Poverty: Global and Imposed

Poverty: Global and Imposed

Unfortunately, humanity has failed to alleviate poverty in any meaningful sense since the seemingly global turn towards Thatcher and Reagan’s neoliberal reforms. Perhaps more troublingly, localised poverty is still being represented as a reflection upon the citizenry, the culture and the institutions of the poorer state in question; rather than a reflection of historical injustices and the global economic order. Concerningly, allowing the case against global justice to gain scholarly traction. Seminally, the case against global justice is embodied by British scholar, David Miller’s argument, that there is no such thing as ‘global poverty,’ only a sum of ‘national poverties,’ and hence, poverty alleviation is a national responsibility. However, in this essay I shall demonstrate that contrary to Miller’s claim, global poverty exists, and wealthy states have a highly stringent duty to eliminate it. In doing so, this essay shall be partitioned into two broad sections. In the first section, I shall present Miller’s argument. Specifically, within the section, I shall initially outline the author’s strict communitarianism, which forms the backdrop of the scholar’s case against global justice. Then, I shall outline Miller’s case against global justice – namely, that existing poverty is the sum of national poverties, and hence, rather than the global community, poorer states are responsible for their own poverty reduction. Following this, in section two I shall utilise the work of Thomas Pogge to demonstrate that Miller’s case against global justice ignores the seminal role of historical and existing global injustices, in creating and maintaining global poverty. In doing so, I shall invoke the violent history upon which contemporary inequality, and hence poverty, accrued, as well as the global economic order, which maintains global poverty via asymmetric trade laws, as well as international borrowing and resource privilege. Finally, I shall conclude the second section by outlining that the global rich have a responsibility to, in large part, alleviate global poverty, through various reforms and the implementation of a global resource dividend (GRD). It goes without saying that this essay is of seminal importance, as the suffering inherent to global poverty cannot be alleviated, nor eliminated if its origin is deemed national, and its duty of eradication is misplaced, as is currently the case.?

I: Miller’s National Poverties

Miller’s Communitarianism

To comprehend Miller’s argument against global justice, it is crucial to first understand the author’s strict communitarianism, which maintains that persons owe more to compatriots than foreigners. Fundamentally, in making the case for communitarianism, Miller attempts to relegate the principal ethical challenger to communitarianism, which is cosmopolitanism, to the scholarly dustbin. In doing so, Miller distinguishes two forms of cosmopolitanism: weak and strong, and dismisses them both as indistinctive and irrational respectively[1]. Here, Miller understands weak cosmopolitanism as the obligation that each and every person be viewed an equal object of moral concern, and strong cosmopolitanism as the actionable extension of the weak, demanding that persons to have no reason to help one person in need over another; essentially, to treat all persons equally[2]. Though, Miller contends that the transition from the weak recognition of parity in moral worth, to the obligation that persons owe the same duties to all is irrational[3]. Essentially, Miller maintains that there is a gap between a person’s moral assessment of a case, and the responsibility they subsequently have to act in relation to the case. Here, the scenario of a missing child is employed. Specifically, Miller argues that while it is undeniable that a missing child is an equally terrible event – regardless of the child’s identity – a person’s reason for action in relation to the event shall depend on their relationship to the child; a family member or the townspeople have a special reason to assist the search party, while a stranger does not[4].

Analogously, Miller contends that national membership establishes a relationship between compatriots, where they have a special duty to assist one another over foreigners. For Miller, this relationship exists due to the institutionalised reciprocity within national communities, as well as their collective self-determination in pursuing projects which reflect their shared history and culture[5]. Elaborating on the former, persons within a national community – often, a state – add labour, resources and funds to a common pool, which is utilised by compatriots in greater need[6]. Importantly, Miller maintains that this institution would not function without compatriots acknowledging their responsibility to contribute – which is larger than their duty to help persons universally[7]. Likewise, Miller argues that national communities collaborate to decide upon their efforts and funds being diverted to religious establishments, the balancing of economic growth with environmental protection, work-leisure equilibriums and so on [8]; granting members a unique “mix of benefits[9].” Hence, for Miller, as we exist in a world of distinct national communities – where each exhibits an institutionalised scheme of reciprocity, and pursues a different mix of values stemming from its shared culture – we cannot owe the same duties to everyone regardless of membership[10]. As a result, we are left with the banal moral axiom of weak cosmopolitanism which entails nothing about what certain agents should do in response to events[11]. Significantly, leaving Miller to conclude that a range of national communities, collectively pursuing entirely different policies and priorities, will arrive at unequal finishing points[12]; different per-capita GDPs, environmental degradation and so on. Hence, for Miller, any form of global redistribution is unjust.

