Global poverty and the collective responsibility of adolescents

ABSTRACT

Adolescents as agents of global justice have so far played no role in philosophy. They are not taken seriously as active subjects, instead mostly only as passive objects in need of support and guidance from adults. However, adolescents are quite capable of assuming responsibility and being agents of justice, including with regard to global poverty.

KEYWORDS:

• Global poverty
• adolescence
• responsibility
• ethics
• education
• justice

The title of this essay might seem provocative – what responsibility could adolescents possibly have for global poverty? If so, aren't adults much more responsible? This criticism is not entirely wrong – it is certainly not my aim to deflect from the fact that adults bear the brunt of the blame for global poverty and should also bear the brunt of its eradication. Nor is it my interest in this essay to discuss the ethical reasons why we should abolish global poverty and how we might go about doing so. There are a sufficient number of convincing arguments for this in political philosophy and ethics (Pogge 2007). To state my own position briefly: global poverty impairs the lives of hundreds of millions of people and the responsibility to do something about it has at least two plausible reasons. Namely, firstly, global poverty is a problem created by an unfair distribution of goods and economic power (Hulme 2010). It is therefore not a tragic fate, but a human-made problem and we all participate – as Iris Marion Young, for example, shows (Young 2006) – at least to a small extent in the creation and continuation of this injustice. And, secondly, even if we are not directly responsible for global poverty, we have an ethical responsibility to help, if we can, because we should not leave anyone behind in such a life, which falls below the threshold of a minimally good life and is a life without the satisfaction of basic needs and interests. That we – the people in the Global North – can help, at least to a greater extent than we do now, seems equally indisputable to me. There would certainly be enough money, technology and knowledge in this world. The fact that combating global poverty is a collective task arises for precisely these two reasons. We all have a small share of responsibility and can do something, and it is also much more likely that something will change if we all act together.

So why write about the responsibility of adolescents to alleviate global poverty? My interest has two motivations. Firstly, it is intellectually challenging to address the collective responsibility of adolescents, as several difficult questions come together here: what kind of responsibility can adolescents take on at all, and where do they stand between children and adults? What does collective action by adolescents mean with regard to a problem that seems to demand primarily political and economic solutions, when adolescents have little to no political and economic power? Secondly, and probably more importantly, recent years have shown that adolescents can become collective agents – for example in forming a social movement like Fridays for Future against climate change inaction – and certainly gain media and political publicity. Yes, it seems that some people are pinning their hopes for the future on adolescents and have resigned themselves to the fact that the ‘old’ (white, male) adults are not capable of solving the world's biggest problems (on their own); after all, they haven't come up with any solutions for decades.

Global poverty

According to recent calculations, around 700 million people in the world live in extreme poverty and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the crisis.¹ This figure alone is probably unimaginable; it may be intellectually knowable, but it is not really tangible. Would the world be much worse if there were 900 million people and would it be much better if there were only 500 million people? However, it is not only the number of poor people in the world that is incomprehensible, what is referred to here as poverty is also difficult to grasp and understand. The World Bank measures poverty by saying that someone is poor if they live on less than $2.15 a day. An abstract figure to measure the living situation of hundreds of millions of people. However, it is difficult for the vast majority of people in the Global North to understand what lies behind this figure and what it means for the lives of these people, as they grow up and live under completely different conditions. What does it mean to go hungry, what does it mean to have no toilet and no clean drinking water? What does it feel like to live in a camp, with people dying all around you, no help for your children, no doctors, no social workers, no government offices, no security?

