Written by Nic Fraraccio \/\/ Photo by Balazs Balassa<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Harding American Studies Institute (ASI) hosted Michael Matheson Miller, director and producer of the award-winning documentary \u201cPoverty Inc.,\u201d in the first ASI Distinguished Lecture event of the semester to discuss his role in promoting entrepreneurial opportunities in poverty in the evolving world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPoverty Inc.\u201d <\/em>focuses on the downfall of human flourishing due to the outcomes of the poverty industrial complex. The documentary promotes personal entrepreneurship as an efficient way to eliminate world poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Filming for the documentary started in 2010. After collecting over 200 interviews filmed in 20 different countries, Miller and the Acton Institute released the documentary Dec. 5, 2014. The film promotes the tagline, \u201cFighting poverty is big business, but who profits the most?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Miller is the senior research fellow at the Acton Institute and was the founding director of PovertyCure, a television series and initiative of the Acton Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During his lecture, Miller talked about the dominant views of charity, the philosophical and theological underpinnings of the dominant poverty industry and the lack of social justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI will argue that the biggest obstacle for poor people today, especially in the developing world, is not that they lack stuff, but that they are excluded from the institutions of justice,\u201d Miller said. \u201cThat would enable them to create prosperity in their own families, in their own communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Miller also discussed the issues of crony capitalism within governmental organizations. Miller said the collusion of political bureaucracy and powerful interest groups will continue to lock out entrepreneurs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen aid is given, it often can crowd out local businesses,\u201d Miller said. \u201cEven worse, aid becomes linked with crony capitalists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second half of the lecture was a question and answer discussion led by President Mike Williams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n During the discussion, Miller said foreign aid creates negative incentives for companies to build their own institutions of justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Miller also said students can transform the world by having a deep friendship with Jesus Christ and obeying the commandments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you want to fix the broken world, you\u2019ve got to fix yourself,\u201d Miller said. \u201cYou can\u2019t fix yourself. Only Jesus can fix you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Miller\u2019s lecture was met with excitement from faculty and students at the University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Associate professor of communication Charles Bane said the decision to invite Miller was a great opportunity for students at the University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe\u2019s out there living it,\u201d Bane said. \u201cHe\u2019s out there doing this. To bring in that actual real-world perspective, it\u2019s fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sophomore Lydia Radke said she was excited to listen to Miller\u2019s lecture after watching the \u201cPovertyCure\u201d DVD series with her family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a really pertinent thing to talk about, like how we can alleviate poverty in a more sustainable way,\u201d Radke said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by Nic Fraraccio \/\/ Photo by Balazs Balassa The Harding American Studies Institute (ASI) hosted Michael Matheson Miller, director and producer of the award-winning documentary \u201cPoverty Inc.,\u201d in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15068,"featured_media":17695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17696,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17694\/revisions\/17696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}