Miller’s Case Against Global Justice

For Miller, national communities are, to varying extents, responsible for what they collectively pursue, and should therefore bare the outcome of their actions[13]. Global justice, via the redistribution of wealth or resources from wealthier national communities to poorer ones, is unjust in itself – as it makes people accountable for the collective decisions of a community that they had no control over[14]. Miller questions, “why should… collective responsibility apply to us but not to people living in poor countries for the harms they inflect on themselves[15]?” Intuitively, Miller contends that this can be understood by comparing the developmental courses of pairs of national communities, whose position was at some recent point comparable, but is now entirely juxtaposed[16]. Here, Miller cites the divergent economic trajectories of Malaysia and Ghana. To elaborate, Miller questions why Ghana and Malaysia, states which had a similar gross domestic production (GDP) per-capita subsequent to gaining independence from the British Empire in 1957, are now separated by an almost five-fold difference in wealth; how could Ghana currently have a GDP per-capita of 2,200, while Malaysia now has a GDP per-capita of over 11,400[17]? The answer is somewhat simple for Miller: while the author admits that the story was tacitly impacted by external and luck-based factors, the divergent trajectories largely reflect collective, domestic failure in Ghana[18]. Hence, it follows that what caused Ghana’s contemporary poverty and Malaysia’s wealth is far from global or external, it is the result of the divergent political pursuits between the two national communities, informed by their distinctive cultures[19].

Subsequently, pleased with assigning Ghana’s poverty to largely domestic factors, Miller turns to answering why the members of the contemporary Ghanaian national community should be held responsible for the cultural traits handed down to them. Seminally, Miller translates the case to the individual level, comparing the lifelong trajectory of a person raised by strict parents with the “Protestant work ethic,” to a person raised by “ageing hippies who think what matters is…having a good time.[20]” Notably, it is more likely for the former circumstances to result in a materially better-off person, who may be less happy than the latter. For Miller, this is entirely justified, as the divergence in outcome is amenable to personal beliefs and values which the individual identifies with[21]. Consequently, Miller concludes that it would be unjust to impose a system of ‘justice,’ wherein the wealth of the former may be redistributed to the latter. Analogously, it would be unjust to impose a system of global justice – where the wealth of richer states is redistributed to relatively poorer states – when the divergent fortunes are created by the domestic collective decisions within the national communities[22]. Hence, Miller concludes that we live in a world comprised of various national poverties, rather than one global poverty[23].

II: Pogge’s Global Poverty

Pogge’s Intermediate Cosmopolitanism

However, Pogge deconstructs Miller’s communitarian framework and puts forth intermediate cosmopolitanism as an ethically sound replacement. Here, Pogge’s intermediate cosmopolitanism agrees that the national communities which Miller outlines give rise to special responsibilities and associative duties; by merely being citizens of a state, persons may owe less to foreigners than compatriots[24]. However, intermediate cosmopolitanism concurrently holds that the strength of our most vital negative duties – namely, our duties not to inflict harm – do not fluctuate with the absence or presence of compatriotism[25]. Turning to Miller’s missing child example, Pogge accepts that the relationship a person has to the missing child determines their reason for action[26]. However, while this is true, we do not have more moral reason not to kidnap, rape or murder a foreigner, than we do a compatriot[27]. Moreover, the intensity of our condemnation of such crimes does not depend on whether the victim was the culprit’s conational or not[28]. Translating this to the global realm, intermediate cosmopolitanism maintains that we have a simple duty of justice to all persons: a duty to not collaborate in the imposition of a harmful, or unjust, institutional order upon them[29]. Here, Pogge defines an unjust institutional order as one which is either reproducing gross inequalities, whether socio-economic or political, or one which is denying populations their human rights – their right to food, water, shelter, freedom of religion and culture[30]. Therefore, while we may owe foreigners less than compatriots, we do owe them something vital. We owe them the duty to not impose an unjust institutional order upon them. Problematically, global poverty represents a grave violation of this duty.