It is very difficult to imagine what global poverty means – it is abstract and only the individual fates, the small stories and the thick narratives are concrete – this seems to me to be one reason why David Hulme has argued for supplementing ‘big thinking’ in statistics with ‘small thinking’ in individual stories (Hulme 2004). We encounter them in scientific studies, in biographical narratives, in the brochures of aid organizations and in art, film and literature. We can gain insights into how people in extreme poverty fare. On the one hand, however, there often remains something incomprehensible when we approach the fate of people from a distance, only hearing, reading or seeing about it (Lichtenberg 2014). We can put away the papers, brochures and books, and turn off the films and videos, and many have to do so because the vast majority of people have a life to live, one that also requires a lot of attention, in which there is also some suffering and worry, stress and a lot to do. Incidentally, anyone who thinks that poverty only exists in the so-called Global South is mistaken – the extent and depth of poverty in the Global South is far worse, but the situation of poor people is also scandalous in the USA or the European welfare states (Gaisbauer, Schweiger, and Sedmak 2019). So when we think about global poverty, we should by no means ignore poverty in the Global North and in our geographical proximity. The fact that poverty is a global injustice also means that it can actually be found almost everywhere, in varying degrees and depths.

Collective responsibility of adolescents?

Much could be written about what it means to live and grow up in poverty – but for my purposes here, it is sufficient to recognize that global poverty is associated with a great deal of suffering, hunger, illness, death and living conditions that are extremely precarious, so that often not even the most basic needs can be met. And that, as I said at the beginning, we have a responsibility toward these people. These fates concern us and they call on us to do something. They are morally relevant and even if we can often simply push our ethical duties aside and ignore them, this does little to change the fact that we should actually be doing something for those suffering. The ease with which we manage to ignore our moral responsibility toward people in extreme poverty only indicates that it will be a very difficult path until we come closer to a just world. This concerns not only our responsibility toward global poverty but also our duties toward future generations, refugees or the homeless beggar we pass on the street, sometimes without even noticing him or her.

In this short paper, I want to focus on the responsibility of adolescents. A few preliminary remarks are helpful in order to stake out the theoretical terrain. While there has been some research in philosophy in recent years on the moral and political status of children and childhood as a special phase of life, adolescence as an independent phase has only very rarely been addressed. It is notoriously difficult to clearly delineate adolescence on the basis of medical or social science findings, just as it is difficult to distinguish childhood from adulthood (Gittins 2009). In any case, the concept of adolescence also has normative implications – after all, adolescents may be considered more as children and less as adults (Betzler 2022). In philosophy, children are often viewed in terms of deficits: they are less autonomous, less independent, have fewer rights (and duties), are more vulnerable, and more dependent on care (always in comparison with ‘normal’ adults who are not ill, demented or severely disabled). There is also the discourse that children have special abilities that they lose as adults and that are valuable, such as imagination, innocence or completely unconstrained play (Giesinger 2017). In any case, the philosophical discourse on children is strongly influenced by the question of what we (the state, society, parents) owe children and how we should protect them, as well as what we are allowed to do to children. For example, we owe them a good childhood and to be loved, we should protect them from harm, even if they want to do something dangerous, and we are allowed to force them to go to school and get medical treatment. However, there is very little discussion about what children should actually do, in the sense that they themselves have a responsibility to themselves or others (Tiboris 2014).

Adolescence as the phase between ‘early’ childhood and adulthood is particularly exciting here. Adolescents, if the age groups between 13 and 18 are understood here, are already quite similar to adults in their abilities – they largely have the cognitive abilities to form, reflect and articulate wishes. They are therefore at least semi-autonomous. Even if their physical and mental development is not yet complete, adolescents are definitely further along than younger children – they can, for example, father and give birth to children. Why they are nevertheless allowed to do less than adults is the subject of controversial debate, especially when it comes to rights (and duties) that do not require any special cognitive or other abilities. For example, there are no competence tests regarding the ability of adults to vote, yet many adolescents are excluded from the right to vote (Wiland 2018). One only has to look at the group of so-called ‘young carers’, i.e. children and adolescents who care for other family members, to realize what they are capable of and that they can take on a great deal of responsibility and mentally and physically demanding tasks, although this is often overwhelming and taking on too much responsibility and work has negative consequences for these children and adolescents (Becker 2007). How many rights and duties, how much responsibility, are assigned to adolescents is always a social construct, i.e. dependent on the norms and practices that a society has developed or that are considered normal in a socio-cultural milieu. There are also milieu – and class-specific ideas about when a young person is an adult and should be able to take care of themselves and others. In addition, these constructs also always require philosophical reflection, as both too many and too few rights and duties can be morally wrong, as they may burden young people too much or give them too little freedom, oppress them too much or leave them unprotected.

