I suppose most readers around these parts would reckon that actors should stick to acting, and keep their political opinions to themselves.
But what about these opinions?
“People think more aid will help, but it won’t,” said Ms. Driver, an actress who is working on her second music CD. “Trade is the surest way of decreasing the savage amount of poverty in our world. These countries have got to be able to trade fairly.”
And the point is, by “fairly”, she does not mean being paid artificially high prices; she means getting rid of agricultural subsidies in the rich countries.
It was never a practical project to silence the acting profession. These people are famous. Having acquired their fame, they then want to use their fame to do good, and in the process to become even more famous. This is only natural, especially when you consider that doing good and being heroic is what, according to the entertainments these people spend their lives making and acting in, life is all about. Trying to stop famous actors from expressing what they consider to be virtuous and heroic opinions in public is like trying to stop the wind from blowing or the sea from being wet.
No, the task that faces us is not to silence the acting profession from ever opining about goodness. That would be impossible, to say nothing of censorious and unpleasant. Rather is our task to change the definition of goodness that actors of sufficient fame to care about such things reach for when they get to the public virtue stage in their careers, and to make goodness really mean goodness.
Ms. Driver’s pronouncements concerning the superiority of trade over aid as a means of rescuing the world’s poorest people is evidence that some progress is being made along these lines.
Many actors surely already believe such things, on the quiet. But it is still a fine step forward when one of them feels able to say such things in public.
Has anyone checked to see if this is the “real” Minnie Driver? There is the distinct possibility that she has been abducted by space aliens and replaced with an exact duplicate uttering sensible things in an effort to totally confuse the human race.
Seriously, if she actually feels this way this is a good thing. There may be hope afterall.
I take John Steele’s point. She may have been fired up on green tea and not known what she was saying. But I hope it was for real … if anyone listens to anything Minnie Driver has opinions about. Which I doubt. But at least she got some oxygen.
Rather is our task to change the definition of goodness that actors of sufficient fame to care about such things reach for when they get to the public virtue stage in their careers, and to make goodness really mean goodness.
Wow. My brain hurts from trying to decipher that at this hour. I think I know what you’re trying to say, but I wish you’d broken it up into smaller thought-bites. Unless, of course, you’re writing only for your quick-witted peers.
And to think that I’ve linked your essay on the fixed quantity of wealth for so many years…
Yeah, that sounds good, but I seem to recall her saying something just about exactly opposite that a few years ago- around the beginning of the ‘Jolie’ UN/actress ambassodor phenomenom. Something about how sweatshops exploit people- oh yeah, it was on the now defunct ‘Gweilo Diaries’ by Conrad in HK. Sure it’s still floating around the net somewhere.
But if it was her saying that…. do you think, perhaps maybe… she actually went out and learned something?
Now that’s radical.
There’s another side to this – Hollywood and the music biz are probably still stinging after the 04 elections. They turned out the vote, and it was Republican. Nothing an performer hates more than losing touch with the audience! The temptation to “turn their coats” must be large.
Well to add to that, our Fado/WoldMusic singer Mariza
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/world/awards2003
/profile_marizaeurope.shtml
said in a prime time interview about her career in Portuguese state TV when questioned about her Live8 participation that the big problem of Africa was in Africa. . Interviewer only wanted cheap talking and fait-divers about backstage arrangements and was stunted for a moment and didnt reacted, she repeated again and said that corruption was the main problem.
Btw she was born in Moçambique
John Steele and Verity, what do you have against Minnie Driver? I get the impression from your comments that there’s she’s previously done something that offends you.
There’s nothing more treacherous than counfounding prejudice. If you have nice, neat absolute categories–Hollywood actors are like this–someone who doesn’t fit is a nuisance. What should be a pleasant discovery can become an irritation.
In extreme cases (not exhibited here, but common net-wide) the world is at fault, not the mental model, and the counterexample is evidence of a devious conspiracy.
we like actors when they say things we agree with, don’t we brian?
another condescending and patronising post there, old mate.
I would like some thinking on whether dumping US and EU food surpluses on poor African countries is necessarily a Bad Thing. Sure, it means that the prices obtained by near-subsistence farmers are undercut, but do we really want a large percentage of African farmers to stay on the land? (We have about 3%). These people should be moving into the industrial world and making things cheaper than the Chinese can.
