Moral Universalism and Economic Justice

Moral Universalism and Economic Justice. Thomas W. Pogge.

Introduction Socioeconomic rights, such as that "to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one's family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care", are currently, and by far, the most frequently unfulfilled human rights. Their widespread under fulfillment also plays a major role in explaining global deficits in civil and political human rights demanding democracy, due process, and the rule of law. Extremely poor people - often physically and mentally stunted owing to malnutrition in infancy, illiterate owing to lack of schooling, and much preoccupied with their family's survival - can cause little harm or benefit to the politicians and bureaucrats who rule them. Such officials therefore pay much less attention to the interests of the poor than to the interests of agents more capable of reciprocation. including foreign governments. companies, and tourists..

Moral universalism A moral conception, such as a conception of social justice, can be said to be universalistic if and only if; it subjects all persons to the same system of fundamental moral principles: these principles assign the same fundamental moral benefits (e.g. claims. liberties, powers. and immunities) and burdens (e.g. duties and liabilities) to all; and these fundamental moral benefits and burdens are formulated in general terms so as not to privilege or disadvantage certain persons or groups arbitrarily..

Our moral assessments of national and global economic orders Consider two important questions about economic justice: 1.) What fundamental moral claims do persons have on the global economic order and what fundamental responsibilities do these claims entail for those who impose it? 2.) What fundamental moral claims do persons have on their national economic order and what fundamental responsibilities do these claims entail for those who impose it?.

In discussions of national economic justice it is commonly mentioned that national populations, like families, may understand themselves as solidaristic or fraternal communities bound together by special ties of fellow feeling. Such ties generate special moral claims and burdens, and our responsibilities toward fellow citizens and family members may then greatly exceed, and weaken, our responsibilities toward outsiders. Conceding all this does not, however, invalidate the universalist challenge, but merely gives it a different form, involving more specific versions of our two questions: 1.) What moral constraints are there on the kinds of global economic order persons may impose on others even when they have no bond of solidarity with them and a strong bond of solidarity with a smaller group such as their own nation? 2.) What moral constraints are there on the kinds of national economic order persons may impose on others even when they have no bond of solidarity with them and a strong bond of solidarity with a smaller group such as their own family?.

Some factual background about the Global Economic Order The moral assessment of an economic order must be responsive to information about three factors: the extent of absolute poverty, how severe and widespread it is; the extent of inequality, which is a rough measure of the avoidability of poverty and of the opportunity cost to the privileged of its avoidance: and the trend of the first two factors, that is, how poverty and inequality tend to develop over time. Let me summarize the state of our world in regard to these three factors..

Let me summarize the state of our world in regard to these 3 factors.

The Extent of Global Inequality. The "high-income economies" (comprising 32 countries plus Hong Kong), with 14.9 percent of world population and 79.7 percent of aggregate global income have annual per capita income of 527.510.1. 1 , For the world as a whole. annual per capita income is 55.150.I.N With annual per capila income of about $85. the collective income of the bottom quintile is about $103 billion annually or one-third of I percent of aggregate global income. This contrast gives us a sense of how cheaply severe poverty could be avoided: one-cightieth of our share is triple theirs- which should give pause to those who conclude from the very large number of extremely poor people that eradicating world poverty would dramatically impoverish the developed countries..

Now the $PPP incomes the World Bank ascribes to people in poor countries are on average at least four times higher than their actual incomes at market exchange rates. Since virtually all the global poor live in such poor countries, we can then estimate that their annual per capita income $338 PPP 2001 corresponds to at most 585 at market exchange rates. On average. the global poor can buy about as much per person per year as can be bought with $338 in a typical rich country or with $85 in a typical poor one..

Global inequality is even greater in regard to property and wealth. Affluent people typically have more wealth than annual income while the poor normally own significantly less than one annual income. The enormous fortunes of the super-rich in developed societies were given special emphasis in recent HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT. "The world's 200 richest people more than doubled their net worth in the four years to 1998 to more than $1 trillion the assets of the top three billionaires are more than the combined GNP of all least developed countries and their 600 million people..

