“Actually, they frequently wind up alleviating the damage done by money and weapons, or ‘seducing’ the ‘underdeveloped’ to the benefits of the world of affluence and achievement.” – Ivan Illich

This quote was introduced after stating that the export of the U.S idealist is the third largest export after money and guns. The paragraph has already identified the volunteer as an idealist who believes he is providing a service. This quote positions this supposed service as a means to compensate for damages, such as a payment of interest on a debt. The quote also highlights the debt a volunteer feels they must pay to the “underdeveloped”; the former believes that they possess and can give something that is worth having. Illich has already clarified that the quality that the American volunteers value in themselves and wish to share is merely a byproduct of their American “American society of achievers and consumers”, and infers that the volunteer is promoting this way of life, through volunteering, across the globe; the volunteer is pretentions for thinking that their ideals, manners, systems are needed by other societies – permeating a mentaling of manifest destiny among the volunteers.