Global Poverty and Pogge’s Case for Global Justice

Damningly, the global institutional order is deeply implicated in the reproduction of poverty historically, through systems of colonisation and imperialism, and contemporarily[31]. Emphatically, Pogge refutes Miller’s argument, that poverty is largely a domestic consequence of the collective actions of the national community, and labels it as over-simplified explanatory nationalism[32]. Rather than the radical inequality of today being the result of historically divergent cultures, social institutions and religious beliefs, it is the result of a common, violent history. The existing poverty of some, and immense wealth of others, in large part, has its origins in the era of colonisation; a period of conquest, demarcated by the extermination, enslavement and pillaging of native populations by various European empires, through which the cultures and institutions of the Global South were destroyed or traumatised entirely[33]. The resources of the Global South were plundered, and their indigenous populations were exterminated in the initial phase of European capitalist accumulation[34]. Ever-expanding markets amid the Industrial Revolution in 18th century Europe required the accumulation of both natural and human capital[35]. Briefly, one has to look no further than Britain’s settler robbery of India to the tune of $10 trillion[36], the $21 billion French pillaging of Haitian people, sugar and spices[37], the Spanish pillaging of Latin and South American mineral wealth[38], or the genocidal labour policies implemented by King Leopold’s Belgium to increase Congolese rubber and ivory extraction[39], to understand the seminal role global colonialism played in forming today’s inequalities. In fact, the historical crimes and injustices of the global rich were so atrocious, varied and consequential, that any attempt to explain contemporary inequalities in the starting positions between the global rich and the poor as largely a result of collective national choices can be dismissed as na?ve at best[40]. At this juncture, members of the global rich are quick to reply, arguing that they cannot be held responsible for the sins of their forefathers[41]. Though, this ignores the causal role of the contemporary institutional order in the reproduction of severe poverty[42].

Turning from historical injustices to the present day, the most severe poverty worldwide is largely avoidable through the elimination of asymmetric trade laws, and by no longer granting borrowing and resource privileges to corrupt rulers. Elaborating on the global conditions of trade, Thomas Pertel and the World Bank’s Will Martin explained that the laws of global trade are dominated by the rich states, as the vast majority of the poorest World Trade Organisation (WTO) member states cannot afford to bring cases to the WTO, let alone establish a mission headquarters in Geneva[43]. Consequently, the WTO serves the interests of the affluent nations, by making rules which favour free trade in areas where the affluent nations are stronger, but not in the areas where they are weaker, like agriculture and textile production[44]. As a result, affluent states continue to engage in the asymmetric protections of their weaker markets through trade quotas, tariffs, export credits and enormous domestic subsidies[45]. Damningly, crushing the potential export revenue of the globe’s poorest states by rendering their goods largely uncompetitive in the international realm, compared to the artificially propped-up and protected goods and services of the rich states[46]. Tellingly, without the asymmetric market protectionism, the poorest nations would have seen hundreds of millions more employed, greater wage and productivity growth, as well as billions of dollars’ worth of tax and export revenues to fund education programmes, healthcare, infrastructure developments and agricultural expansion[47]. Moreover, wealthy state protectionism provides an unmatched case of hypocrisy, as these states demand that their own exports be greeted without market restrictions in the Global South[48]. Evidencing this asymmetry, the average tariffs imposed by rich states on developing states are four times higher than those imposed on other affluent states, and consequently, asymmetric protectionism has saved the industries of the affluent nations well over $700 billion per year since the Uruguay trade negotiations culminated in 1993[49]. Juxtaposing this, since the 2005 Hong Kong trade rounds, sub-Saharan Africa has lost over $1.2 billion in income per year, and on the whole, only 30% of the gains from trade liberalisation have gone to developing states[50]. On top of this, rich states demand that their intellectual property rights be enforced strictly in poorer nations[51]. Fundamentally, compelling the global poor to pay billions in rent – whether it be for farming, manufacturing processes, medications or biological species – to the corporations of rich states as a requirement for access to their markets[52]. Unsurprisingly, millions of lives would be spared if poorer nations were able to produce and market life-saving drugs or plant high-yield and condition-resistant seeds to feed their population[53]. Though, in spite of this, many Miller enthusiasts remain keen on pointing the finger at the corruption of the elite, ruling and governing class in poorer states, arguing that notwithstanding global factors, better national policies would alleviate much of their severe poverty[54].

