LEAP, 1 (2013) Poverty and Violence* THOMAS POGGE Yale University Abstract Citizens of affluent countries bear a far greater responsibility for world pov- erty than they typically realise. This is so because poverty is more severe, more widespread and more avoidable than officially acknowledged and also because it is substantially aggravated by supranational institutional arrange- ments that are designed and imposed by the governments and elites of the more powerful states. It may seem that this analysis of world poverty implies that citizens of affluent countries have forfeited their right not to be killed in the course of a redistributive war and that such a war would be both just and permissible. In fact, however, it has none of these three implications. This finding should be welcomed insofar as violence and macho talk of vio- lence are in our world highly counterproductive responses to the injustice of poverty. Keywords: forfeiture of rights, human rights, inequality, infringement of rights, injustice, just war theory, liability to violence, Lippert-Rasmussen, negative responsibility, redistributive war, remote hypotheticals. 1. INTRODUCTION Violence and poverty are the two cardinal evils of human history. They stand out because they are human-made: evils humanity inflicts upon itself or, more accurately, evils human beings inflict on one another. They stand out also because each of them destroys vastly more human potential than natu- ral calamities, such as diseases and natural catastrophes, whose effects they hugely magnify in any case. Violence and poverty are the greatest challenges in our struggle to maintain faith in humanity; many have lost this faith for- ever in the face of the Holocaust, the devastation of Vietnam, the Rwandan genocide, or the ongoing massive deprivations imposed upon the world’s poor: from starvation to human trafficking. Freedom from violence and * Many thanks to Lynn Tong and Andrew Williams for their very helpful comments and suggestions. 88 Thomas Pogge LEAP, 1 (2013) poverty are central to our otherwise diverse dreams of a redeeming human future, in which no child’s physical and mental development is stunted by malnutrition or forced labour, in which no woman is subservient from fear of want or beatings, in which —forever safe from violence and poverty— all human beings can freely develop and express their thoughts, cultivate and contribute their talents. Given these sentiments, it is troubling to be told by Kasper Lippert-Ras- mussen that my analysis of world poverty should make me more accepting of (what he calls) redistributive wars. Unconvinced by his claim, I will here lay out my reasons for a far-reaching though not unconditional commit- ment to pursue justice by non-violent means. I will begin with a thumbnail sketch of my analysis of world poverty and then address the reasons Lippert- Rasmussen presents for believing that this analysis commits me to an en- dorsement of redistributive violence. 2. POVERTY AS AN INSTITUTIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION The latest figures from the World Bank put the global median income at just under $3 per person per day in 2005 international dollars.1 This means that, at the median, people could consume about as much each day as could have been bought in 2005 with USD 3 in the United States or with GBP 1.98 in the United Kingdom)2 —or as much as can today (2013) be bought with USD 3.57 in the United States or with GBP 2.50 in the United Kingdom.3 It is safe to say that people living at this level are very poor indeed. This judgment is reinforced by two important facts. First, because foodstuffs are tradable commodities, their prices in poor countries are uniformly higher than the World Bank’s purchasing power parities suggest— fully 50 percent higher on average (Pogge 2010: n. 127). This means that a person at the global me- dian could in 2008 buy only as much food as could be bought in 2005 with USD 2 in the United States or with GBP 1.32 in the United Kingdom. This is 1. See http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/index.htm?1 and input there a monthly poverty line of $91.20 to find a 2008 poverty headcount of 3,400 million. The World Bank esti- mates the human population in 2008 at 6,692 million —see World Bank (2010: 379)—. The ex- pression “international dollars” indicates that the 2005 incomes of poor people have been con- verted into US dollars at 2005 purchasing power parities for individual household consumption expenditure. Using this conversion, the World Bank would convert a 2005 income of 47 Indian Rupees per day into $3 international dollars even while this same 47 Rupees could have bought only USD 1 on the currency exchange market. 2. In terms of individual consumption expenditure by households, USD 1 in 2005 was worth as much as GBP 0.66 in the same year. See World Bank (2008: 35). 3. See www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm (14 January, 2013) for consumer price inflation in the United States and www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/cpi/consumer-price-indices/july-2012/ index.html for consumer price inflation in the United Kingdom. Poverty and Violence 8�8� LEAP, significant because poorer people spend a much larger proportion of their income on food than the general population does. Second, the poorer half of humankind is living not at the median income but on average 48 percent below this level.4 In fact, the World Bank calculates that in 2008 fully 1,740 million human beings lived on less than $1.50 per person per day in 2005 international dollars,5 deemed equivalent to what could have been bought in 2005 with USD 1.50 in the United States or with GBP 0.99 in the United Kingdom. It is obvious that such minuscule incomes are associated with severe deprivations and vulnerabilities. According to the official statistics, about 868 million human beings are chronically hungry and undernourished (FAO 2012: 46),6 884 million lack access to improved drinking water (UNI- CEF 2010), 2.5 billion lack access to improved sanitation (UNICEF n.d.), and almost 2 billion lack regular access to essential medicines ( WHO, 2004: 3). Over 1 billion lack adequate shelter (UN-HABITAT 2003: xxv), 1.6 billion lack electricity (UN-HABITAT n.d.), 775 million adults are illiterate (UNESCO 2012), and 215 million children are child labourers (ILO n.d.). Even more shocking is the number of people who die from poverty-related causes. According to the World Health Organization, roughly one third of all human deaths, 18 million every year, are from causes such as diarrhea, tuberculosis, maternal conditions, and respiratory infections —all easily preventable through access to safe drinking water, improved sanitation, more adequate nutrition, rehydration packs, and vaccines and other medi- cines ( WHO 2008: 54-59). These conditions are all but non-existent among the affluent. And again, they account for roughly one third of all human deaths. To put that in perspective, in the last twenty-two years since the end of the Cold War some 400 million people died from poverty-related causes. This is about twice as many as died from government violence —wars, concentration camps, gulags, genocides— in the entire twentieth century. We can glean a superficial explanation of these massive deprivations, and an indication of their avoidability, by looking at how the global distribu- tion of household income, assessed at prevailing market exchange rates, has evolved. 