Trends in World Poverty and Inequality. The number of people in poverty has not declined since 1987. Since 1996 when 186 governments made the very modest commitment to have the number of undernourished people within 19 years, this number has barely changed - despite a 22 percent drop in the real wholesale prices of basic food stuffs. These trends are all the more disturbing as the ranks of the poor and undernourished are continuously thinned by some 50,000 premature deaths daily from poverty-related causes. While poverty and malnutrition are stagnant global inequality and hence the availability of poverty is escalating dramatically: "The income gap between the fifth of the world's people living in the richest countries and the fifth in the poorest was 74 to 1 in 1997 up from 60 to 1 in 1990 and 30 to 1 in 1960. [Earlier] the income gap between the top and bottom countries increased from 3 to 1 in 1820 to 7 to 1 in 1870 and 11 to 1 in 1913." There is a long-established trend toward ever greater international income inequality - a trend that has certainly not decelerated since the end of the colonial era 40 years ago..

Conceptions of National and Global Economic Justice Contrasted.

Moral Universalism and David Millers contextualization.

Contextualist moral universalism and John Rawls’s moral conception.

Rawls reason for limiting the range of his principles of justice to the basic structure..

Distinct level of failure. Rawls strongly rejects the difference principles as a requirement of global justice on the ground that it is unacceptable for one people to bear certain costs of decision made by other. He fails to explain why those ground should not analogously disqualify the difference principles for national societies as well. Why it is not like- wise unacceptable for one province, township, or family to bear such cost of decision made by other? And if, despite such sharing of cost, the difference principle is the most reasonable one for us to advocate in regard to the domestic economic order, why is it not also the most reasonable one for us to advocate in regard to the global economic order? He takes his principle or self-contained and closed system to be acceptable, an ideal for the US even though this society diverges form, the task description by not being a self- contained closed system. So why should the difference principle be unacceptable for the world at large which fits the task description precisely?.

Rationalizing Divergent Moral Assessments through a Double Standard.

We can try to alleviate world poverty through development assistance. given ad hoc by affluent societies and individuals or built into the global order as in the Tobin Tax proposal. Some poor countries manage to give themselves reasonable political institutions. but many others fail or do not even try. the global economic order does not also playa substantial causal role by shaping how the culture each poor country evolves and by influencing how a poor country's history. culture. and natural environment affect the development of its domestic institutional order. ruling elite. economic growth. and income distribution.

The Causal Role of Global Institutions in the Persistence of Severe Poverty.

The International Borrowing Privileged has three Important negative effects on the corruption and poverty problems in the poor countries First- It puts a country's full credit at the disposal even the most loathsome rulers who took power in a coup and maintain it through violence and repression. Such rulers can then borrow more money and can do so more cheaply than they could do if they are alone rather than the entire country and were obliged to repay. Second- Indifferent to how governmental power is acquired. the international borrowing privilege strengthens incentives toward coup attempts and civil war Third- When the yoke of dictatorship can be thrown off, the international borrowing privilege saddles the country with the often huge debts of the former oppressors..

Conclusion Section 4.9 has shown what is obvious to people in the poor, marginal countries: that the rules structuring the world economy have a profound impact on the global economic distribution just as the economic order of a national society has a profound impact on its domestic economic distribution..

If the empirical rationalization fails, if national and global economic regimes are comparable in their workings and impact, then we are after all employing a double standard when we count avoidable extremes of poverty and inequality against national economic regimes only..

Without a plausible rationale, our discrepant assessments constitute covert arbitrary discrimination in favor of the wealthy societies and against the global poor..

Thank You. Group members: Sulatan, Kimberly Rodriguez, Richard Parojenog, Mere Joy Labaon, Maria Ella.