Countering this, Pogge argues that while many domestic rulers have failed their own negative duty not to impose harm, our global order accords such rulers, on the basis of their domestic power, international borrowing and resource privileges. To elaborate, the level of harm a corrupt leader of a poor nation can inflict is strongly influenced by whether the international order, namely the powerful, wealthy states, recognises such leaders as entitled to borrow in their state’s name, or sell their state’s resources, and subsequently use these funds to purchase the means of domestic repression rather than increasing the wealth of the citizenry[55]. Put simply, the harm inflicted depends on whether the global international order allows corrupt regimes to utilise the state’s credit and resources at will. These existing privileges, at worst, provide strong incentives to military officers, rebel factions – or any potentially corrupt ruler – to take force by coup or war[56]. Then, at best, compel well-intentioned rulers to allow those that would benefit from such a corrupt rule, to divert state revenues away from sources of general welfare for the population and towards private gain[57]. So, it can be said that the global order exerts a particularly strong influence over poorer states, which makes them far more likely to have corrupt and repressive domestic regimes[58]. For example, during and prior to the Rwandan Civil War, which resulted in the genocide of over 800,000 members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, the United States, Russia, Europe and China sold $60 billion, $40 billion, $68 billion and $8 billion worth of arms into the African state, and largely to the genocidal Hutu regime and militias[59]. Incredibly, subsequent to the War, the new Habyarimana government was saddled with the weapons debt-burden of the Hutu regime, and had to repay all multilateral and national lenders[60]. Hence, rather than being able to implement desperately required job-creating, wealth distributing and infrastructure-repairing policies, the Habyarimana government was compelled to please the global financial order – to pay those that sold the arms that were turned towards Tutsis[61]. Analogously, supplementing the Rwandan borrowing example is the international recognition and purchasing of Equatorial Guinea’s abundant oil reserves. Regrettably, ExxonMobil pays the state’s dictator, Teodoro Mbasogo, for unrestricted rights to Equatorial Guineas oil, which the company then distributes across the international oil market for huge profits[62]. In the case of Equatorial Guinea, a nation in destitute poverty, the international order allows Mbasogo to enrich himself, while impoverishing his citizens by plundering the state’s natural oil wealth[63]. Such privilege should not be granted to corrupt and oppressive regimes. Consequently, it is undeniable that rather than national communities pursuing divergent policies that result in various national poverties, global factors have been, and remain, the chief creators and maintainers of global poverty.

Remedial Measures

As a consequence of their collaboration in the imposition of an unjust international order – which deprives the global poor of their most basic human rights – the wealthy states have a moral responsibility to significantly reduce the drastic poverty of the global poor[64]. Put simply they have violated their negative duty of justice they owe the global poor, and consequently, have a morally urgent responsibility to implement remedial policies[65]. Promisingly, violations of negative duties may be resolved by both positive and negative actions[66]. Problems pertaining to asymmetric trade laws can be alleviated through negative action; wealthy states must drop their asymmetric trade policies and their enforcement of intellectual property rights. Analogously, borrowing privileges must be denied to corrupt and oppressive rulers in poorer states, and if they still accrue debts based upon the oppression of the domestic population, these debts must be either forgiven, or paid by the states that sold the tools of oppression. However, positive action is required in the case of resource privileges. In the case of resource privileges, Pogge argues for a GRD to be implemented[67]. Here, the GRD proposal envisions that states and their governments shall not have full property rights with respect to the natural resources within their borders[68]. Instead, they shall be required to share a proportion of the resources which they decide to purchase, utilise or sell, and transfer it to a global fund for poverty alleviation[69]. Crucially, this approach entitles the global poor to a share of the economic value of the resources in question. Notably, Pogge argues that the GRD shall both largely prevent poverty created by the global community granting corrupt rulers resource privileges, while also compensating the world’s poorer populations for centuries of global injustice[70].

