Book
Here's a link to the book by Jeffrey Sachs I will have talked about in class today.
Discuss: Does anyone in the world today have a duty to end extreme poverty? If so, who/what has the duty, and why do they have it?
(Update: Um, never mind. I meant to talk about this book in class yesterday but I forgot. I *will* talk about it tomorrow. Consider this another book recommendation!)
posted by David Watkins @ 1:05 PM
2 Comments:
human communities figured out how to survive in the environments that they lived in, using the labor and natural resources they had around them. there were no inherently poverty stricken people when we started out. poverty occurs when one group of people usurp the labor and natural resources of another to meet the larger and more powerful groups demands. it seems that somewhere down the line we zigged when we should have zagged and decided that it was okay to enslave and impovrish one group to benefit another. nowadays large corporations serve that purpose. they exist only to supply demand at the cost of other humans, animals and the health of the planet. we (humans)are all responsible for the choices that we make. it is our responsibility to recongnize that our choices effect everyone and everything. we tend to plead ignorance or helplessness in the face of suffering. we want to pretend that our hands are tied and that nothing will really change if we dont buy things but i think that if we knew where our stuff came from and who/what suffered to get it to us we would decide not to buy it.
I am not convinced as of yet the human rights are universal. That is not to say that I want any one to suffer or that any type of discrimination is a good thing, it is a thing. I believe human rights and ideas of human rights are relative to which culture and time they are applied. On the other hand, because globalization creates such interdependence between countries an obligation could be implied because of the international relationships created. Perhaps countries and their populations who are perpetuating extreme poverty in other areas have an obligation to help, not because of universal human rights but because of their established relationship with those people.
Chris Bentley
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