Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:34:04.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Global poverty, global sacrifices, and natural resource reforms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2018

Shmuel Nili Open the ORCID record for Shmuel Nili [Opens in a new window]
Shmuel Nili*
Affiliation:
Political Science, Northwestern University, and School of Philosophy, Research School of the Social Sciences, Australian National University
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: Shmuel.nili@northwestern.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

My aim in this essay is to advance discussion of how to justify the sacrifices that reforms combating global poverty might entail for the world’s better-off. I begin from the assumption that we should not try to motivate such sacrifices solely through the hope that they will produce significant poverty gains. Instead, we should also explore whether the affluent actually have compelling moral claims to the goods that they might be asked to relinquish as part of certain global reforms. This alternative strategy forms the background for my discussion of two influential global reform proposals. The first proposal is to tax the natural resource wealth enjoyed by various affluent countries in order to ameliorate global poverty. The second proposal is to prohibit the resource corporations based in affluent democracies from purchasing natural resources controlled by extreme kleptocrats. I argue that once we examine the relationship between these proposals from a sacrifice-sensitive perspective, we find that they genuinely conflict with each other, and that there are sacrifice-related reasons to put aside the canonical proposal for a global redistribution of natural resource wealth.

Keywords

Redistributionmorality of international tradeegalitarianismresource curseforeign aidpublic property
Type
Original Papers
Information
International Theory , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 48 - 80
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Armstrong, Chris. 2013a. “Natural Resources: The Demands of Equality.” Journal of Social Philosophy 44:331–347.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Chris. 2013b. “Sovereign Wealth Funds and Global Justice.” Ethics and International Affairs 27:413–428.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Chris. 2014. “Justice and Attachment to Natural Resources.” Journal of Political Philosophy 22:48–65.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Chris. 2015. “Against Permanent Sovereignty Over Natural Resources.” Politics, Philosophy and Economics 14:129–151.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Chris. 2017. Justice and Natural Resources: An Egalitarian Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Aslaksen, Silje. 2010. “Oil and Democracy: More than a Crosscountry Correlation?” Journal of Peace Research 47:421–431.Google Scholar
Ashford, Elizabeth. 2000. “Utilitarianism, Integrity, and Partiality.” The Journal of Philosophy 97:421–439.Google Scholar
Ashford, Elizabeth. 2003. “The Demandingness of Scanlon’s Contractualism.” Ethics 113:273–302.Google Scholar
Barry, Christian, and Øverland, Gerhard. 2016. Responding to Global Poverty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Beitz, Charles. 1979. Political Theory and International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Blake, Michael. 2012. “Global Distributive Justice: Why Political Philosophy Needs Political Science.” Annual Review of Political Science 15:121–136.Google Scholar
Blake, Michael. 2013a. “Immigration, Jurisdiction, and Exclusion.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 41:103–130.Google Scholar
Blake, Michael. 2013b. “We Are All Cosmopolitans Now.” In Cosmopolitanism versus Non-Cosmopolitanism: Critiques, Defenses, Reconceptualizations, edited by Gillian Brock, 35–54. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Blake, Michael. 2015. “The Right to Leave.” In Debating Brain Drain: May Countries Restrict Emigration?, edited by Blake and Gillian Brock, 111–235. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Blunt, Gwilym David. 2015. “Is Global Poverty a Crime Against Humanity?” International Theory 7:539–571.Google Scholar
Brock, Gillian, and Blake, Michael. 2015. Debating Brain Drain: May Countries Restrict Emigration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Alexander. 2012. “Rawls, Buchanan, and the Legal Doctrine of Legitimate Expectations.” Social Theory and Practice 38(4):617–645.Google Scholar
