Comparative Rhetorical Analysis

This comparative rhetorical analysis aims to analyze two articles, Dambisa’s foreign aid is bad and Stephen’s foreign aid is good. This paper supports Dambisa’s foreign aid is bad and argues that foreign aid is bad for poor countries. Primarily, this paper will analyze this issue from the perspective of link between claims and evidences. In actual, to prove the argument that foreign aid is useless and even harmful, data about aid funds and poor countries’ development are used by Dambisa while Stephen fails in doing this. Moreover, this paper will discuss this issue from the perspective of logical fallacies. In reality, some logical fallacies exist in Stephen’s article. In final, although Stephen has listed and analyzed counterarguments, he could not use enough evidences to refute them while Dambisa do. Wholly, this paper considers that Dambisa’s article is more convincing.

In foreign aid is bad, the author aims to argue that foreign aid is bad. The intended audiences of this article are those who are interested in foreign aid and global poverty. The intended audiences of this article could also be those who believe that foreign aid is good (Moyo, 2014). The author points out that foreign aid are ineffective and would cause further poverty of these countries. To support this main argument, Dambisa argues that failure of foreign aid is caused by three main problems, its core assumptions have some defect, its overall history of implementation is problematic and it has had egregious results (Moyo,2014). To clarify his claims, Dambisa uses some facts and data. Dambisa uses historic fact of Edmund Burke blamed the revolutionary enthusiasm of the French Revolution to support the claim that the world is complicated and the assumption that foreign aid is moral may be wrong. And then, Dambisa uses the data of African GDP to show that there has no link between foreign aid and African economic development. By researching on GDP of Africa in 1970 and 1995, Dambisa illustrates that foreign fund aid could not enhance economic development of Africa obviously and effectively (Moyo, 2014). Later, to attack the assumption that all that is needed is a great motivation of funds aid for countries to get rid of poverty, Dambisa uses the data of poverty rate of African countries and funds spent on foreign aid. By showing these data, Dambisa proves that although billions of funds are put into foreign aid, poverty rate of poor countries does not decrease obviously (Moyo, 2014).

By comparison, in foreign aid is good, Stephen fails in matching evidence to his claims. In the article, Stephen aims to argue that foreign aid is good. The intended audiences are those who think that foreign aid is bad and doubt about effect of foreign aid. Stephen claims that aid is critical and several facts are noted (Lewis, 2014). However, he does not use enough evidences to prove his claims. To prove the claim that aid is critical, Stephen does not show reliable data that foreign aid is effective but only show that what impacts would generate without foreign aid. In illustrating the claim that several facts are noted, Stephen only list data of funds cost in foreign aid but could not provide enough evidence to prove relationship between foreign aid and economic development of poor countries (Lewis, 2014).

Additionally, Stephen’s foreign aid is good has some logical fallacies. In his argument, to support his view that foreign aid is good, Stephen does not focus on how foreign aid work, how foreign improve poor countries’ economy and provide some suggestions for long-term foreign aid work (Lewis, 2014). Nevertheless, Stephen only provides some facts, like many people are suffering poverty in the world, many people still alive and aid funds are put into foreign aid continuously. Stephen fails in stating relationship between foreign aid and improved development of poor countries.

Differently, in another article, Dambisa uses some evident data and facts to prove his argument. Dambisa illustrates that for years, many funds have been put in foreign aid and global poverty does not improved obviously. What’s worse, Dambisa uses data and case in Africa to claim that foreign aid would even result in excessive dependence on foreign aid for poor countries. Wholly, in his article, Dambisa illustrates his arguments clearly and logically, which is much better than Stephen’s foreign aid is good.

In final, in analyzing and criticizing counterarguments, Dambisa is more successful than Stephen. Although Stephen has listed and analyzed the counterarguments, he could not use enough evidences to refute them. In the article, Stephen states that foreign aid is not failure, link between economic growths is not complex and there is a clear free market romanticism of the counterarguments (Moyo, 2014). However, Stephen could not provide any data or evident fact to refute counterarguments. What he uses to refute counterarguments are only objective illustration and farfetched explanations.

Compared with Stephen, Dambisa is much better in refuting and criticizing counterarguments. Initially, Dambisa uses data to show that nowadays, poverty situation does not change obviously in relation to foreign aid, which powerfully refute counterargument that foreign aid could improve poor countries’ development. Most importantly, Dambisa respectively and concretely analyzes problems in argument that foreign aid is good. Not only does Dambisa use available references and evident facts to deny those assumptions, but also Dambisa even discovers deep reasons that cause failure of foreign aid. Dambisa reveals that foreign aid would only cause economic dependence of poor countries and waste aid funds.

This paper makes comparative rhetorical analysis of two articles, Dambisa’s foreign aid is bad and Stephen’s foreign aid is good. This paper argues that Dambisa’s article is more convincing and supports the argument that foreign aid is bad. In actual, from several perspectives, including credibility and logics, this paper discovers that Dambisa’s article is better.     

Reference

Lewis, S. (2014). Foreign Aid is Good. Discussion of poverty. 5 (2), 1-4.

Moyo, D. (2014). Foreign Aid is Bad. Analysis of global situation. 3(2), 1-3.