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<-- online handout

Who is responsible for global poverty?

<-- online handout

Who is responsible for global poverty?

Who is morally responsible
for global poverty?

[email protected]

I will introduce you to Pogge’s argument that, even if you are a libertarian, and in fact almost whatever position you take in ethics, it’s you who is responsible for global poverty.

I will also introduce what I take to be one of the best objections.

But let’s start with some facts

<-- online handout

https://www.ft.com/content/f45afb9a-aaa3-4434-8d3b-b56e24f0cb37

As we speak, there are probably over 600m people who live on under $1.90 a day at purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates using 2011 prices. This means no healthcare, no education, poor or no housing, and inadequate nutrition.

Is the problem insoluble?

I’m no an economist, but ...

https://www.economist.com/international/2017/03/30/the-world-has-made-great-progress-in-eradicating-extreme-poverty_economist

Lots of progress has been made.

A bank rescue package totalling some £500 billion was announced by the British government on 8 October 2008, as a response to the ongoing global financial crisis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_Kingdom_bank_rescue_package

At the time that was about a third of Britain's GDP.

UK GDP in 2008: roughly £1600 billion.

UK is roughly 5th largest economy in 2008.

Cost of sending money from a rich to a poor person is under 13%

(https://www.givedirectly.org/financials/)

In 2008, £500 billion could have provided every poor person in the world with at least £435 each

What the UK committed to spend on rescuing banks in 2008 would have been more than enough to lift every person in the world out of poverty for that entire year.

Extreme poverty is one of the easiest, and cheapest, global problems to solve.

But, yes, banks are good too.

Is the problem insoluble? No

How to land a rocket on a commet, that’s a hard problem. How to create a vaccine is hard too. But ending mass global poverty is trivial.

And this is why mass global poverty is so challenging from an ethical point of view. Poverty is harming millions every year: preventing them from fully flourising and ending 18 million lives from poverty-related causes. And this is something that each of us in this room has the power to do something about; and most of our countries have the power to end mass global poverty. This is why it’s ethically challenging.

Who will solve it?

I don’t think it will be you, and it certainly won’t be me. Nor do I think wealthy countries will play much of a role.

China. It’s not going to be the generosity of others but the ambitions and actions of the poorest countries.

Who is morally responsible?

proposal: Top 20% globally are required give 0.1% to bottom 20% through tax

Hands up if you favour the proposal.

No surprises that most people do: Britian did something like this until quite recently.

Ali lives alone, gets $10,500 / year (roughly £7400).

She’s in the top 20% globally according to https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i?income=10450&countryCode=USA&household%5Badults%5D=1&household%5Bchildren%5D=0

For compairson, full maintenance loan for student living away from home in 2021-2 is £9488 outside london, £12382 inside london.

She’s around 5% by income distribution in the uk. Around 3.33m people in the uk have less income (but may not live alone).

Ali is a libertarian: she does not believe that others’ needs morally require her to surrender any of her property.

She’s read Nozick (1974) and, like Nozick, thinks that ‘redistributive taxation is morally on a part with forced labour’ (van der Vossen, 2019).

She does give, and she regards herself as generous for doing so. Her point is that she doesn’t owe anyone anything, and not giving would not be morally wrong on her part. (Superordinate.)

Ali therefore rejects the proposal.

What can we say to Ali?

Two perspectives on poverty-caused harms.

needs-based

We citizens of affluent countries

have a positive duty to meet needs.

Ali thinks that it would be generous on her part to give. She does not think that she has done anything wrong by holding on to her wealth.

harm-based

We have a negative duty not to harm.

So how does Pogge’s argument work?

Pogge has written various books and lots of papers.

But I think much of that boils down to a very simple, beautifully observed argument.

So what I want to do today is just introduce what I take to be the core argument.

Key premise: a just institional order cannot ‘foreseeably reproduce avoidable human rights deficits on a massive scale’.

If you reject this premise it's game over for Pogge.

1. ‘Global institutional arrangements are causally implicated in the reproduction of’ extreme poverty.

One of Pogge's favoured examples are trade agreements, which are very often structured in ways that favour the richer country over the poorer country. They protect some key industry in the richer country, for example.

This is not to say that trade agreements are bad. The point is just that they can have the consequence of making things worse for people vulnerable to the harms of severe poverty. And can avoidably fail to make things better for such people.

Another tragic, and more vivid example is vaccine distribution.

A third example would be tollerance for corrpution.