4. Return to http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/index.htm?1 and divide the poverty gap by the headcount. 5. Revisit http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/index.htm?1 and input there a month- ly poverty line of $45.60 to find a 2008 poverty headcount of 1,740 million. 6. Other estimates contend that some 900 million people are undernourished in India alone, see www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-13/early-death-assured-in-india-where-900-mil- lion-go-hungry.html. �0 Thomas Pogge LEAP, 1 (2013) Table 1 The distribution of global household income, 1988 and 2005, converted at market exchange rates7 Segment of World Population Share of Global Household Income 1988 Share of Global Household Income 2005 Absolute Change in Income Share Relative Change in Income Share Richest 5 Percent 42.87 46.36 +3.49 +8.1% Next 20 Percent 46.63 43.98 –2.65 –5.7% Second Quarter 6.97 6.74 –0.23 –3.3% Third Quarter 2.37 2.14 –0.23 –9.7% Poorest Quarter 1.16 0.78 –0.38 –32.8% It is worth highlighting four salient facts from this table: 1. In just 17 years, the richest five percent of human beings have gained more (3.49%) than the poorer half had left at the end of this period (2.92%). 2. The ratio of average incomes of the richest five percent and the poor- est quarter rose from 185:1 to 297:1 in this 1988-2005 period. 3. Had the poorer half held steady, its 2005 share of global household income would have been 21% higher (3.53% instead of 2.92%). Had the poorest quarter held steady, its 2005 share of global household income would have been 49% higher (1.16% instead of 0.78%). 4. Had it been allowed to gain the 3.49% of global household income that was in fact gained by the richest five percent, the poorer half would have more than doubled its share to 7.02% in 2005. This would have sufficed to bring all human beings above the 2008 actual median income of $3 (2005 international dollars). And it would still have left 93% of global household income for the richer half of humankind. These are purely mathematical points about the rapid polarization, in the 1988-2005 period, of the global household income distribution —they do not begin to explain why this polarization has taken place. In my judg- ment, an important driver of this polarization was the rapid development 7. These data were kindly supplied by Branko Milanovic, principal economist in the World Bank’s Development Research Group, in a personal e-mail communication of 25 April 2010. See also Milanovic (2012). Milanovic’s latest figures are for 2008 and show a decline in inequality after the global financial crisis (personal e-mail communication of 7 December 2012). Poverty and Violence ���� LEAP, 1 (2013) of an increasingly dense and influential global network of rules along with a proliferating set of new international, supranational, and multinational ac- tors. These transnational rules and actors shape and regulate not only the ever-growing share of interactions that traverse national borders, but in- creasingly also reach deep into the domestic life of (especially the poorer) national societies by pre-empting, constraining and shaping national leg- islation. This dramatic shift, since the late 1980s, of law and regulation from the national to supranational levels drives global economic polarization be- cause supranational rules are not formulated through the kind of transpar- ent, democratic procedures that characterize national law-making in the countries that have reached some basic level of domestic justice. Rather, supranational rules emerge through intergovernmental negotiations from which the general public and even the majority of weaker governments are excluded. The public does not know in real time what proposals are being debated and learns the content of the new rules only after they have been adopted. Even then there is no accountability because no information is re- leased on how the final text emerged from the initial negotiating positions through pressures exerted and compromises proposed by the various par- ticipating states. This shrouded rule-making environment is ideal for cost-effective lobby- ing by a few powerful organizations and individuals, including large multi- national corporations, banks, industry associations and billionaires, which have the resources and incentives, and can acquire the requisite expertise, successfully to lobby the governments that dominate supranational rule- making. Undisturbed by competing inputs from the rest of humankind, this tiny elite can divide the new regulatory terrain amongst themselves, with each powerful player making concessions in areas where it has relatively less at stake in exchange for other such players making reciprocal concessions in other areas where it has relatively more at stake. Without any malice to- ward the excluded, such accommodations must be expected to result in su- pranational arrangements that further strengthen and enrich those who are already the strongest and most affluent —at the expense of all the rest. The massive persistence of severe deprivation is then an unintended but fore- seeable effect of vigorous lobbying by the most powerful economic agents who have been successful in promoting the upward shift of rule-making to supranational levels where it is easy game for their competitive efforts to shape the rules and the application of these rules in their own favour. If this explanation has merit, one would expect the greatest beneficiaries to be the richest firms and individuals in the most influential countries — es- pecially in the United States because this country is still the dominant player in supranational negotiations and because US politicians and officials are �2 Thomas Pogge LEAP, 1 (2013) substantially softer targets for lobbying than those of nearly all other power- ful countries.8 This expectation is indeed borne out: Table 2 Evolution of the top shares of US national household income9 Segment of U.S. Population Share of U.S. House- hold Income 1928 Share of U.S. House- hold Income 1978 Share of U.S. House- hold Income 2007 Absolute Change in Income Share 1978- 2007 Relative Change in Income Share Richest 0.01 Percent 5.02 0.86 6.04 +5.18 +602% Next 0.09 Percent 6.52 1.79 6.24 +4.45 +249% Next 0.4 Percent 7.86 3.51 7.04 +3.53 +101% Next 0.5 Percent 4.54 2.79 4.19 +1.40 +50% Next 4 Percent 14.62 13.09 15.17 +2.08 +16% Next 5 Percent 10.73 11.45 11.07 –0.38 –3% Remaining 90 Percent 50.71 66.51 50.25 –16.26 –24% The table shows how very concentrated the gains have been at the very top of the US income pyramid, where the share of the richest 1/100th of one percent of the US population has increased by a factor of 7 over merely 29 years. With annual incomes in the tens of millions or more, these super-rich —some 14,400 tax returns representing about 30,000 people— collectively controlled in 2007 about half as much income as the bottom half of the US population (some 150 million people) and more income than the poorest 40 percent of humanity (about 2,650 million people). Dramatically defying the Kuznets curve,10 these data support my hypothesis that the increasing 8. In the US, candidates for political office need vast sums of money to win because pri- vate individuals, corporations and other interested parties can spend unlimited amounts in support of political campaigns (cf. note 12 below). 