Pogge on global poverty

Abstract

Thomas Pogge has recently defended additional ways in which to eradicate poverty from the developing world. In this article, Pogge's argument is discussed. First the premises on which Pogge relies are summarized and the logic of ‘international borrowing privilege’ introduced. Then it is argued that Pogge's solutions to the poverty problem would face similar difficulties to many other solutions—that is, in order to work properly they all must gain extensive international support and political willingness, which they will not easily obtain. The final section looks at how the solutions might gain more support and why people tend to resist new suggestions.

Notes

[1] I would like to thank Christian Barry, Eerik Lagerspetz, Ser-Min Shei and the editor and the anonymous referees of the Journal of Global Ethics for the helpful critical feedback on an earlier version of the article.

[2] Various Internet sources. See also Pogge (2001a), pp. 6–24; Pogge (2002); Dichter (2003).

[3] See http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

[4] Pogge (2001b), pp. 326–343, especially p. 333.

[5] Ibid., p. 333.

[6] Ibid., p. 335.

[7] Pogge (2002). Pogge intends to clarify ‘what the political leaders of a fledgling democracy can and should do—other than repeating justified yet ineffective demands upon the rich democracies’ (ibid., p. 147 [emphasis added]).

[8] Ibid., pp. 153–154.

[9] Ibid., p. 154.

[10] Ibid., pp. 156–161.

[11] Ibid., p. 160.

[12] Ibid., p. 161.

[13] Pogge introduces the second constitutional amendment as well. Its aim is to undermine the ‘resource privilege of authoritarian predators’. The second constitutional amendment declares that only ‘constitutionally democratic governments may effect legally valid transfers of ownership rights in public property and forbids any of its governments to recognize ownership rights in property acquired from a preceding government that lacked such constitutional legitimacy’ (ibid., p. 163).

[14] Ibid., p. 165.

[15] See Räikkä (2004), pp. 194–195. See also Räikkä (2005), pp. 228–239.

[16] The word ‘us’ refers to adult citizens of the USA, EU, Australia and New Zealand, at least those who share the economic security and basic Western values of these countries. See Pogge (2002), p. 217.

[17] Barry (2005), pp. 103–104.

[18] Recent contributions on the literature of poverty reduction and related issues include the following: Gasper (2004); Kamm (2004), pp. 59–74; Haydar (2005), pp. 240–253; Jamieson (2005), pp. 151–170.