2. ‘Governments of [...] affluent countries bear primary responsibility for these global institutional arrangements and can foresee their detrimental effects.’

As Brexit is about to show people living in Britain, the more powerful side generally gets to shape trade agreemenets.

Moreover, the effects of trade agreements are foreseeable. We do have history. We do have economics. While neither of these are perfect, they have consistently allowed us to reliably predict the effects of different trade agreements.

3. ‘there is a feasible institutional alternative under which such severe and extensive poverty would not persist’

There are, clearly, better and worse trade agreements.

We could tweak one of the EU treaties in ways that would benefit a poorer country. Of course it would cost the EU something.

And even on a very conservative effort, the distributional consequences of fairer international agreements would vastly outweigh the 0.1% tax proposal I floated earlier (partly by creating more wealth for all).

4. ‘many citizens of [...] affluent countries bear responsibility for the global institutional arrangements their governments have negotiated in their names.’

Citizens of affluent countries for the most part are free to vote as they choose. They are free to express opinions and to share their views with those around them.

The citizens of these countries are responsible for the election of Trump, Johnson, Bolsonaro and the others.

And the policies and behaviours of those governments are, ultimately, a matter of the choices that the citizens of those relatively affluent countries make.

So here’s the argument.

Hard to argue with any of the premises individually.

But when you put them together, you get this striking conclusion.

The conclusions is that citizens of affluent countries bear responsiblity for the harms of severe poverty *insofar as those are consequences of institutional arrangements*.

Pogge, 2005

Here’s the conclusion in Pogge’s own words

Conclusion

‘we, the citizens and governments of the affluent countries, in collusion with the ruling elites of many poor countries, are harming the global poor by imposing an unjust institutional order’

Pogge, 2005 p. 59

Key thing here is the harm.

Two perspectives on poverty-caused deaths.

needs-based

We citizens of affluent countries

have a positive duty to meet needs.

harm-based

We have a negative duty not to harm.

It’s the harm-based approach that makes the argument interesting.

Not too dificult, if you start from the premise that others have a duty to help when others are in need and they can help, to show that you and I are responsible for global poverty.

Pogge’s argument works even if you think others’ needs give you no duty at all to help other people.

The responsibility you have for global poverty arise from the duty you have to avoid harm.

Why is this important?

There are a range of views on whether positive duties justify coercing individuals. These range from the extreme libertarian to the genuinely socialist.

Confusing terminlogy: my ‘socialist’ includes people who are both economically liberal and economically conservative, even though neither is likely to label themselves ‘socialist’ (and people who do use that label do not generally endorse coercive *global* redistribution).

You can find thoughtful, intelligent people at almost any point in the range.

No matter how strong your feelings are about your personal position, if you step back you can probably see that it is entirely irrelevant. The diversity in ethical and political views is not going away: you will not succeed in mass-conversion libertarians to your socialist ideals.

Progress instead requires arguments that appeal to everyone regardless of their ethical and political starting point. And that’s the beauty of Pogge’s big idea.

Aside

Libertarians

Term has been used in a variety of ways ... but one core idea is this ...

‘strongly value individual freedom and see this as justifying strong protections for individual freedom.’

‘usually see the kind of large-scale, coercive wealth redistribution in which contemporary welfare states engage as involving unjustified coercion.’

So you can see Libertarians are relevant because they would probably not accept that there is a duty to help, but would probably accept a duty not to harm.

(van der Vossen, 2019)

van der Vossen, 2019

Pogge’s argument says that even if you are a libertarian, so even if you are ideologically opposed to redistribution, you still have a duty to act to alleviate global poverty because it is partly a consequence of harms you could avoid causing.

So it’s *coherent* to be opposed to universal health care and other forms of redistribution and yet also insist that you and those around you are to some degree responsible for global poverty.

Pogge’s big idea

From weak assumptions about duties not to harm

it is possible to derive

a radical conclusion about redistribution.

objection

How far can we push this? Can we say that the libertarian--socialist disagreements simply do not mater as far as the ethics of poverty go?

Distributive outcomes under the actual international order.

The gap between the two sets of outcomes tells us the degree of responsibility of the actual order for the outcomes it is associated with

But wait, how do we calculate the gap? Of course we will never know exactly. But one approach would be to consider avoidable deaths that are consequences of consequences of poverty.