9. Data from Alvaredo et al., n.d. . Subsequent data show that top income shares declined in 2008 and 2009, then began rising again in 2010. 10. Named after Simon Kuznets, this curve graphically represents the hypothesis that an initial rise in income inequality, associated with the early stages of a country’s economic de- velopment, is harmless because income inequality will go back down in later phases. This did indeed happen in US history —a dramatic increase in economic inequality preceding the Great Depression followed by a substantial decrease in the half-century thereafter. This decrease was, however, completely reversed by a rapid build-up of economic inequality in the subsequent three decades (1978-2007). Poverty and Violence ���� LEAP, 1 (2013) marginalization of the poor is the flipside of a massive trend of regulatory capture that drives a powerful inequality spiral. Tiny elites in the most pow- erful countries influence their governments (i) to shift rule-making upward to supranational levels where it can be exempted from democratic account- ability and then (ii) to shape these rules and their application for the benefit of themselves. Insofar as these efforts are successful, the elites in question gain economic and political power, which renders them ever more capable of influencing in their own favour the governments that matter in the inter- national arena. The US economic polarization and consequent economic and political marginalization of the poorer 90 percent of the US population illustrate that the increase in global economic inequality is now mainly due to rising intra- national inequality which, while certainly influenced by domestic factors and resistible by domestic political processes, is favoured and facilitated by the WTO globalization of the last two decades. The process involves not merely a marginalization of the global poor but also a rapid erosion of democracy in many states, such as the US, which were substantially more democratic 30 or 40 years ago. The erosion of democracy in the United States is not in the interest of the poorer 90 percent of the US population who certainly have the political power to democratize their political system 11 by constraining the enormous influence money exerts on domestic legislation and on the design of US foreign policy (esp. in regard to international rules and treaties relating to trade and investment). The poorer 90 percent need to achieve such a de- mocratization in order to protect their own interests and to fulfill their moral responsibility to oversee their government. But the political mobilization to- ward achieving such democratization is increasingly difficult to accomplish when the rich control the commercial media and, thanks to inordinate elec- tion spending,12 the political parties as well. Magnifying inequality and aggravating poverty, the following are among the more important injustices of existing supranational institutional ar- rangements which the citizens of the more influential countries have a re- sponsibility to compel their governments to overcome: 1. The new global trading regime epitomized by the World Trade Orga- nization (WTO) Treaty was supposed to release large collective gains 11. Even against the determined resistance of the US Supreme Court which, most recently in its judgment in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (558 U.S. 50, 2010), insisted that the First Amendment to the US Constitution (“Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”) entitles corporations to spend unlimited amounts on “electioneering communications”. 12. About $6 billion have been spent on influencing the outcome of the 2012 US elec- tions; see www.businessweek.com/news/2012-10-31/election-costs-to-exceed-6-billion-in-2012- research-group-says. �4 Thomas Pogge LEAP, 1 (2013) through free and open markets. But the regime is rigged, permitting rich states to continue to protect their markets through tariffs and anti-dumping duties and to gain larger world market shares through export credits and subsidies (including some $252 billion annually in agriculture alone) that poor countries cannot afford to match (OECD 2012: 15).13 Since production is much more labour-intensive in poor than in affluent countries, such protectionist measures destroy many more jobs than they preserve. 2. The TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights) Agreement, imposed on developing countries as a condition of WTO membership, secures technologically advanced countries large streams of revenues for use of their intellectual property while effec- tively excluding poor people from important innovations in pharma- cology and agriculture (see Pogge 2009). 3. Under the existing trade rules, affluent countries and their firms buy huge quantities of natural resources from the rulers of developing countries without regard for how such leaders came to power and how they exercise power. In many cases, this amounts to collabora- tion in the theft of these resources from their owners, the country’s people. It also enriches their oppressors, thereby entrenching the oppression: tyrants sell us the natural resources of their victims and then use the proceeds to buy the weapons they need to keep them- selves in power (see Pogge 2008: ch. 6; Wenar 2008). 4. Under existing lending rules, affluent countries and their banks are encouraged to lend money to such illegitimate rulers and compel the country’s people to repay it even after the ruler is gone. Many poor populations are still severely burdened by the debts that, much against their will, kept their erstwhile oppressors in power: people such as Suharto in Indonesia, Mobutu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Abacha in Nigeria. 