Introduction to Political Theory

A Rawlsian would regard Sub-subbrazil as unjust, but then they should also

regard the world economic system as unjust, because it is, in effect, Sub-subbrazil.

So how can he set the minimum criteria for justice in the domestic sphere so much

higher than in the global sphere? Put more simply, how can people in the West

(north) consider severe poverty in their own country as unjust but not consider it

morally unacceptable that such poverty should exist in the south? Pogge considers

a number of possible responses: (a) we can surrender the discrepancy between

domestic and global standards of justice by either weakening the minimum criteria

for domestic justice or raising them for international justice; (b) defend the

discrepancy; (c) insist on the discrepancy but reject the universalist demand to justify

it (Pogge, 2002: 101). Even if you disagree with Pogge’s cosmopolitan position this

is a useful way of setting out the terms of the debate. Advocates of strategies (a)

and (b) operate within a universalist moral theory, while defenders of (c) reject

universalism.

Pogge is less radical than Beitz in that he argues we have only a negative duty

to eradicate world poverty and not a positive one. Were there no global economy

there may be a moral duty to assist those in need but it would not be equivalent

to the duties owed to those with whom we interact. It is because the rich have

contributed to a world economy that has generated not only poverty, but also bad

government, that there is a strong duty to redistribute wealth (Pogge, 2002: 197–9).

In effect, continuing to cause suffering is a violation of a negative duty owed to one

another not to cause suffering.

Particularism

The two alternatives to cosmopolitanism are particularism (also known as

partialism) and the ‘political conception’. Following Pogge’s framing of the debate

488 Part 4 Contemporary ideas

One of Pogge’s practical proposals for global redistribution of wealth is a global resources dividend

(GRD). Just as left libertarians reject the idea that individuals have full (or very strong) ownership

rights over external resources, so Pogge rejects the notion that states have such rights (Pogge,

2002: 202–3). Countries that benefit from natural resources – such as oil and gas – should pay a

dividend on income derived from the exploitation of those resources: he suggests as a target

around 1 per cent of global income. The proposal raises a couple of issues and problems:

• What is a resource? Geographical position could itself be a benefit – Britain’s position as an
  island played no small part in its early capitalist development. How do you disaggregate such
  a ‘natural’ benefit from beneficial political decisions?


• Should a country pay up simply because it benefits from resources – that is, even if it does not
  burden other countries? Pogge thinks that in practice the rich countries prop up resource-rich
  authoritarian countries, such as Saudi Arabia, such that resources are connected to global
  interdependence (Pogge, 2002: 202).

Global resources dividend