Pogge’s chapter eight on “Eradicating systemic poverty: Brief for a global resources dividend,” is a chapter that is devoted to showing the inequality in resource distribution and wealth in the world. He argues that, on global resources dividend, a government will not come to appoint of owning their resources fully, because of the payment of dividend. He presupposes that poor countries only have a limited stake to only the inalienable natural resources. Pogge’s concern in chapter eight is the empowerment of all peoples to make sure that they live a life of value, just like the wealthy. On this, he expresses discord that the poor cannot have the opportunity to enjoy life, or even participate in political activities as equals with other people.

Pogge considers global poverty as a moral challenge in which everyone should take responsibility. On this, he sees it from the perspective of a positive duty of taking the initiative to help those in needs, or a negative duty to refrain from upholding injustice. He points out that many people consider helping the people they know, or the people they have contact with, leading to an aspect of a violation of negative duty. This, he argues is in consideration to global poverty. Concerning radical inequality in the global context, Pogge considers some five conditions that he argues define it. He reiterates that the poor are in need beyond imaginable. By this, he considers that bad moments for the wealthy are better than good moments for the poor. He laments that the inequality is in all aspects and that it is avoidable, in that; with a will from the wealthy, it is possible to assist the very poor to come out of this state of need. The author claims that this radical inequality is also facilitated by shared social institutions and that it is not traceable to genetics or some extra-social factors. He shows how the wealthy in the wealth get almost the whole benefit of enjoying the natural resources to the disadvantage of the poor. Concerning the origin of these inequalities, the author claims that; the violent history of colonization, genocide and conquest lead to the subjugation of the poor, alienating four continents of the world and subjecting them to a high-level poverty. Regarding solving the problem of inequality, the author proposes three approaches. The first involves providing an alternative to shared institutions that will make sure that when people are born, they have an opportunity that promises them a bright future, just like the world’s affluent. Secondly, the author proposes a termination to the practice of uncompensated exclusion to the poor. Thirdly, Pogge argues for an end to the violation of negative moral duty, and an adoption of policies to end world poverty. The author concludes by giving a moral basis of his argument, and claiming that the inequality can be terminated by the intervention of the wealthy, without them becoming drained.

In this chapter, Pogge gives some reasons for redistributing wealth to the poor countries, some of which are convincing, while others are not. Pogge comes up with three grounds for injustices, and formulates his proposal for ending inequality from them. The three sources of global inequality, according to Pogge are shared social institutions, uncompensation of the poor for the use of natural resources, and the consequences of a violent common history. Ii will look at these approaches in this section, and determine which are convincing enough, and which are not.

The emphasis made by Pogge for redistributing natural resources is the idea behind alienation of these countries’ resources during colonization. Pogge, in chapter eight of his book, laments that; the mighty countries of the world used their affluent and advantage to exploit the resources of the poor. He also adds that the continued heavy global resource dividend is likely to lead to the re-emergence of the situation of inequality. For this reason, he sees that the wealthy nations should take responsibility of reducing global inequality. I find this argument by Pogge justifiable. As Pogge argues, the affluent took advantage of the world’s poor countries and alienated their resources. An example is colonization of the countries of Africa, Asia and South America. One reason why I agree with Pogge on this point is because the colonialists used advantage of colonization to alienate materials for their industries. From the beginning of colonization, the colonizers set to establish overseas empires with a view to finding materials for their industries. Secondly, as Pogge argues, colonized people were enslaved for many years. During the period of colonization, these people were not involved in creating wealth for their home countries, but rather, the colonialist’s nations. Thirdly, there was genocide, just as Pogge claims. Lastly, conquest was followed with severe oppression. In consideration of these points and the associated history, I opine that Pogge makes a justified observation, that the wealthy countries and individuals should take the initiative of sharing some part of their wealth with the poor. This is because, during colonization, these countries took advantage and carried the wealth of the poor countries to their home countries. The degree of amassing of wealth was so greater that, as Pogge points out, the wealthy countries can solve the problem of inequality without becoming poor. This is a convincing reason for redistributing wealth to the poor countries, because their wealth was alienated.

The other reason put forward by Pogge for redistributing world resources to the poor countries is the right of all the people to equal access to natural resources. Pogge argues that the wealthy use resources under cartels so that world’s wealth circulates among them. He gives an example of crude oil for an exporting country, which is exported by the wealthy, and is bought in the importing country by the wealthy. I agree with Pogge in this reasoning because the natural resources are supposed to be enjoyed by all, both poor and rich. Considering that, over the years, the wealthy have alienated wealth and made the poor even worse, it is reasonable that they redistribute wealth and reduce the inequality gap.

Another reason why Pogge thinks wealth should be redistributed is because the poor have been used in the generation of this wealth without compensation. For example, when Africans were enslaved by the colonialists to amass wealth, they were never compensated. Going by the fact the poor were involved in the creation of this wealth through enslavement, it is only reasonable that the wealthy redistribute wealthy to the poor countries.

However, Pogge appears to have missed the point on the issue of distribution of wealthy. One wonders how it is justified to redistribute wealth to poor countries, yet even the little wealth they have is owned by a little proportion of the society. For example, most of the wealthy people in the poor countries got their wealthy using the tactics of the colonialists after the wealthy had left. Pogge himself agrees that some of the poor countries’ leaders aim at making their people loyal by failing to empower them. This, according to Pogge, ensures dependence. Redistributing the wealth to such a country is a bit difficult, different from the perspective in which Pogge sees it, because these selfish leaders will frustrate such efforts.

REFERENCE

‘Eradicating systemic poverty: Brief for a global resources dividend,” in, Pogge, W.T. 2008. World poverty and human rights. Malden, MA: Polity Press.