5. The international banking system is structured to facilitate the em- bezzlement of funds by public officials in less developed countries by allowing foreign banks to accept such funds. This complicity could easily be avoided: banks are already under strict reporting require- ments with regard to funds suspected of being related to terrorism or drug trafficking. Yet Western banks still eagerly accept and manage embezzled funds, with governments ensuring that their financial in- stitutions remain attractive for such illicit deposits. Global Financial 13. Also stating that in 2011 government subsidies accounted for 19 percent of gross farm receipts in OECD countries. Poverty and Violence ���� LEAP, 1 (2013) Integrity (GFI) estimates that less developed countries have in this way lost at least $342 billion annually during the 2000-2008 period (Kar and Curcio 2011).14 6. Global accounting rules enable multinational corporations to avoid paying tax in the less developed countries. Since they are not required to do country-by-country reporting, such corporations can easily ma- nipulate transfer prices among their subsidiaries to concentrate their profits where these are taxed the least. As a result, they may report no profit in the countries in which they do most of their extraction, manufacture or selling of goods or services, having their worldwide profits taxed instead in some tax haven where they only have a paper presence. GFI estimates that, during the 2002-2006 period, trade mis- pricing deprived less developed countries of $98.4 billion per annum in tax revenues (Hollingshead 2012: 15 table 2). 7. Under existing rules, the more affluent countries can pollute at will without compensating for the harms they thereby impose, such as serious health hazards, extreme weather events, rising sea levels and climate change, to all of which poor populations are especially vul- nerable. A report by the Global Humanitarian Forum estimated that climate change is already seriously affecting 325 million people and is annually causing $125 billion in economic losses as well as 300,000 deaths of which 99% are in less developed countries (Global Human- itarian Forum 2009: 1, 78). By upholding supranational institutional arrangements that are badly slanted in favour of the world’s richest individuals and corporations, the leading national governments are massively violating the human rights of the poorer half of humanity whom these same supranational institutional arrangements foreseeably and avoidably keep in life-threatening poverty. The responsibility for this largest human rights violation of all time is shared by citizens of the more influential states who —even when they do not ben- efit from the injustice— are implicated in the wrongs and injustices their governments contribute to. 3. THE MAIN CLAIMS UNDER DISCUSSION Lippert-Rasmussen states the central thrust of his argument as follows: “if Pogge’s analysis of global poverty is correct, poor countries could start just 14. This outflow is over four times larger than all official development assistance, which, during the same period, averaged $83.7 billion annually, of which only $8.1 billion was allocated to “basic social services” (UN n.d.). �6 Thomas Pogge LEAP, 1 (2013) and, even possibly, morally permissible redistributive wars against us pro- vided various conditions are met. [...] Indeed, given the stakes at hand they could do so without wronging us, even if these wars would involve a very large number of civilian casualties in rich countries” (Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 67). The scenario here contemplated is that a coalition of poor coun- tries —Lippert-Rasmussen imagines it to consist of African countries and India— forms around the goal of achieving a less unjust structuring of su- of achieving a less unjust structuring of su-of achieving a less unjust structuring of su- pranational institutional arrangements and that this coalition goes to war against the dominant alliance of capitalist democracies, killing large num- bers of civilians in the latter. There is no prospect of the ruling elites of Africa and India agreeing, for the sake of ending world poverty, to form a military coalition strong enough to kill large numbers of civilians in the US or Eu- rope. So we are entering here the philosopher’s playground of far-fetched hypotheticals, exploring whether one of them might reveal embarrassing implications of my analysis on global poverty. Lippert-Rasmussen points to three such potentially embarrassing implications. He asserts that, were my analysis of global poverty correct, then a redistributive war waged by poor countries and expected to kill a very large number of civilians (and, I pre- and expected to kill a very large number of civilians (and, I pre-kill a very large number of civilians (and, I pre- sume, soldiers) in the rich countries (1) would not wrong these casualties, (2) would be a just war and (3) might be a morally permissible war. It makes sense to put the three claims in this order to display their rela- tions. Claim 1 is the simplest. It says that, if my analysis of global poverty is correct, then the civilians of the affluent countries have forfeited their right not to be killed by poor countries’ military forces which are attacking for the sake of achieving a less unjust global economic order. If this claim is true, it helps support Claim 2. To judge that a resort to war is just (in the jus ad bellum sense), one must find inter alia that the harm it can be expected to inflict upon the attacked is not disproportionate to the cause for which this war is fought. Such a finding requires that one balance the moral cost of the harm the attack can be expected to inflict against the moral good the attack is meant to achieve if successful. If Claim 1 were true, then the moral cost of the harm the attack can be expected to inflict would be much smaller than usual because it would not involve any infringement of the rights of those whom the attack will kill or harm in the affluent countries. If Claim 1 were true, then the only morally weighty harm to be considered would be what- ever collateral damage the attack can be expected to inflict upon innocent civilians who are residing in but are not citizens of the target countries 15 or upon populations of poor countries that would be affected by radioactive 15. The attacks on the World Trade Center of 9-11-2001 killed and harmed a large number of resident aliens doing various low-level jobs in or around the site. The same would be true of Lippert-Rasmussen’s redistributive war, involving large-scale military attacks that “would in- volve a very large number of civilian casualties in rich countries”. Poverty and Violence ���� LEAP, 1 (2013) fall-out, for example, or by the loss of trade with the rich countries under attack. Claim 3 is the most complex one. When pondering the moral permissibil- ity of going to war, one must take into account all considerations relevant to assessing whether the war is just or not —the fact that a resort to war is un- just certainly counts against its moral permissibility. But one must take more into account as shown by the fact that a resort to war can be just and none- theless morally impermissible. This might be so on account of the harms the defending side can be expected to inflict, notably on the attacking countries and their populations. Even when there are good prospects of winning, it may not be morally permissible to take one’s country to war if the antici- pated victory would exact an exorbitant sacrifice from one’s own people or from third parties. With these preliminary clarifications of the three claims, we can now dis- cuss them in order. 