A big laugh at the feasibility of this idea? I’m afraid so. But where’s the virtue in making farmers inefficiently scratch the soil to produce an inferior, more expensive product, which often doesn’t even appear because of drought? The alternative seems an excellent way of keeping US and EU farmers happy, the Third World fed, and the do-gooders (pop stars and
others) in a fine, unexpected glow.
Didn’t Britain go through all this argument in the 1840s, before abolishing the Corn Laws?
Did anyone notice, during the Live8, G8 hoo-hah/concern about “Africa” that there was a food crisis in Niger that its government (poor but honest, by all accounts) and various aid agencies couldn’t get any help for?
To follow up on Brian’s original point: who cares: I mean, how much of the voting/donating public really cares what does Minnie Driver, or, for that matter, Sean Penn, think about this subject or other? Sure, there numerous people who are obsessed with celebrities, but it seems to me that the things they mostly obsess about are their looks and/or personal lives. It also seems to me that the real political influence of the entertainment industry lies where the big money is, and it ain’t the actors/singers, as rich as they are compared to the rest of us.
How about the fact that those food surpluses are the result of heavy governmental subsidisation and, technically, shouldn’t have even been there in the first place?
Western food subsidies are bad for Western taxpayers, but might arguably be good for third world consumers who thereby get free or cheap stuff. But it is all rather irrelevant since the main cause of African poverty is African governments.
Minnie is doing another album, that really is disturbing news.
Western taxpayers don’t mind subsidizing their farmers and are supposed not to mind (or even be keen on) giving aid to Africa. What could be more painless than sending the surplus of one to the hungry of the other?
Is paying farmers here NOT to produce food to give us a nice warm feeling that we’re helping the environment better than trying to let the African environment recover from farming methods that degrade it?
Western food subsidies are bad for Western taxpayers, but might arguably be good for third world consumers who thereby get free or cheap stuff.
Of course, dumping free/cheap goods into the economy collapses those sectors of the economy that are producing or selling the free/cheap goods.
Better to have a nation of farmers than a nation of welfare recipients. In so many ways.
Of course, dumping free/cheap goods into the economy collapses those sectors of the economy that are producing or selling the free/cheap goods.
Yes indeed, that is main benefit.
Ken Hagler:
I don’t know her and I have nothing against her personally. I hold all celebrities in equally low regard — I am an Equal Opportunity Disdainer when it comes to the “glitterati.”
“Of course, dumping free/cheap goods into the economy collapses those …..”
Why doesn’t somebody dump free/cheap goods into me ? I’m willing to accept them. I won’t collapse !
Protectionists are forever carping about how those “free/cheap” goods from abroad destroy their income, and they need either tariffs or subsidies.
Say after me: dumping free/cheap goods on people is A GOOD THING for those people, if you forget for a moment the other people – the suckers who are forced to pay through taxes for those “free/cheap” goods.
I knew there had to be a reason why I always had the hots for Ms. Driver.
Really? I have the hots for Russel Crowe, and there is really no good reason for that.
The sensible thing she has to say is tempered by the fact she is in fact recording another album. (As an aside an actress who does do a good line in rock is Juliette Lewis. She is getting good reviews both live and on album.) At least Reeves (Dogstar) and that twit from Buffy aren’t doing any more albums…
1. Free and fair trade is a good thing, and probably the most important long-term benefit for the poor. But
Some commenters have pointed out that no-one listens to Minnie Driver and that what celebrities think isn’t important anyway, but I think this misses something.
Up until recently, the only place I ever read anything about free vs. fair trade or aid vs. trade was in places like Samizdata, the ASI blog, or The Economist. Up until recently, Everyone Knew that We Must Send More Aid To Africa.
Now that we have celebrities arguing about it, it must mean Everyone doesn’t Know any more, the boundaries of the argument are shifting for the better, and any day now free trade will become something that politicians will want to support and talk about a lot to make themselves appear more electable.
Nobody else seem to have picked up on the coincidence of the previous post being “The Italian Job”, while this post is about “Mini Driver”. Well almost …
Colin Montgomery (you the golfer?) bollocks to you. Brian was observing the rare case of a Hollywood celeb saying something with which we ardent free marketeers agree, insted of mouthing the boilerplate “It is all the West’s fault” horse manure, for once. We take our allies where we find them. It is about winning. I did not see anything patronising about it, though to be fair it is hard not to do so towards Hollywood at times.
