Using Peter Singer’s views on global poverty and the expanding circle, what kind of responsiblity do those in developed nations such as the US have to the citizens of developing nations where hundreds of millions are struggling with disease and famine to survive? How does Austrian economics reconcile the moral responsibility we seem to have in a global world to all those suffering? Granted, its impossible to alleviate all the ills in the world, especially with finite resources…but still how can the developed world passively stand by as so many perish every day? Government also seems to be the only entity capable of distributing the funds necessary to make an impact globally, at least to the extent necessary to really help end famine and poverty.
Um… you’re at the wrong forum, dude.
Let’s summarize:
You feel like spending money on x. Instead asking for a voluntary donation, you want to hold a gun to my head and rob me? Why not give me a choice instead of forcing me to do what you want?
That aside, the real way to solve poverty is by removing barriers to trade, not by redistributing money.
Is that a fact or an opinion ?
I don’t think that’s what Singer was saying at all. The argument wasn’t in any way focused on government intervention. Singer was simply saying that we have a moral obligation to do much more than most of us currently do to save people who are in desperate need. One could hold that position coherently without saying anything about government intervention or coercion of any kind. Perhaps I’m remembering the argument incorrectly?
What moral responsibility? I have had no hand in the affairs of other nations. I have not created the kleptocracies and socialist “utopias” of the world. Those are very much domestic creations, with a little help from various governments. But because I am a Western (whatever that means) I am somehow responsible for non-Western? I remember reading about such notions. About civilizing the savages. I really do wish Westerners would give up their superiority complex and stop trying to think of the world around them as children in need of their omniscient altruism, whether they like it or not, whether it benefits them or not, whether it leads to genocidal waves of rape and murder or not.
I think you’re talking past Singer, though, with that response. You might check out Peter Unger’s related essay, “Living High and Letting Die”
One would need to accept Singer’s moral system and its entailed premises in the first place - and one need not do so. The duties one has to the poor will depend on the moral system in question. I am an Aristotelian, so I consider charitable activity within reason virtuous - but by no means a legally enforceable claim upon another; coerced charity is a contradiction in terms. A Kantian would, if I recall correctly, argue that one has an imperfect duty to aid the poor, as one could not consistently will a world in which this aid were absent. As for a utilitarian, again there are a number of positions, One might argue aiding the poor makes them even more dependent, and fosters the type of activity that put them there in the first place, thus bypassing Singer on his own grounds.
-Jon
Using the “drowning baby” instance, despite the fact that we may not have directly or indirectly caused the suffering in developing nations, by virtue of the fact that we may have resources to help save lives, do we not have a responsibility? To put this another way, in a libertarian society, should the man who walks by the drowning baby in the stream and refuses to rescue him/her be held legally responsible in some way?
The bystander is not responsible in the “drowning baby” scenario. How has he in any way caused the baby to drown? What would be the advantage of holding him responsible? What does “holding him responsible” mean? Does he have to pay a fine to the parents? Go to jail? Is this consistent with natural law?
I think people are tempted to view the drowning baby scenario poorly because they immediately imagine a world full of thousands of drowning babies when in reality, punishing the “ignorers of drowning babies,” will probably have little effect on the overall frequency of babies who drown. I do think its morally repugnant to let a baby drown when you could save it with very little risk or effort and that people SHOULD do that; and that most people will do it without the fear of a penalty. I don’t see any sort of punishment for allowing a baby to drown as consistent with natural law unless you are the parent or you have entered into some form of contract to protect the baby for the time being.
I think helping poor people in other countries is great and there’s no reason to discourage it; at the same time it is not immoral to abstain from doing so. I think any statist solutions are more likely to cause harm than help and are thus a bad idea. They are also intrinsically immoral if their foundation rests upon immoral means such as taxation. I suppose that if it is impossible to return the already stolen money to its rightful owner, then there’s nothing wrong with giving it away to people in other countries.
The poverty and all the suffering is caused by government policies in those countries.
When people are educated about the effects of those policies, they might press their government to change, which would solve the problem.
The problem of poverty in the former colonial world was created by the western powers, who left there extremely costly governing systems that have destroyed attempts at social organization ever since. We have a responsibility to attack the legitimacy of these states and organize their substitution with real systems of security.
How do you expect subsistence farmers to become educated about social institutions?
The American revolutionaries were not that dumb to believe that anyone but rich landowners could lead a revolution. They didn’t set out to educate Americans to press the British government for change.
The moral side of this has been addressed, but I would like to add to the consequences of aid. Like it has been pointed out, problems in developing world are more often than not caused by government interference. So aid is only a stop-gap solution. But on top of this, it can have extremely dreadful results. For example, food aid to Africa has wiped out local agriculture and many prominent Africans are now asking for the West to stop sending this aid. And I wouldn’t be surprised if - now as food prices are climbing - we won’t see even worse famines exactly in areas that have received aid.
The only rational form of aid that I can see is a lump sum of cash directly to those who need it, with a clear sign that no more will be given. Problems of application aside, this would at least allow local entrepreneurs to make a living, would prevent the people from becoming dependent on aid and would allow the people to acquire what they determine to need most. As opposed to aid restricted to food and clothes that keep coming and will guarantee poverty for generations to come.
jpleezy19
Unfortunately, extreme poverty is the natural condition of mankind. Someone said that 250 years ago, a man looking back 10,000 years would see a world he could understand; but looking forward 200 years the world would be totally alien to him. What happened 250 years ago? Essentially, the idea of individual liberty and restrictions on government took root and that has taken us to the wealth you see in the Developed World.
