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 specially difficult areas
disfavoured by climate, geography, local diseases, unenlightened
cultures or political tyranny. Here 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 until the last pockets of severe oppression and
poverty are gone.
Heavily promoted by Western governments and media, this
comforting view of the world is widely shared, at least among the
affluent. 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 humanitarian intervention. A powerful moral
analysis that shows what Western states would do if they really
cared about the values they profess.
