Politics as Usual: What Lies Behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric

Politics as Usual: What Lies Behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric
ISBN-10
0745638929
ISBN-13
9780745638928
Series
Politics As Usual
Category
Philosophy
Pages
273
Language
English
Published
2010-05-17
Publisher
Polity
Authors
Thomas W. Pogge, Thomas Winfried Menko Pogge

Description

Worldwide, human lives are rapidly improving. Education, health care, technology, and political participation are becoming ever more universal, empowering human beings everywhere to enjoy security, economic sufficiency, equal citizenship, and a life in dignity. To be sure, there are some especially difficult areas disfavored by climate, geography, local diseases, unenlightened cultures, or political tyranny. There, progress is slow, and there may be set-backs. But the affluent states, and many international organizations are working steadily to extend the blessings of modernity through trade and generous development assistance, and it won't be long before the last pockets of severe oppression and poverty are gone. Heavily promoted by governments and media of the affluent states, this comforting view of the world is widely shared, at least among their citizens. Thomas Pogge's new book presents an alternative view: poverty and oppression persist on a massive scale; political and economic inequalities are rising dramatically both intra-nationally and globally. The affluent states and the international organizations they control knowingly contribute greatly to these evils - selfishly promoting rules and policies harmful to the poor, while hypocritically pretending to set and promote ambitious development goals. Pogge's case studies include the $1/day poverty measurement exercise, the cosmetic statistics behind the first Millennium Development Goal, the war on Terror, and the proposed relaxation of the constraints on humanitraian intervention. This is a powerful moral analysis that shows what affluent states would do if they reaily cared about the values they profess. Cover illustration Sebastrao Salgado Amazonas images (contact Press Images)-coffee from Ossor Estates, Karnatka State, india, 2003 Ossoon Estates has a surface of more or less 400 acres and is situated at 1,000 meters of aititude the can production is coffee but there is also pepper, cardamon, and some vanilla. The aorm is about 45 kms from the town of Hassan and 221 kms from Bangalore. It emoloys 200 workers al year round and more at coffee harvesting time, when there is a total of 600 workers. Production is about 220 tons of Arabica and 300 tons of Robtista.

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