Concluding Remarks

In summary, within this essay I have sought to demonstrate that poverty has been historically imposed and contemporarily maintained by an unjust global order that benefits the richer states. In doing so, Miller’s argument against global justice was deconstructed, as was his suggestion that national poverties existed, rather than one global poverty. Fittingly, future studies should transition from an ethical focus to a political one. Importantly, these studies should investigate the political feasibility of remedial policies, like those put forward towards the end of this essay.

[1] David Miller, “Cosmopolitanism: A Critique,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 5(3) (2002): 80-85.

[2] Miller, “Cosmopolitanism: A Critique,” 81-82.

[3] Miller, “Cosmopolitanism: A Critique,” 81-82.

[4] Miller, “Cosmopolitanism: A Critique,” 81-82; Thomas Pogge, “Cosmopolitanism: A Defence,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 5(3) (2002): 86-91; Thom Brooks, “Cosmopolitanism and Distributing Responsibilities,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 5(1) (2002): 92-97.

[5] Miller, “Cosmopolitanism: A Critique,” 82; David Miller, “National Responsibility and Global Justice,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 11(4) (2008): 383-399.

[6] Miller, “National Responsibility and Global Justice,” 385-386.

[7] Miller, “Cosmopolitanism: A Critique,” 82. David Miller, “Distributing Responsibilities,” 657-660.

[8] Miller, “Cosmopolitanism: A Critique,” 83.

[9] Miller, “Cosmopolitanism: A Critique,” 83.

[10] Miller, “Cosmopolitanism: A Critique,” 84.

[11] Miller, “Cosmopolitanism: A Critique,” 84; Pogge, “Cosmopolitanism: A Defence,” 87.

[12] Miller, “National Responsibility and Global Justice,” 384.

[13] Miller, “National Responsibility and Global Justice,” 384.

[14] Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, “Responsible Nations: Miller on National Responsibility,” Ethics and Global Politics 2(2) (2009): 109-130.

[15] Lippert-Rasmussen, “Responsible Nations: Miller on National Responsibility,” 388.

[16] Miller, “National Responsibility and Global Justice,” 387.

[17] Miller, David. “Distributing Responsibilities.” The Journal of Political Philosophy 98 (4) (1988): 647-662

[18] Miller, “National Responsibility and Global Justice,” 387.

[19] Miller, “National Responsibility and Global Justice,” 387.

[20] Miller, “National Responsibility and Global Justice,” 388.

[21] Miller, “National Responsibility and Global Justice,” 387-388.

[22] Miller, “National Responsibility and Global Justice,” 387-388.

[23] Miller, “National Responsibility and Global Justice,” 388.

[24] Pogge, “Cosmopolitanism: A Defence,” 91.

[25] Pogge, “Cosmopolitanism: A Defence,” 87.

[26] Pogge, “Cosmopolitanism: A Defence,” 87.

[27] Pogge, “Cosmopolitanism: A Defence,” 87.

[28] Pogge, “Cosmopolitanism: A Defence,” 87.

[29] Pogge, “Cosmopolitanism: A Defence,” 88.

[30] Pogge, “Cosmopolitanism: A Defence,” 87-88.

[31] Thomas Pogge, “Real World Justice,” The Journal of Ethics 9(1) (2005): 29-53.

[32] Thomas Pogge, “World Poverty and Human Rights,” Ethics and International Affairs 19(1) (2005): 1-7.