4. LIABILITY TO BEING KILLED BY REDISTRIBUTIVE ATTACKS Claim 1 asserts that, were my analysis of global poverty correct, then poor countries could wage a redistributive war against the affluent countries responsible for imposing the present global institutional order and in this war kill a very large number of civilians in the rich countries without wronging these civilians. Referring to civilians in the affluent countries, Lippert-Rasmussen uses the phrase “without wronging us” rather than “without doing anything wrong”. This choice of phrase is deliberate and significant, as he goes on to explain: “in relation to jus in bello it is com- mon to distinguish between liability to being attacked and its being per- missible to attack one. A person who is liable to attack is not wronged when he is attacked. He has no right not to be attacked that is either in- fringed or violated when he is attacked. It might nevertheless be the case that it is impermissible to attack him, say, because attacking him will lead to very bad consequences” (Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 80-81).16 At issue here is then not the common judgment that it is sometimes not wrong, at least in a just war, to do things that one knows will kill enemy civilians. This common judgment does not imply that enemy civilians have no right not to be killed. Rather, this common judgment holds that the right to life of enemy civilians is sometimes outweighed by the importance of achiev- ing some military objective, for example the destruction of an enemy mu- 16. Lippert-Rasmussen adds in a footnote that his special notion of liability is borrowed from McMahan (2009: 10). �8 Thomas Pogge LEAP, 1 (2013) nitions factory. In such cases, the rights of enemy civilians are permissibly infringed and therefore not violated.17 What Claim 1 identifies as an implication of my analysis of global pov- erty is not the common judgment just rehearsed but a far more radical view: namely, that the citizens of the affluent countries, in virtue of their shared re- sponsibility for imposing the present global institutional order, have forfeit- ed a substantial component of their right not to be killed. As a consequence of this forfeiture, what would otherwise be an impermissible infringement (violation) or a permissible infringement of their rights ceases to be so; the citizens of affluent countries no longer possess the rights that would be in- fringed by killing them in a redistributive war.18 Radical as this idea of forfeiture is, it is limited in two dimensions. Ac- cording to what Lippert-Rasmussen presents as a consequence of my analy- sis of global poverty, citizens of the relevant affluent countries have not fully forfeited their right not to be killed against any and all potential attackers acting for any possible ends. Rather, they have forfeited merely a component of this right, limited in both dimensions: they have forfeited their right not to be killed specifically against attackers who are fighting a redistributive war and acting to advance the redistributive cause for which that war is fought.19 Claim 1 is then that, if my analysis of global poverty is correct, then the citi- then the citi-citi- zens of the affluent countries responsible for imposing the present global institutional order have forfeited their right not to be killed in the pursuit of a war waged by poor countries for the sake of enforcing appropriate supra- national institutional reforms. The consequent of Claim 1 —the view that entire national populations have, on account of their government’s conduct, forfeited a substantial component of their right not to be killed— is extremely heterodox, and of course meant to be so. It flies in the face of the widely professed idea that basic human rights are inalienable: can never be waived, forfeited or re- scinded. According to this idea, even the most heinous murderer and the 17. This distinction was first drawn in these terms, I believe, by Judith Jarvis Thomson. See e. g. Thomson (1990: 122). Note that she defines violations of rights as impermissible infringe- ments of rights; rights violations are thus a subset of rights infringements, not their comple- ment. 18. In the words of McMahan: “To attack someone who is liable to be attacked is neither to violate nor to infringe that person’s right, for the person’s being liable to attack just is his having forfeited his right not to be attacked, in the circumstances” (2009: 10). 19. Again, McMahan: “the form of forfeiture that corresponds to liability to attack in war is highly specific. For a person to cease to be innocent in war, all that is necessary is the forfei- ture of the right not to be attacked for certain reasons, by certain persons, in certain conditions. There is no loss of rights in general, nor even any loss of the right against attack, understood as a right that holds against all agents at all times. The right against attack is instead forfeited only in relation to certain persons acting for certain reasons in a particular context” (2009: 10). Poverty and Violence ���� LEAP, 1 (2013) most dangerous attacker have a right not to be killed, so that the former may be executed only if we have no other reasonable way of preventing him from murdering again and the latter may be killed in self-defence only if there is no other reasonable way of stopping her attack. To be sure, there are some people who believe in rights forfeiture, who believe, for example, that one may stop an attack by a dangerous criminal with a shot through the heart even when a shot to the leg would work as effectively. But even among these dissidents nearly everyone would find utterly absurd the idea that, as a result of their governments’ contributions to imposing poverty-aggravat- ing supranational institutional arrangements, entire national populations —presumably including some 510 million people in the European Union, some 350 million people in North America and some 130 million people in Japan— can forfeit a substantial component of their right to life. One rea- One rea- son for finding this idea absurd is the fact that these national populations contain very large numbers of children and adolescents, many more or less active opponents of current government policies toward the world’s poor, and also many people who, poor or poorly educated, are themselves victims of economic injustice.20 Lippert-Rasmussen does not assert that I have ever expressed the ex- tremely heterodox view or that I hold it. He merely asserts that it follows from my analysis of global poverty and that I am in this sense committed to it. How does he justify this stunning conclusion? He does so by analogy: “if Pogge’s analysis of the causes of global poverty is correct, our relation to poor countries is morally equivalent to one in which we each year killed 18 million of them by military means” (Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 68) or to one in which “we —people living in rich countries— killed 18 million people in India and Africa each year by sending them poisoned food to save ourselves from some rather insignificant costs” (Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 66). Lippert-Rasmus- sen appeals to these analogies in support of all three of his claims, but for now our focus is exclusively on Claim 1 concerning rights forfeiture. 