Toward Prosperity

A Review of Poverty, Inc.

In late 1984, Band Aid, a charity supergroup of British and Irish musicians, recorded "Do They Know It's Christmas? (Feed the World)" to call for aid in response to an Ethiopian famine. In 2011, the TV show Glee covered the same song, whereupon Irish singer/activist Bono said it made him "very happy, indeed" that the Glee generation was taking such songs "so to heart" and giving new life to the same idea.

"What makes Bono happy about this?" asked Magatte Wade, a Senegal-born entrepreneur. "By now, Bono should know better." It's not that she's unappreciative of humanitarian aid. Humanitarian aid in the wake of a disaster is good. "But when humanitarian aid becomes a way of life, we all have a big...