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Comment by Out_of_Characte | Hacker News Reader

As conspiratorial as this sounds, alot of successfull non-profit organisations have a vested interest in becoming a critical part of their infrastructure so that funding cuts would be a humanitarian disaster in of itself which neccecitates the continuation of the organisation.

Foreign aid has always been a double edged sword when it comes to self-reliance and lasting change

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The Shirky principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Shirky#Shirky_principle

It does not sound conspiratorial at all. I know this to be a fact from first person knowledge and experience that it is exactly what goes on in NGO board rooms. It’s not really all that different than the MIC though.

Abstracting a bit more, it’s also not really any different than aristocratic, monarchical, and even feudal patronage systems where your fortune and standing was directly linked to how close you could get to the monarch/center of power. In fact, I see the west devolving towards such patronage systems as power and wealth keeps concentrating. All across the board you see every more sycophancy as people grovel for benefits.

I think there is a term that describes an organization or team tendency to try to preserve their role. So they don't have incentive to solve all the problems they are created to solve. But I can't remember this term or if there is a scientific term for that.

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