World Poverty and Human Rights, 2nd EditionISBN: 978-0-7456-4144-7
Paperback
304 pages
February 2008, Polity
|
However huge in human terms, the world poverty problem is tiny economically. Just 1 percent of the national incomes of the high-income countries would suffice to end severe poverty worldwide. Yet, these countries, unwilling to bear an opportunity cost of this magnitude, continue to impose a grievously unjust global institutional order that foreseeably and avoidably perpetuates the catastrophe. Most citizens of affluent countries believe that we are doing nothing wrong.
Thomas Pogge seeks to explain how this belief is sustained. He
analyses how our moral and economic theorizing and our global
economic order have adapted to make us appear disconnected from
massive poverty abroad. Dispelling the illusion, he also offers a
modest, widely sharable standard of global economic justice and
makes detailed, realistic proposals toward fulfilling it.
Thoroughly updated, the second edition of this classic book incorporates responses to critics and a new chapter introducing Pogge's current work on pharmaceutical patent reform.