From an ethical perspective, it seems appropriate to look at adolescents’ responsibility from two sides: Firstly, how much responsibility can adolescents take on given their abilities and social position? And secondly, what effect does this have on adolescents? If we assume that adolescents have a right to develop well and acquire all the skills and knowledge they need for a good adult life during adolescence, then the attribution of responsibility must also be placed under these conditions. The best interests of the child are therefore more complex to understand for adolescents, as they are not simply paternalistic and related to the protection of their well-being. The best interests of adolescents certainly also consist of being allowed to take responsibility for themselves and others and to be supported in doing so in a way that corresponds to their abilities and is good for their development. The fact that adolescents are placed in the category of childhood seems to be one reason why paternalistic arguments, including those relating to their rights, are often given more weight than those aimed at recognizing their abilities and freedoms. The need to protect adolescents from harm is emphasized more than their autonomy. The very qualities that we demand of adults, namely the ability to make rational and autonomous decisions and actions, must be practiced and tested during adolescence. In comparison, there is much to be said for encouraging adolescents to become more independent, which means allowing them to be independent without holding them fully responsible. This lends itself to the concept of a regime of adolescence – Joel Anderson and Rutger Claassen (Anderson and Claassen 2012) call it a regime of childhood – that strives for a balance between autonomy and protection, that is sensitive to the typical developmental phases and abilities of young people and within which the spaces of freedom can then be used individually by adolescents to realize their own ideas of a good life.

What do I mean by collective responsibility in this context? I understand it to mean the responsibility of a collective that is not a single agent (such as a state or a company) but is made up of a large number of (uncoordinated) individual agents. It is therefore the responsibility of a group of individuals. It is not necessarily a responsibility to act jointly and in a coordinated manner. Whether such joint and coordinated action is necessary depends on the nature of the problem to be solved. There is some evidence that global poverty requires such collective and coordinated action, especially to eliminate the structural economic and political causes of global poverty, but individual action (for example, donating) also has a positive impact here.

What collective responsibility for global poverty can and should adolescents take on? I propose four aspects. Firstly, it seems plausible that adolescents have the ability to understand that global poverty is morally wrong and that there is a duty to help and support those in poverty. Although the issue is complex, it is not so complex that it is fundamentally too demanding for adolescents to understand. It is certainly the case that both adolescents and adults need some help and support in order to gain and process this knowledge. The knowledge of global social conditions, the background that causes them and the possibilities to act and change things is not innate and does not come intuitively. Although we are all confronted with global poverty in one way or another and information about it is widely available, in times of information overload and epistemic overload due to fake news and echo chambers, this is not enough to develop a corresponding awareness. For this, it is necessary to be informed and educated – information and education that adolescents can understand and reflect on, something they are capable of doing. This education aims not to indoctrinate adolescents, but to enable them to make a moral judgment for themselves; however, education about global poverty and corresponding moral duties will also face the challenge of any education to influence without indoctrination. Finally, it must be admitted that the aim of this education here is not an open-ended one, provided there are good reasons for doing something about global poverty. Therefore, this education will also be politically controversial, as there are those who argue against there being a collective duty to end global poverty.

Secondly, adolescents have the ability to see themselves as political subjects (Munn 2016). This aspect describes the fact that adolescents are not only able to absorb knowledge and understand options for action but also that they have access to the meta-level of why they have a responsibility to acquire such knowledge and position themselves accordingly in the world. The fact that adolescents are political subjects and not just passive vessels that can be filled with knowledge seems evident to me, also in view of their ability to organize themselves and to carry out political actions such as strikes, online petitions or demonstrations. This also means that it makes sense to explain to adolescents why they should know something about global poverty and why they should also develop the ability to act. The aim is not to tell adolescents what they should do but to empower them to see themselves as political and moral agents so that they can then come to terms with why and how they should act in the face of global poverty. Young people's ability to act should be strengthened and they should be taken seriously and recognized in this (just as adults should not simply be paternalistically told what to do). However, adolescents should not be expected to do more here than we expect from adults – and we have to acknowledge that the political and moral agency of adults is also often only partially developed, which often points to deficits in education.