Brown, Alexander. 2017. “A Theory of Legitimate Expectations.” Journal of Political Philosophy 25(4):435–460.Google Scholar
Buchanan, Allen. 1975. “Distributive Justice and Legitimate Expectations.” Philosophical Studies 28:419–425.Google Scholar
Buchanan, Allen. 2003. “The Making and Unmaking of Boundaries: What Liberalism has to Say.” In States, Nations, and Borders, edited by Buchanan, and Margaret Moore, 231–261. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Smith, Alastair, Siverson, Randolph, and Morrow, James. 2003. The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Butt, Daniel. 2009. Rectifying International Injustice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Collier, Paul, and Hoeffler, Anke. 2004. “Greed and Grievance in Civil War.” Oxford Economic Papers 56, 563–595.Google Scholar
Casal, Paula. 2011. “Global Taxes on Natural Resources.” Journal of Moral Philosophy 8(3):307–327.Google Scholar
Christiano, Thomas. 2004. “The Authority of Democracy.” Journal of Political Philosophy 12:266–290.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua. 2010a. “Philosophy, Social Science, Global Poverty.” In Thomas Pogge and His Critics, edited by Alison Jaggar, 18–45. London: Polity.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua. 2010b. Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cullity, Garrett. 2004. The Moral Demands of Affluence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dietrich, Frank. 2014. “Territorial Rights and Demographic Change.” International Theory 6:174–190.Google Scholar
Dunning, Thad. 2008. Crude Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1978. Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1981. “What is Equality? Part II: Equality of Resources.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 10:283–345.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1978. Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 2000. Sovereign Virtue. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Easterly, William. 2014. The Tyranny of experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Freeman, Samuel. 2001. “Illiberal Libertarians: Why Libertarianism Is Not a Liberal View.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 30:105–151.Google Scholar
Freeman, Samuel. 2006. “Distributive Justice and the Law of Peoples.” In Rawls’ Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia?, edited by Rex Martin, and David Reidy, 243–260. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Freeman, Samuel. 2013. “Property-Owning Democracy and the Difference Principle.” Analyse & Kritik 1:9–36.Google Scholar
Fried, Barbara. 2004. “Left Libertarianism: A Review Essay.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 32:66–80.Google Scholar
Gerring, John, Bond, Philip, Barndt, William T., and Moreno, Carola. 2005. “Democracy and Economic Growth: A Historical Perspective.” World Politics 57:323–364.Google Scholar
Goodin, Robert. 1990. “Stabilizing Expectations: The Role of Earnings-Related Benefits in Social Welfare Policy.” Ethics 100(3):530–553.Google Scholar
Green, Fergus. 2017. “Legitimate Expectations, Legal Transitions, and Wide Reflective Equilibrium.” Moral Philosophy & Politics 4(2):177–205.Google Scholar
Goemans, Hein, and Marinov, Nikolay. 2014. “Coups and Democracy.” British Journal of Political Science 44(4):782–799.Google Scholar
Haber, Stephen, and Menaldo, Victor. 2011. “Do Natural Resources Fuel Authoritarianism? A Reappraisal of the Resource Curse.” American Political Science Review 105:1–26.Google Scholar
Hendrix, Burke. 2008. Ownership, Authority, and Self-Determination. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Hendrix, Burke. 2012. “Political Theorists as Dangerous Social Actors.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 15:41–61.Google Scholar
Hayward, Tim. 2013. “Ecological Space: The Concept and its Ethical Significance,” JWI Just World Institute Working Paper No. 2013/02.Google Scholar
Herman, Barbara. 2001. “The Scope of Moral Requirement.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 30(3):227–256.Google Scholar
Hyde, Susan. 2011. The Pseudo-Democrat’s Dilemma. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
James, Aaron. 2012. Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kagan, Shelly. 2011. “Do I Make a Difference?” Philosophy & Public Affairs 39:105–141.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Ryan, and Tiede, Lydia. 2013. “Economic Development Assumptions and the Elusive Curse.” International Studies Quarterly 57:760–771.Google Scholar