You do not say this, but often implied in statements such as those you make is the belief that the poor are poor because we are rich. This is not the case. Wealth has to be created, and this can happen when individuals and their property are released from government restrictions. Hernando de Soto’s book “The Mystery of Capital” is a must read on how to address Third World poverty.
As far as Austrian Economics and Libertarianism are concerned, it is for each individual to do with his property and his time what he wishes. If he wishes to donate to charities for the Third World or to devote his live to working there, that is his choice. We are a collection of individuals and there is therefore not a collective responsibility for any such action.
With kind regards
Remnant.
Let me tell you a little thing. The natural human condition is not that of the bonne sauvage living effortlessly and carefree among nature eating fresh fruits. The natural human condition is abject poverty, complete ignorance, illness, hunger and even worse. The present day high standard of life among part of the world population is the result of a series of coincidences and, much more importantly, a LOT of hard work. But we’ll leave to the anthropologists to explain why civilization flourished in Florence and Philadelfia while Africa has never been able to do the “great leap forward” and is now worse off than in the '50s.
In the last part of century the main justification for the ever expanding tax and legislation burden imposed on productive activities (which in the '70s put an end to the European staggering post-war economic growth) has always been the same: we need to help the needy, the less fortunate. I have seen more and more of my meager income end up in smoke each year while at the same time I haven’t seen a reduction of poverty. Every day the newspapers give us the alarm about “more and more people entering the poverty zone” and the appeals from local charities for funds are desperately increasing each month. Mind you, I am not talking about the a bidonville somewhere near Rio de Janeiro or a remote rural area in the Katanga, but one of Europe’s most industrialized and productive districts. If by runsacking our wallets the governments cannot even help their own “citizens”, how do we expect them to help someone half a world away? Talk to any volunteer or minister involved in charitable organizations: they’ll tell you stories of such abject misery that they’ll make your stomach feel queasy. And it’s not in Africa but right next to your doorstep.
I know that temptation is always waiting: “we need just a little bit more to help everyone”. Let me tell you: it’s not true, it will not work like it hasn’t worked a thousand times before. You’ll only end up making people more callous about helping each other. “Why should I give to charity? The government should act, since they’ve already raised taxes on that purpose”. The French even came up with something about this: “I used to be well-off, but now I am living on welfare. Why? I had two cows but the Government forced me to sell them so as to give them money to buy a single cow for a man living half a world away”. Of course it’s an exageration, but it gives a clear picture of what welfare-schemes are doing around the world.
And finally let me tell you a little something. Man is naturally selfish. We will first think about ourselves, our own children, our own relatices, perhaps our own friends. The new Socialist man, who first thinks about society and the State and then about himself, never existed outside moralistic tales. Once in a while a completely selfless individual will sprout up, like St Francis of Assisi, but it’s the classic exception confirming the rule.
It’s a ugly world we live on, I know that. But it’s the only one we have.
The meat of this argument is practicality, not morality. Skip down to my last section to see how I feel on that…but first - morality and singular authority or law.
Don’t confuse morality with authority. Morality is inconsistent throughout society, depending upon personal beliefs. Authority defines singular “solutions”. I definitely think it is immoral to ignore the helpless when you can easily help them. Conversely I think willful dependence is also immoral. Legally, none of this matters because I don’t think there is a moral authority, who can declare a system of morality and enforce it.
In the case of a drowning baby, it is certainly immoral to let a baby drown, from my viewpoint. But there is no legally consistent means of expressing this, which is why moral factions battle for government control. Rather, there is a consistent legal means in holding parents and guardians responsible for allowing their babies to drown.
Punishment of immorality can only be done in legally consistent ways, by the individuals who feel someone acted immorally, rather than by singular government or a forced collective. In this way, actions that offend many codes of morality are the most harshly punished.
From the libertarian perspective, the principle of non-aggression is the law. Inconsistent moralities can be held and enforced within such a legal framework. These are marked by trade discrimination and social ostracism. The only case violence is acceptable is in response to the violation of law, to acheive justice and nothing more. Using violence to enforce your morality promotes an inconsistent and violent society, as enforcement of your morality will nearly always be immoral to others, who then resort to violence…The end result is absolutism, which is little else than saying the most powerful faction with a common morality gets to define morality for all of society. This is the nesting ground of the state, which ironically grows into a highly immoral, violent institution.
The same goes for foreign nations. Those who believe non-charity is immoral should do what they can, convince others of their morality, and punish those who reject action. However, this punishment may not involve violence.
A large problem to this debate is that this is more complex than morality. It is more a matter of practicality. Charity may end up as nothing more than waste or even fuel class divisions, without regard to intent. The problem with arguing morality is that there is no established practical means to accomplishing moral objectives. This allows moral relativism to run rampant, where inaction can be justified as a sole moral solution.
If there is no clearly practical solution, there can be no clearly moral solution. Such a situation judges actions solely upon intent, which if attempted to be legally enforceable allows the use of violence in response to subjective determination of another’s thoughts. Arbitrary authority
To put this in terms of the drowning baby argument, what if the man were highly contagious with a deadly disease? He can save the baby from drowning, but not from becoming sick and dying…possibly. Doing nothing is justified, but so is saving the baby. But how do we know if the alternative choice would have had better results?
Obviously, if you can save a dying baby with almost no effort and sacrifice, but instead choose to take pleasure in watching it slowly die, most of society would think immorally of you. Arbitrary social punishment without resorting to violence can go a long way in removing immoral activity from society…it simply requires most of society to believe it is immoral to the degree that they are willing to sacrifice some of their well-being to punish the offender.
Fair enough.
But my point was that if you feel a moral obligation to alleviate the suffering of people in poor countries, you should look for ways to change the government policies that are keeping them poor, rather then spread their misery across the globe by forced redistribution.