Absolute Poverty and Global Justice: Empirical Data - Moral Theories - Initiatives

Absolute poverty causes about one third of all human deaths, some 18 million annually, and blights billions of lives with hunger and disease. Developing universalizable norms aimed at tackling absolute poverty and the complex and multilayered problems associated with it, this book considers the levels, trends and determinants of absolute poverty and global inequality. Examining whether much faster progress against absolute poverty is possible through reductions in national and global inequalities that produce economic growth for poor countries and households, this book suggests that diverse moral views imply that international agencies as well as the citizens, corporations and governments of affluent countries bear a moral responsibility to reduce absolute poverty. In considering strategies of eradication through specific policies and structural reforms it is argued that because of its moral importance and requirement for only modest efforts and resources, the goal of overcoming absolute poverty must be given much higher political priority by international agencies and governments of affluent countries. Suggesting that these agencies should be encouraged to facilitate and promote new initiatives, this book concludes with a discussion of how such initiatives might be realized.

Elke Mack is Professor of Christian Social Science at the Department of Christian Social Ethics, University of Erfurt, Germany. Michael Schramm is Professor at the Department of Catholic Theology and Business Ethics, University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim, Germany. Stephan Klasen is Professor at the Department of Development Economics, University of GA?ttingen, Germany. Thomas Pogge is a German philosopher, currently Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University, Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the Australian National University, Research Director in the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature at the University of Oslo, and Adjunct Professor in the Centre for Professional Ethics at the University of Central Lancashire