Kolodny, Niko. 2014. “Rule Over None II: Social Equality and the Justification of Democracy.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 42(4):287–336.Google Scholar
Kristof, Nicholas D. 2015. “Deadliest Country for Kids.” New York Times, p. A27. March 19.Google Scholar
Lepora, Chiara, and Goodin, Robert. 2013. On Complicity and Compromise. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marinov, Nikolay, and Nili, Shmuel. 2015. “Sanctions and Democracy.” International Interactions 41(4):765–778.Google Scholar
Meyer, Lukas, and Sanklecha, Pranay. 2014. “How Legitimate Expectations Matter in Climate Justice.” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 13(4):369–393.Google Scholar
Miller, David. 2007. National Responsibility and Global Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, David. 2011. “Taking Up the Slack? Responsibility and Justice in Situations of Partial Compliance.” In Responsibility and Distributive Justice, edited by Carl Knight, and Zofia Stemplowska, 230–245. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, David. 2012. “Territorial Rights: Concept and Justification.” Political Studies 60(2012):252–268.Google Scholar
Miller, Richard. 2010. Globalizing Justice. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mills, Charles. 2010. “Realizing (Through Racializing) Pogge.” In Jaggar, Pogge and his critics, 151–174.Google Scholar
Morrison, Kevin. 2009. “Oil, Nontax Revenue, and the Redistributional Foundations of Regime Stability.” International Organization 63:107–138.Google Scholar
Moore, Margaret. 2012. “Natural Resources, Territorial Right, and Global Distributive Justice.” Political Theory 40:84–107.Google Scholar
Murphy, Liam, and Nagel, Thomas. 2002. The Myth of Ownership. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 1986. The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 1991. Equality and Partiality. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nefsky, Julia. 2011. “Consequentialism and the Problem of Collective Harm: A Reply to Kagan.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 39:364–395.Google Scholar
Nili, Shmuel. 2011a. “Conceptualizing the Curse: Two Views on our Responsibility for the Resource Curse.” Ethics & Global Politics 4(2):103–124.Google Scholar
Nili, Shmuel. 2011b. “Democratic Disengagement: Towards Rousseauian Global Reform.” International Theory 3(3):355–389.Google Scholar
Nili, Shmuel. 2013a. “Rawlzickian Global Politics.” Journal of Political Philosophy 21(4):473–495.Google Scholar
Nili, Shmuel. 2013b. “Rigorist Cosmopolitanism.” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 12(3):260–328.Google Scholar
Nili, Shmuel. 2014. “Global Taxation, Global Reform, and Collective Action.” Moral Philosophy and Politics 1(1):83–103.Google Scholar
Nili, Shmuel. 2015. “Environmental Reform, Negative Duties, and Petrocrats: A Strategic Green Energy Argument.” Journal of Politics 77:914–927.Google Scholar
Nili, Shmuel. 2016a. “Liberal Global Justice and Social Science.” Review of International Studies 42(1):136–155.Google Scholar
Nili, Shmuel. 2016b. “Global Justice and Global Realities.” Journal of International Political Theory 12(2):200–216.Google Scholar
Nili, Shmuel. 2018. “The Moving Global Everest: A New Challenge to Global Ideal Theory as a Necessary Compass.” European Journal of Political Theory 17(1):87–108.Google Scholar
Nili, Shmuel. Forthcoming (a). The People’s Duty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nili, Shmuel. Forthcoming (b). “The Idea of Public Property.” Ethics 129(1):344–369.Google Scholar
Nine, Cara. 2012. Global Justice and Territory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas. 1989. Realizing Rawls. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas. 1990. “The Effects of Prevalent Moral Conceptions,” Social Research 57:649–663.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas. 1994. “An Egalitarian Law of Peoples.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 23:195–224.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas. 1995. “Three Problems with Contractarian-Consequentialist Ways of Assessing Social Institutions,” Social Philosophy and Policy 12(2):241–266.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas. 2002. World Poverty and Human Rights. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas. 2008. “Cohen to the Rescue!” Ratio 21(4):454–475.