Thirdly, adolescents have a certain scope to translate their knowledge into action with regard to global poverty, i.e. not only to know about responsibility but also to act on it (Josefsson and Wall 2020). In this respect, adolescents’ scope for action is more limited than that of adults: they have less economic, social and cultural capital and they are restricted in their political participation power, as they are not allowed to vote in many countries. However, where they are allowed to vote, it can be morally demanded that they reflect on their knowledge of global poverty and other social problems of this world, provided they have received adequate educational opportunities to form themselves into political subjects. Insofar as it is considered a moral responsibility to act against global poverty and political change is seen as an important instrument for this, it follows that all people, including adolescents, should make appropriate political decisions. The democratic principle and the right of free political choice are not beyond moral responsibility but should be informed by the latter and are bound by it. In their daily lives, adolescents have a range of choices that are often not much more limited than that of adults. They can adapt their consumption decisions and they can actively disseminate knowledge and options for action in their environment. Adolescents who have their own financial resources can also make donations. This is true even though adolescents (as a rule, but by no means all) have significantly less money at their disposal than adults. Their contribution may be small, but it can still help to alleviate global poverty. Adolescents have a right to have their own financial resources at their disposal because they also have a right to be economically active (for example, to work on a small scale or to earn money as part of an apprenticeship, as is typically the case in the dual training system in Europe) and because they need money to develop their autonomy and to shape their lives according to their own ideas, as is also set out above in the regime of adolescence. These options for action by adolescents are subject to two restrictions: the first restriction relates to where and how adolescents can act (for example, they cannot usually decide how their living space is heated or where they live), and the second restriction relates to what they are allowed to do by their legal guardians or the state. Adolescents can campaign to be allowed to vote, but they do not have the power to do so if they are denied. Parental authority is also important here: this concerns both what adolescents learn and what they are allowed to do. From an ethical point of view, however, this parental power is not unconditional; on the contrary, precisely because parents are powerful, they bear great responsibility and have duties toward their children. This includes the duty to support their children in becoming autonomous and to act as political subjects to the extent that they are able to do so and that it makes sense for their well-being. In the face of injustices such as global poverty, parents certainly also have an obligation to set an example to their children that this problem must be taken seriously and that it creates duties to act.

Fourthly and finally, it is not just about the adolescent as an individual, who should align their own decisions and actions in the light of their knowledge and responsibility, but precisely about collective action. Collective action has two dimensions: on the one hand, it is about knowing that global poverty is generated collectively and must therefore also be combated collectively. It is therefore about understanding the position that each individual person has in the global system. The individual decision to buy Fair Trade products is only one building block, which alone is not enough. Collective action, i.e. the action of many, is therefore necessary (Schwenkenbecher 2020). On the other hand, the problem of global poverty also requires networking and an exchange of ideas on options for action and the creation of new options for action and new structures. The political level is once again clearly addressed here. It is probably not enough for everyone to buy their chocolate Fair Trade – and some such well-intentioned actions can be criticized for being more symbolic and thus distracting from the solutions that are actually needed – but it is necessary to form organizations and institutions that support Fair Trade, spread knowledge about it and achieve changes at a political level (such as only allowing more Fair Trade chocolate to be sold). This requires collective coordination of processes and actions. The abilities of adolescents are doubly limited here, as they tend to be excluded from many civil society organizations and their decision-making and management levels (such as trade unions, churches or political parties). The ability of adolescents to organize themselves is therefore limited, which makes it difficult for them to really act collectively or become effective in other collectives.