20. Lipper-Rasmussen deals with the last of these groups by simply assuming it away: “My defence of these claims is based on a number of simplifying assumptions. One is that the world divides into two groups of states: poor states populated with poor people only and rich states populated with rich people only. Hence, in my hypothetical world when a poor state attacks a rich country, it is in effect poor people waging war against rich people” (Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 67). In reference to the second group of government opponents, he writes: “I ignore the is-). In reference to the second group of government opponents, he writes: “I ignore the is- sue of responsibility in relation to rich people who oppose their government’s policies on global justice issues and try to resist them in vain” (Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 67). His thoughts on the first, largest group of children and adolescents remain unknown; but of course the options of ignoring them or assuming them away are equally available in their case. Presumably then the discussion is about what implications my analysis of global poverty has in a hypothetical world in which the EU, the US and Japan are inhabited exclusively by rich people over the age of 18 who are fully supportive of their governments’ policies toward the world’s poor. �00 Thomas Pogge LEAP, 1 (2013) A justification by analogy can be defeated in two ways: by showing either (i) that the supposed analogy does not hold or (ii) that the relevant claim fails even in the supposedly analogous scenario. I choose strategy (ii), granting for present purposes that the cases are indeed analogous. Suppose then that the affluent countries, which are in fact imposing unjust supranational institu- tional arrangements, were instead using their armed forces to continuously kill 18 million citizens of poor countries each year. It is apparently obvious to Lippert-Rasmussen that, in this parallel scenario, the citizens of these lethal affluent countries forfeit their right not to be killed in a self-defensive coun- ter strike by the poor countries. This is not obvious to me; in fact, I find this parallel forfeiture claim obviously false. I believe that basic human rights are inalienable and thus retained even by the most heinous criminals and most dangerous attackers as well as by citizens who condone extremely deadly and unjust military campaigns their countries are conducting abroad and also, of course, by the remaining citizens of these countries including chil- dren, dissenters and marginalized groups. I do not deny that it may well be permissible to kill such citizens in self-defence. I merely add that, when this is permissible, it is so not because they have forfeited a component of their right to life, but because the moral importance of defensive action outweighs their right to life and thus renders its infringement permissible.21 Lippert- Rasmussen’s analogy does not in any way move me toward accepting the extremely heterodox view he seeks to foist upon me. There is an interesting historical episode during which many protagonists seem to have believed in the kind of collective rights forfeiture that Lippert- Rasmussen’s invoked analogy suggests. This episode is World War II, which was triggered by the highly unjust and expansionist military aggressions of Japan and Germany which were killing millions of foreigners each year. Did all German and Japanese citizens forfeit their right not to be killed by those who sought to stop their countries’ aggression? The aerial attacks conducted by the Allies toward the end of the war certainly suggest the belief in an affirmative answer. Even after the outcome of the war was no longer in doubt, the Allies firebombed German cities of minuscule strategic value (Dresden), and the US did the same in Japan while also dropping two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Millions of civilians were burned alive for trivial military advan- tage as if they had indeed forfeited their right not to be killed in this way. With Elizabeth Anscombe (1981: 62-71), I believe that these terror bomb- ings were deeply wrong. Of course, I recognize that they still have their de- 21. In such cases, it would be colloquially entirely correct to say that such citizens are liable to being killed in self-defence. But this is not the special sense of the word that Lippert- Rasmussen has chosen to work with. According to his definition, quoted at the beginning of this section, someone is liable to being killed only if s/he has no right not to be killed. Poverty and Violence �0��0� LEAP, 1 (2013) fenders. But consider how these defences are formulated. All the more recent defences I have seen argue that the bombings were (or at least seemed at the time) the best feasible way to bring the war to a speedy conclusion. I do not know of anyone who has argued, well after the war, that the citizens of Ger- many and Japan had forfeited their rights and were therefore available to be killed by the millions for trifling military advantages. I conclude then that, if Lippert-Rasmussen’s analogy holds, then it works in my favour. It is highly im- plausible to hold that the citizens of a country that is responsible for extreme- ly harmful and unjust military campaigns forfeit their right not to be killed by those whom their country is attacking. By analogy, it should then also be considered highly implausible to hold that the citizens of a country that is re- to hold that the citizens of a country that is re-to hold that the citizens of a country that is re- sponsible for extremely harmful and unjust economic policies abroad forfeit their right not to be killed by those who are harmed by these policies. Lippert-Rasmussen’s essay clearly fails to establish Claim 1. Even if the analogy he invokes holds, it shows no more than that my analysis of global poverty commits me to the following disjunction. I must either embrace the extremely heterodox view: that the citizens of many affluent countries have forfeited a substantial component of their right to life. Or I must embrace the view that citizens do not forfeit a substantial component of their right to life when their countries engage in highly unjust and lethal aggression abroad. Since I do in fact embrace the second disjunct, there is no reason to saddle me with the first.22 5. JUST REDISTRIBUTIVE WARS Lippert-Rasmussen’s Claim 2 is that “poor