The most reasonable explanation I can suggest is that Ms. Driver has gone beyond the “caring” stage of celebrity causedom. The caring stage is the one most celebrities seem to remain quite comfortable in: “See what a noble and decent person I am for supporting my cause? Why anyone who might even question my views on this matter clearly doesn’t care as much as I do.”. Usually the solution takes the form of the most obvious and short-sighted answer. People are poor? Give them money. Farms can’t make a go of it? Subsidize the business. War is bad? Don’t fight them. Sometimes however, they actually begin to own the issue. Then they start doing weird things like reading, or talking to multiple experts on the issue or heaven forefend, think about the issue. Its probably why so many people were shocked that Bob Geldoff had a somewhat favorable view of the U.S. admin’s Africa policy.
“Ms. Driver’s pronouncements concerning the superiority of trade over aid as a means of rescuing the world’s poorest people is evidence that some progress is being made along these lines.
Then again, maybe it’s just evidence that Ms. Driver is smarter than the average Hollywood dolt.
Subsidized food dumping, good idea or bad?
Certainly, it’s a transfer of resources from rich country to poor.
But, the people who benefit are the urban consumers of that food, the farmers in those countries being penalized by the subsidized competition.
So whether in aggregate it is a good or bad idea depends on how many of each and how much they are affected.
Given that poor countries are populated mostly by peasant or subsistence farmers (pretty much a definition of such a poor country) you’d expect the damage doen to that much larger number of people to be greater than the benefit to the urban minority.
Thus, despite the fact that such subsidy is a transfer from rich world to poor world it is probably, in aggregate, harmful rather than beneficial.
She’s trying to put color on the fact that she’s “selling out.” She’s going to endorse the Austin Mini. Minnie Driver, see? Get it? Oh, never mind.
It’s not just what happens this week. It’s what happens next year.
1) Area of African country is sent into famine by central government for political reasons (this seems to be the usual start to these things)
2) Lots of publicity and sad, heartwrenching photographs of hungry children result in many donations plus demand for governments to help out results in lots of free food being sent.
[2a) Free food is stolen by local mobsters to be sold. Knowledge of this pattern may result in flooding the target country with more food than needed, just so enough of it gets to the hungry even though a large percentage is stolen.]
3) Farmers go out of business because they can’t compete with the cheap food being sold and given away. (But who cares, because at least people are getting food, right? They’re benefitting! Until….)
4) Two years later. The famine is over, no more sad-eyed photos of hungry children, therefore no more massive aid dumps. But the local farmers aren’t farming any more, having been destroyed economically by the previous food dump. Result: depressed economy (even more than normal) and little food being produced locally. Which leaves the local people even mlore vulnerable to the next time someone in the national government decides to cut off their food for political reasons.
Food aid brought from outside doesn’t help the recipients except very temporarily. It damages them economically long-term and it enables future famines.
Perhaps we should just give all those impoverished people an Oscar. Oscar Schiffner comes to mind…
I think Ms. Driver may be sincere. However it’s worth noting that she is a country singer wannabe.
Shedding the Hollywood tin foil hat can only help her career path…
Ummm, Minnie Driver may have made a hit in Hollywood, but she’s English, delightfully so, born and educated in London.
Let’s get off the topic of Minnie Driver (whoever she is) and back to the problem she dimly perceives.
Africans should be doing something more efficient than producing food. As for Namibian and Kenyan cows replacing EU ones in the Middle East, I doubt if their quality would impress the customer. Also, it is very probable that grazing in Namibia and Kenya is degrading the land.
The idea of keeping most Africans as peasants is the same as keeping them poor, and simply patronising. There are enormous natural resources to exploit. If the African peasant preferred to work in the gold mines in apartheid South Africa, surely the same applies now. If he could be sure of getting enough to eat, courtesy of the US and EU subsidies which, and this I must emphasize, their populations tolerate to the point of this being the least painful way of givng aid, what’s wrong with that?
Granted African governments are the biggest obstacle to getting things done. But sub-saharan Africa is not one homogenious mess. There must be somewhere where it would work
minnie driver can do what eva she wants
she is a good singer and im a fan of hers
and she can act annd who eva owns this site can i ask u if u can sing and act