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas. 2010. “Reply to Critics.” In Thomas Pogge and His Critics, edited by Alison Jaggar, 175–250. London: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas. 2011. “Allowing the Poor to Share the Earth," Journal of Moral Philosophy 8(3):335–352.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas. 2013. “Concluding Reflections,” In Brock, Cosmopolitanism versus Non-cosmopolitanism, 294–319. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1999a. A Theory of Justice – Revised Edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1999b. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Risse, Mathias. 2012. On Global Justice. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ross, Michael. 2012. The Oil Curse. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rundlett, Ashlea, and Svolik, Milan. 2016. “Deliver the Vote! Micromotives and Macrobehavior in Electoral Fraud.” American Political Science Review 110(1):180–197.Google Scholar
Scanlon, Thomas. 1977. “Liberty, Contract, and Contribution.” In Markets and Morals, edited by Gerald Dworkin, Gordon Bermant, and Peter Brown, 43–67. Washington: Hemisphere.Google Scholar
Scanlon, Thomas. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schupert, Fabian. 2014. “Beyond the National Resource Privilege: Towards an International Court of the Environment.” International Theory 6:68–97.Google Scholar
Steiner, Hillel. 2011. “The Global Fund: A Reply to Casal.” Journal of Moral Philosophy 8:328–334.Google Scholar
Singer, Peter. 1972. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 1:229–243.Google Scholar
Stilz, Anna. 2009a. Liberal Loyalty. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stilz, Anna. 2009b. “Why Do States Have Territorial Rights?” International Theory 1(2):185–213.Google Scholar
Stilz, Anna. 2011. “Nations, States, and Territory,” Ethics 121(3):572–601.Google Scholar
Stilz, Anna. 2014. “On Common Ownership.” Ethics and International Affairs 28(2014):501–510.Google Scholar
Tan, Kok-Chor. 2010. “Enforcing Cosmopolitan Justice: The Problem of Intervention.” In Cosmopolitanism in Context, edited by Roland Pierik, and Wouter Werner, 155–178. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Transparency International. 2014. “Overview of corruption and anti-corruption in Chad.” Accessed https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/answer/overview_of_corruption_and_anti_corruption_in_chad.Google Scholar
Viehoff, Daniel. 2014. “Democratic Equality and Political Authority.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 42(4):337–375.Google Scholar
Wantchekon, Leonard. 2002. “Why Do Resource Dependent Countries Have Authoritarian Governments?” Journal of African Finance and Economic Development 5:57–77.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 1988. The right to Private Property. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 1992. “Superseding Historic Injustice.” Ethics 103:4–28.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 1994. “The Advantages and Difficulties of the Human Theory of Property.” Social Philosophy and Policy 11:85–123.Google Scholar
Wenar, Leif. 1998. “Original Acquisition of Private Property.” Mind 107:799–819.Google Scholar
Wenar, Leif. 2003. “What We Owe to Distant Others.” Politics, Philosophy and Economics 2:283–304.Google Scholar
Wenar, Leif. 2006. “Reparations for the Future.” Journal of Social Philosophy 37:377–405.Google Scholar
Wenar, Leif. 2008. “Property Rights and the Resource Curse.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 36:2–32.Google Scholar
Wenar, Leif. 2010a. “Poverty is No Pond: Challenges for the Affluent.” In Giving Well: The Ethics of Philanthropy, edited by Patricia Illingworth, Thomas Pogge, and Leif Wenar, 104–132. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wenar, Leif. 2010b. “Realistic Reform of International Trade in Resources.” In Jaggar, Pogge and His Critics, 123–150. London: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Wenar, Leif. 2011. “Clean Trade in Natural Resources.” Ethics & International Affairs 25:27–39.Google Scholar
Wenar, Leif. 2016. Blood Oil. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wiens, David. 2015. “Natural Resources and Government Responsiveness.” Politics, Philosophy and Economics 14:84–105.Google Scholar
Wisor, Scott. 2011. “Against Shallow Ponds: An Argument Against Singer’s Approach to Global Poverty.” Journal of Global Ethics 7:19–32.Google Scholar
Wisor, Scott. 2016. “Conditional Coercion Versus Rights Diagnostics.” Politics, Philosophy and Economics 15(4):405–423.Google Scholar