countries waging redistributive wars against us [the affluent countries and their citizens] are acting justly giv- en Pogge’s analysis of the causes of global poverty” (Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 68). The claim is difficult to assess because of three significant unclarities. First, it is unclear whether we are meant to focus on the actual world, the focus of my own work, or on some or all of Lippert-Rasmussen’s thinly sketched but very different hypothetical worlds. Second, it is unclear which just-war theory we are using to make the assessment, as Lippert-Rasmussen is criticizing and revising central features of the traditional theory as he goes along. Third, it is unclear by reference to what moral standard Lippert-Rasmus- sen is criticizing and revising traditional just-war theory. There are at least two 22. Lippert-Rasmussen writes: “if ever there is a situation in which, say, the shop assistant at Macy’s is liable to attack in a defensive war waged against her country’s unjust aggression, the same applies to a situation in which her country takes part in imposing an unjust global structure” (Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 67-68). I do not deny the conditional, but I do deny both its antecedent and its consequent. �02 Thomas Pogge LEAP, 1 (2013) importantly different ways of describing the task of just-war theory. Accord- ing to a transcendent account, just-war theory aims to provide the true crite- ria for deciding —from a God’s eye point of view, as it were— which resorts to war, and which actions in war, are right or wrong. According to a realistic account, just-war theory aims to provide —for the use of real human beings in the thick of history— a set of rules that can work well as a moral standard in the world as we know it to reduce the suffering of war. There are various reasons for why the rules of a realistic account will differ from the true criteria of a transcendent account. One is that human beings cannot anticipate all possible scenarios and, in any case, rules we are to apply to actual situations cannot be effective if their complexity overtaxes human capacities of inter- pretation and application. Another reason is that human beings, often highly interested in justifying some particular military action, are likely to misapply complex rules in their own favour. It is then morally preferable that the rules human beings actually work with should formulate more clear-cut (“bright- line”) and somewhat more restrictive constraints on military action than those furnished by the true criteria of a transcendent account. On a realistic account, we judge any proposed candidate set of rules not by the mili tary ac- tions that, correctly interpreted, it permits and forbids, but by the military actions it is actually likely to engender and discourage. Depending on which account of the task of just-war theory one embrac- es, one will be drawn to rather different theories. For example, a transcen- dentally conceived just-war theory might easily approve of humanitarian interventions intended to end gross human rights abuses, while a realisti- cally grounded just-war theory might easily withhold such an authorization to intervene if more harm is expected from its abuse than benefit from its justified exercise.23 While I believe that we should think of just-war theory in realistic terms —as seeking to formulate rules that can endure and ef- fectively reduce violence and suffering in the world as we know it— Lippert- Rasmussen seems to think of just-war theory in transcendent terms: as aim- ing to formulate rules that deliver plausible judgments across a wide range of possible worlds. As a consequence of this difference, Lippert-Rasmussen arrives at rules that are more permissive of violence than those I would en- dorse. The reason is that, given his transcendent account, he worries only about the violence his account might really justify, while I worry also about 23. Consider a rule that permits military action to replace a government that is a gross viola- tor of human rights with a new government that is respectful of human rights. Such a rule could be sensible on a transcendent account of just-war theory, where we consider only what this rule, correctly interpreted, permits. But the same rule would be disastrous on a realistic account, where we consider not merely the justified interventions the rule would engender but also the possi- bly much larger number of self-interested military interventions by strong states who are falsely claiming that they are carrying out the kind of government replacement permitted by the rule. Poverty and Violence �0��0� LEAP, 1 (2013) any violence that incompetent, self-deceived, self-righteous or (most com- mon) blatantly dishonest agents might claim to be justified by his account. I will try to cope with these unclarities by discussing various interpreta- tions of Claim 2, beginning with one that takes Claim 2 to invoke traditional just-war theory applied to the world as it is. Here I rely on Simon Caney’s account (Caney 2005: 191-92),24 as quoted by Lippert-Rasmussen (Lippert- Rasmussen 2013: 73), of the seven conditions a resort to war must meet in order to be justified: (1) the attackers have a cause that is just; (2) their resort to war is authorized by legitimate authority; (3) the attackers have just intentions, are motivated by their cause; (4) the costs the attackers can reasonably expect to inflict are not dis- proportionately great relative to the wrong that provides the cause for their attack; (5) going to war is the attackers’ last resort; (6) the war has a reasonable chance of achieving the cause for which it is waged; and, (7) the attackers aim for a fair peace. In the world as we know it, could the governments of India and the states of Africa start a just war against the West with the aim of achieving supranation- al institutional reforms designed to eradicate extreme poverty? The answer is clearly no. Such an attack would fail two important jus-ad-bellum condi- tions. For one thing, it would not have a reasonable chance of success (con- dition 6). Our world is very far from one in which “poor countries can win a swift military victory and impose a just global structure” (Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 73). India and Africa have very limited offensive capabilities, certainly relative to the distances they would need to overcome to cause serious dam- age in Europe, Japan, or North America.25 By contrast, the US alone has suf- ficient offensive capabilities not merely quickly to disable India’s and Africa’s offensive weapons (including India’s still very limited capacity for long-range nuclear strikes) but also to destroy their defensive systems and communi- cations capabilities. This would allow deployment of NATO’s formidable air power to strike at will any target within the territory of the attacking coalition, enabling the Western powers to suppress the attack easily and with conven- 24. I have slightly reworded Caney’s account for clarity. 