''World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms'' is a 2002 book by

Thomas Pogge Thomas Winfried Menko Pogge (; born 13 August 1953) is a German philosopher and is the Director of the Global Justice Program and Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University, United States. In addition to his Yale ...

. In the book, Pogge explains that the poorest 44% of humankind have 1.3% of global income and their purchasing power per person per day is less than that of $2.15 in the US in 1993; 826 million of them do not have enough to eat. One-third of all human deaths are from

poverty Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...

-related causes: 18 million annually, including 12 million children under five.World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms
/ref> At the other end of the spectrum, the 15% of humankind in the

developed countries A developed country, or advanced country, is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy, and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Most commonly, the criteria for eval ...

have 80% of global income. Pogge argues that shifting 1 or 2% of the wealthy states' share toward poverty eradication is morally compelling. Yet most of the affluent believe that they have no such responsibility and Thomas Pogge's book seeks to explain how this belief is sustained. He analyzes how the "moral and economic theorizing and our global economic order" have adapted to make the wealthy states appear disconnected from mass poverty abroad. Dispelling the illusion, he also offers a normative standard of global

economic justice Economic justice is a component of social justice and welfare economics. It is a set of moral and ethical principles for building economic institutions, where the ultimate goal is to create an opportunity for each person to establish a sufficie ...

and makes detailed, realistic proposals toward fulfilling it. Pogge argues that at the cost of two thirds of the

US military The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. U.S. federal law names six armed forces: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and the Coast Guard. Since 1949, all of the armed forces, except th ...

's expenditures, wealthy states could largely eradicate poverty. The global rich have a duty to eradicate poverty because they have violated the principal of justice not to cause undue harm to others by their coercive global order.Ethical Theory and Moral PracticeVol. 7, No. 5 (January 2005), pp. 537-550

References

2002 non-fiction books British non-fiction books Books about poverty Books about globalization Polity (publisher) books {{poverty-stub