Respiratory infections are mostly caused by burning dirty fuel and kill lots of children. Since no one likes being exposed to these fuels, a bit more money would solve the problem. Similiarly for malaria, which can be prevented with nets, spray and medicine.

On the other side, polio still causes childhood deaths in many countries. An effective vaccination programme requires commitment from national government and community leaders. So even an entirely fair international order might not do much to reduce deaths from polio.

another example : effects of removing asymmetric restrictions on trade

Patten, 2005 p. 23

‘We might hypothesize about the distributive outcomes that would be likely to arise under this fair international order and then compare these outcomes with the ones associated with the actual international order. The gap between the two sets of outcomes tells us the degree of responsibility of the actual order for the outcomes it is associated with’

(Patten, 2005, p. 23).

CONTINUED: ‘Imagine, for instance, that only two million people a year would die of poverty- related causes under a fair international regime, compared with the eighteen million a year who die under the actual one. Then, on this procedural view of how to specify the baseline, we could say that the current international order is causing the death of sixteen million people a year.’

Patten’s objection

‘even in a fair international environment there is no guarantee that the policies needed to fight poverty will be introduced domestically ...

Particularly clear in Somalia or Syria. Many other corrupt states.

Patten, pp. 23--4

So here’s the problem.

under an ideally fair set of international rules, [...] there would still be significant severe poverty

After reforming the international system, would the affluent have absolved themselves of complicity in the fate of the poor?

This is a tricky question because ...

‘they would not have eradicated the most morally salient fact from a needs-based perspective---the fact of poverty.’

So Patten’s objection is that we cannot abandon the needs-based perspective entirely.

Background clash between two perspectives. We have a positive duty to meet needs. We have a negative duty not to harm.

We can put Patten’s objection to Pogge as a dilemma

The aim of the dilemma is to show that Pogge cannot unite socialists and libertarians after all.

Patten’s dilemma for Pogge:

deny that there is an additional duty of assistance

‘Socialist’ objection: ‘property and other rights of the privileged should not be regarded as so absolute as to override a duty to perform easy rescues’

This is among the ‘standard objections to libertarianism’

So Pogge’s view ends up failing to include people who are more socialist.

allow that there is an additional duty of assistance

Libertarian objection: others’ needs do not morally require sacrifices on my part (Nozick, 1975).

So who is responsible?

Two thoughts.

Pogge establishes that, purely from the perspective that we have a duty not to cause avoidable and forseable harm, you and I, as residents of wealthy countries, are responsible to some degree.

But his critic Patten shows that unless you are a libertarian, there is a further duty which arises from the needs of those who live in extreme poverty.

To conclude, where are we?

Pogge shows that almost whatever moral view you start from, even an extreme Libertarian one, you are as a citizen of a wealthy country to some extent responsible for global poverty.

But Patten’s objection shows that there’s a much stronger form of responsibility you have if you accept as a premise that there you have needs-based responsibilities. That is, others’ needs and your ability to assist mean that you have not only a negative duty to avoid harm but also a positive duty to help.

[update this: key point is whether the issue of global poverty can be fully addressed in a way that works regardless of ethical starting point. This is valuable because there is enormous diversity in people’s ethical views and little prospect of agreement; so an argument that works for almost any ethical view is especially valuable.]

[update ctd:] so it would be much too bold to say that the differences between libertarians and socialists do not matter.

Who is morally responsible
for global poverty?

[email protected]

appendix

states are morally relevant

In attempting to see what might be said for moral relevance, I think it is helpful to follow Appiah in distinguishing nation from state ...

\subsection{States vs Nations}

nation : ‘an imagined community of culture or ancestry running beyond the scale of the face-to-face and seeking political expression’

(Appiah, 1996, p. 27)

states : ‘regulate our lives through forms of coercion that will always require moral justification. State institutions ... are ... necessary to so many modern human purposes ... [T]o do its job the state has to have a monopoly on certain forms of authorized coercion’

(Appiah, 1996, p. 28)

Appiah, 1996 pp. 27--8

Some thing that although nations are ethically irrelevant, states are not ...

If this is their job, surely states cannot be ethically irrelevant.

Are states morally relevant?

Consider two kinds of justification for the claim that states are morally relevant ...

‘our obligations as democratic citizens go beyond our duties as politically unorganized individuals, because our capacity to act effectively to further justice increases when we are empowered as citizens, and so therefore does our responsibility to act to further justice’

(Gutman, 1996, p. 69)

Gutman, 1996 p. 69

states are morally relevant

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