Developing and strengthening the collective responsibility of adolescents

So if there is indeed a responsibility of adolescents, both as individuals and as a collective, then I would like to conclude by briefly discussing how this could be strengthened. Responsibility requires education and needs to be practiced. Also, certain social structures and institutions are needed for adolescents to be able to assume responsibility. Three things are important to me here. Firstly, collective responsibility cannot simply be learned on paper, it needs to be practiced and this practice requires a certain amount of freedom. When we think about collective responsibility and collective action, one crucial point is that collectives are heterogeneous, that different people come together with their own opinions and views. Even if there is agreement on the goal – to reduce global poverty – this does not mean that the negotiation of ways and means will be free of conflict. Even among adults, such frictions and struggles for recognition within groups are associated with the risk of psychological injury, with individuals seeking more power and others being excluded or put down. This is of course also a risk for adolescents and the adolescent phase is one of uncertainty, of finding one's own position and identity and of weakness and vulnerability (Schweiger and Graf 2017). Collective processes can therefore be shaped freely but probably not without guidance.

Secondly, adults and the ‘adult’ institutions of society and the state must also recognize that adolescents assume responsibility here as individual and collective agents. This should not be talked down and it should not be pretended that this is just a game without relevance. That would be a disregard for the political subjectivity of adolescents and their abilities. The decision to buy a Fair Trade product may be a small one, but it should still be acknowledged and not dismissed with the argument that it won't change anything anyway.

Thirdly, this also means that two goals can be brought together here. Adolescents are capable of fulfilling their collective responsibility toward global poverty if they are given sufficient support and opportunities – opportunities that should be made available to them by adults. In doing so, adolescents are exercising their political and moral agency, thus undergoing educational processes that will be useful to them in their later lives to exercise political and moral agency as adults. As adolescents also have a right to develop into such adults, adolescents’ moral responsibility for addressing global poverty and (adult) society’s moral responsibility for the good development of adolescents go hand in hand here.

It is the case that more is needed, but making the right decision on a small scale, especially in the context of limited options for action and with little power to act, is important. Accepting this is certainly not always easy, as social norms toward adolescents have been widely customized and it requires changing one's own position toward adolescents and giving up power. Dismantling such social hierarchies has always been difficult and not without resistance – just think of the relationship between men and women, the strong economic classes and the poor, or the relationship between whites and blacks in racist societies such as the USA. It has always been about recognizing that the supposedly weak, stupid or uneducated group is equal and capable of taking responsibility for themselves and others and deserves access to social education, power and resources.

Thirdly and finally, adolescents must also be given real power and the power to make decisions at a social and political level must be shared with them. First of all, this concerns the demand to enable political participation, to involve them in institutions and to make their voices heard (Hart, Babic, and Biggeri 2014). This demand is not only based on considerations regarding the ability and responsibility of adolescents with regard to global poverty but also on their claim to be involved as political agents in the democratic self-determination of society. This also includes all the arguments that adolescents are capable of making informed political decisions (on the same level as many adults) and that they are affected by political decisions and should therefore also have a say in how these decisions are made. Whether and how such political participation should be extended to younger children is a matter for discussion, but it also seems plausible from a children's rights perspective that children of all ages should be involved and heard in a way that is appropriate to their abilities. There will be limits to the political participation of adolescents that cannot be set across the board – after all, adolescents are adolescents, limited in their abilities and still developing and not adults. The protective phase that adolescents are entitled to for their development sets limits to full equality in rights and duties. However, these limits must be drawn further than we currently do. The example of global poverty is just one of many where the initiative and action of adolescents should be more powerful than it currently is. Only then can they also become autonomous and responsible adults who can make the world a better place.

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Gottfried Schweiger

Gottfried Schweiger works at the Center for Ethics and Poverty Research at the University of Salzburg. He is co-author ofthe books "A philosophical examination of social justice and child poverty" (Palgrave Macmillan 2015) and "Ethics and the endangerment of children's bodies" (Palgrave Macmillan 2017). In fall 2024, his new monograph "What is a good childhood?" (written together with Johannes Drerup) will be published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Notes

1 The World Bank always has the latest figures: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview