I suffer from Commercial Syndrome

as contrasted with Guardian Syndrome:

Here are Wolfgang Kasper's conclusions:

Do-gooders who simply offer alms may indeed cause harm if they entrench dependency and a claimant mentality among people trapped in the ‘Malthusian mindset.’ Clark hints often at a suspicion that the shortsighted, lazy Malthusian psychology may even be genetically anchored. Of that, I am not (yet?) convinced, but we should keep our minds open that even this may be an obstacle to development.

Is this a counsel of despair? I think not. I have worked and watched in enough backward societies to know that even fundamental attitudes can be adapted. People often learn them best through association with others (openness) and when the material incentives are stark and clear. If we stick to this insight, the people of developing countries will become more responsive to the maxims of modern commercial culture. It sometimes happens faster than despairing observers think. Even the Germans managed the necessary cultural change.

My advice to development activists in govern-ments and NGOs is to insist on the need for cultural change—no cultural relativism, please! Whatever the immediate consequences, they should not cause harm by protecting people from the consequences of their shortsightedness and irresponsibility. Taking such a Hippocratic oath seems a tough but necessary moral imperative.

(via Arnold Kling).