[33] Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002), 209-210.

[34] Joel Windle, “Neoliberalism, imperialism and conservatism: tangled logics of educational inequality in the global South,” Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 40(2) (2019): 191-202.

[35] Windle, “Neoliberalism, imperialism and conservatism: tangled logics of educational inequality in the global South,” 193-194.

[36] Shubhra Chakrabarti and Utsa Patnaik ed. Agrarian and Other Histories (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2017), 230-233.

[37] Vijaya Ramachandran and Julie Walz, “Haiti: Where Has All the Money Gone?,” Journal of Haitian Studies 21(1) (2015): 26-65.

[38] Harry Cross and David Bradling, “Colonial Silver Mining: Mexico and Peru,” Hispanic American Historical Review 52(4) (1972): 545-579.

[39] Jennifer Wenzel, “Remembering the Past’s Future: Anti-Imperialist Nostalgia and Some Versions of the Third World,” Cultural Critique 62(1) (2006): 1-32.

[40] Pablo Gilabert, “The Duty to Eradicate Global Poverty: Positive or Negative,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 7(1) (2005): 537-550.

[41] Thomas Pogge, “Human Rights and Global Health,” Metaphilosophy 36(1) (2005): 182-209.

[42] Pogge, “Real World Justice,” 47.

[43] Thomas Pogge, “Priorities of global justice,” Metaphilosophy 32(1): 6-24.

[44] Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans: The Guilty Secrets of Rich Nations and the Threat to Global Prosperity (Cambridge: Random House, 2008), 13.

[45] Pogge, “World Poverty and Human Rights,” 6.

[46] Pogge, Thomas. “Severe Poverty as a Violation of Negative Duties.” Ethics and International Affairs 19(1) (2005): 55-83.

[47] Pogge, “World Poverty and Human Rights,” 6-7.

[48] Pogge, “World Poverty and Human Rights,” 6.

[49] Thomas Hertel and Will Martin, “Would Developing Countries Gain From Inclsion of Manufactures in the WTO Negotiations?,” The World Bank Conference on Developing Countries in a millennium round, 1999.

[50] Frank Ackerman and Kevin Gallagher, "The shrinking gains from global trade liberalization in computable general equilibrium models: a critical assessment," International Journal of Political Economy 37(1) (2008): 50-77.

[51] Thomas Pogge, “World Poverty and Human Rights,” 6-7.

[52] Thomas Pogge, “World Poverty and Human Rights,” 6.

[53] Thomas Pogge, “World Poverty and Human Rights,” 6-7.

[54] Pogge, “Real World Justice,” 47.

[55] Pogge, “Real World Justice,” 47.

[56] Pogge, “Real World Justice,” 49.

[57] Pogge, “Real World Justice,” 49.

[58] Pogge, “Real World Justice,” 49.

[59] Pogge, “Moralising Humanitarian Intervention: Why Jurying Fails and How Law Can Work,” 182.

[60] Pogge, “Moralising Humanitarian Intervention: Why Jurying Fails and How Law Can Work,” 182.

[61] Pogge, “Moralising Humanitarian Intervention: Why Jurying Fails and How Law Can Work,” 182.

[62] Thomas Pogge, "Fighting global poverty," International Journal of Law in Context 13(4) (2017): 512-526.

[63] Pogge, "Fighting global poverty," 11.

[64] Pogge, “Real World Justice,” 47.

[65] Rowan Cruft, “Human Rights and Positive Duties,” Ethics and International Affairs 19(1) (2005): 29-37.

[66] Pogge, “Real World Justice,” 48.

[67] Thomas Pogge, “Eradication Systemic Poverty: Brief for a Global Resources Dividend,” Journal of Human Development2(1): 59-77.

[68] Pogge, “Eradication Systemic Poverty: Brief for a Global Resources Dividend,” 65-66.

[69] Pogge, “Eradication Systemic Poverty: Brief for a Global Resources Dividend,” 66.

[70] Pogge, “Eradication Systemic Poverty: Brief for a Global Resources Dividend,” 66-67.