shown in aid propaganda. Such aid increases the power of governments over their people and defers market-based reforms. Such aid has the equally counter-productive effect of inhibiting the development of an entrepreneurial trader class on which an advancing economy can be built.