Author, Simon.
Published, April 15, 2008.

So, here’s the deal with this. It’s a philosophy essay for uni. I’m meant to be head of the United Nations, and I’m outlining my policy to end world poverty in the next 20 years. It’s entirely unrealistic, as far as my policies are concerned. However, the focus is the JUSTICE, and the philosophy. See what you think…

As Head of the United Nations, the plight of the world’s poor is a great burden to me, and the plight of the worlds impoverished should be a great burden on the hearts and minds of all the member nations’ leaders and their citizens. I have developed a policy through which the United Nations will work to eradicate poverty over the next 20 years. The policies will deliver justice to those who require it.

 

Humans are to be regarded as beings with essential needs. They are also, as the United Nations declared in 1948, beings with rights; Human Rights. So, if this is the case, humans have a right to not be living in squalor. We also need to acknowledge and respect that humans are also to be respected as responsible agents. That is, if people are free in a libertarian sense, then they are free  to choose not to be in poverty. Freedom in the libertarian sense is defined as this: A person acts freely only if, right before he acts, he could still have chosen to act otherwise. Humans are responsible agents only insofar as they have the ability to act freely. If they can act freely, then they can be held responsible. If we observe the poor of the world, observing their plight and their struggle, one notices that very few of them have been able to make any sort of decision at all about whether to be poor or not. They have not been free to choose to be anything other than poor. If they are not free, then they cannot be held responsible. If the majority of the world’s poor are not responsible for their plight, then someone else is.

 

The existing global institutional order is the main cause of world poverty, today. The existing order gives the poor no freedom; they are not free to choose anything other than their current living standards. Their predicament is being imposed on them by an essentially tyrannical institutional order. If the system is to blame, then perhaps those who benefit most from the system should be responsible for the plight of the poor, and responsible for changing the institutional order. It is clear who benefits most from the institutional order; the wealthiest nations. Thomas Pogge has stated that “the global institutional order is shaped by the political leaders of the most powerful countries” who are themselves shaped by the citizenry of their nations, through a democratic process. It is, therefore, only fair to point the finger of blame at the citizens and leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations. It is they who uphold the world institutional order which so crushes those in extreme and less extreme poverty. We global citizens have a duty not to harm other citizens of the globe. To suggest otherwise would be to suggest that the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is null. For, in their upholding of the global institutional order, the rich nations do, indeed, participate in an order which, in Pogge’s words, “reproduces a huge excess in human rights underfulfillment.”If this is true; if the powerful and wealthy nations of the world are responsible for upholding the institutional order, and therefore responsible for this human rights underfulfillment, then they are largely responsible for the poverty and cycle of poverty which exists in much of the developing world. The injustice of this situation requires that the nations causing the injustice act in league to right these wrongs.

 

With this in mind, I propose the following measures to alleviate world poverty. The rich and powerful nations, who must be held partly responsible for tolerating and perpetrating the current world order, must change that world order. For this to work, trade, immigration and foreign policies must reflect this change. Wealthy nations must cease subsidising smaller, less powerful nations out of the world market. Efforts must be made by the richer nations to assist the poorer nations in developing effective and appropriate agricultural techniques and practices. Richer nations will, on top of these changes in trade practice, redirect resources into medical care in developing nations. This would allow more people to live healthier existences, and prevent easily preventable disease and sickness. Re-channelling of funds previously spent on superfluous policy and luxury items by the more powerful nations will also have a drastic effect. This will allow developing nations to better combat poverty and benefit both the agricultural and manufacturing sectors of their economies, as well as have further benefits in healthcare. Removing all laws and rules which cripple weaker states’ economies, slowing their growth, will also allow states to develop and open new markets. Thereby, trade and economic activity will increase, to the benefit of the citizens of the weaker nations. The libertarian right not be deprived of a decent life is being fulfilled here. We in the rich and powerful nations are not morally entitled to our superfluous luxuries simply because we have earned the money to pay for them. The poor of the developing world have never had the opportunity to earn money as we do. They are being denied the opportunity to change their circumstances by the very system which allows us to earn the exorbitant incomes we enjoy. Therefore, we do have a moral obligation to help these impoverished millions.

 

My policies may seem coercive, perhaps even foolish. However, we must understand that we have not, at any stage, earned the right to live extravagantly at the cost of others lives and livelihoods. Our very human-ness, our mannishness, should make us empathetic. The global institutional order is largely responsible for the cyclic poverty which millions upon millions live in each day. These people should be respected as responsible agents. However, in this case they are not responsible for their own plight. The very nature of cyclic poverty means that those in the cycle have little, if any, opportunity to break out of the cycle. Even if they are free and responsible agents, they are not free to make a choice to escape poverty. If justice is to be done, then we of the rich and powerful nations need to take some large responsibilities on ourselves, and make major changes to the international order, allowing weaker nations to participate evenly and fairly in international trade and law making. We should also divert what is judged as superfluous money from our own economies into UN funds. These funds will direct that money to weaker nations, meaning that they benefit from our relatively thriving economies. This will stimulate economic activity in the weaker nations, and increase the living standards.

 

We have a duty, as global citizens and members of this UN, not to incite harm on our fellow humans. By changing the global institutional order, we will be well on the way to ending poverty by 2030.