25. India’s annual military spending is less than 3 percent of the world total, Africa’s less than 2 percent. By contrast, the US accounts for about 41 percent of the global total and its allies for another 30+ percent. �04 Thomas Pogge LEAP, 1 (2013) tional weapons alone, that is, without even bothering to use any of their three nuclear back-up options involving the delivery of nuclear warheads launched from submarines, from planes or via intercontinental ballistic missiles. Moreover, such an attack by India and Africa would also not be a last resort (condition 5). As discussed in section 2, an important element of my critique of existing supranational institutional arrangements is that they encourage and protect corrupt and oppressive rule in the less developed countries. As examples of this, I have singled out the international arms trade, the inter- national resource and borrowing privileges as well as international banking and accounting rules (points 3-6 at the end of section 2). These suprana- tional institutional factors bring it about that most (and especially resource- rich) developing countries are ruled by corrupt and oppressive regimes that care little about the poverty of their compatriots and would not wager their wealth and privileges on a war against the West. Lippert-Rasmussen is asking us to suppose that things change so that India and the states of Africa come to be ruled by enlightened and progressive politicians who care about the severe poverty of so many of their compatriots and are willing to accept the personal risks and sacrifices that a confrontation with NATO would involve. Now, if this really were to happen, then the contemplated attack on the West would lose its urgency because enlightened and progressive political leaders could eradicate severe poverty in the developing world through domestic re- forms and through collaborative efforts to effectively represent the interests of the global poor in international negotiations and organizations. On my analysis of global poverty, the problem is not that the less developed coun- tries are so short of human or natural resources that they cannot overcome widespread poverty on their own. Rather, much, if not all, of the severe pov- erty now blighting the lives of so many of their inhabitants could be avoided if the ruling elites of these countries were less corrupt and their governance arrangements less unjust.26 This belief is widely shared. The controversial el- ement added by my analysis is that avoidance of poverty through better gov- ernance in the less developed countries is highly unlikely under the existing supranational institutional arrangements which the affluent countries im- pose in collaboration with the elites of the poorer states (see e. g. Pogge 2008: 28-30, 117-118, 147-148, 168, 234-235). Now for Lippert-Rasmussen’s war to end poverty to be possible, we must suppose the emergence of enlightened 26. This is a point I have stressed often, for example: “It is true —as the defenders of the rich countries and of their globalization project point out— that most severe poverty would be avoided, despite the current unfair global order, if the national governments and elites of the poor countries were genuinely committed to ‘good governance’ and poverty eradication. It is also true —as the defenders of governments and elites in the poor countries insist— that most severe poverty would be avoided, despite the corrupt and oppressive regimes holding sway in so many poor countries, if the global institutional order were designed to achieve this purpose”. See Pogge (2007: 46). Poverty and Violence �0��0� LEAP, 1 (2013) political leaders throughout the developing world. But this unrealistic sup- position, needed to make the war possible, would also render it unnecessary, for two reasons. The emergence of enlightened political leaders throughout the developing world would show that our existing global order is much less supportive of oppression and corruption and therefore much less unjust and less in need of reform than I have claimed (weakening condition 1, just cause). And it would also open an easy non-violent path of poverty eradi- cation as such enlightened leaders of poorer countries could implement domestic reforms and begin to represent the interests of their populations effectively on the international stage (undermining condition 5, last resort). I conclude, then, that in the world as we know it Claim 2 is false: given my analysis of global poverty, a redistributive war waged in our world by the poor countries against the rich countries would not be a just war. Less focused on the actual world than I am, Lippert-Rasmussen is eager to try out his redistributive war idea in various hypothetical worlds as well: “if the present line of argument encounters resistance I ask the reader to make some counterfactual assumptions. Suppose that redistributive wars would not be futile. Perhaps most members of rich countries are too old for military service, their electorates are extremely concerned about security and willing to sacrifice much of their wealth to restore (a less unjust) peace once the war proves not to be a walk-over, and poor countries have also acquired weap- ons of mass destruction and can draw on vast pools of young men eager to join their armies” (Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 81-82). I would think that the West’s overwhelming technological advantage in drones, bombs, rockets, aircraft carriers, fighter planes, submarines, nuclear weapons, surveillance and communications can easily neutralize any disadvantage they might have in young and eager men; but Lippert-Rasmussen can, of course, make further counterfactual assumptions to reverse this imbalance. He can also make additional counterfactual assumptions that would block what I have called the easy non-violent path of poverty eradication. For example, he can suppose that the affluent nations’ release of pollution into the atmosphere is sufficient to perpetuate poverty in the less developed countries and that enlightened rulers of the latter therefore cannot end the poverty of their compatriots except by war. But such suppositions move us farther and farther away from my analysis of global poverty which is focused on the world as it really is and whose implications were supposed to be the subject of discussion. Still, there is one relevant point such hypotheticals can bring out. Central to my analysis is the claim that much of the responsibility of the affluent countries and their populations for global poverty is a negative responsibil- ity. We are not merely failing to do enough to help relieve poverty, but we are also, and more significantly, doing far too much to aggravate poverty abroad. �06 Thomas Pogge LEAP, 1 (2013) Other things being equal, this fact has some bearing on conditions 1 and 4. The affluent countries are committing a great wrong by imposing, in col- laboration with the political elites in the poor countries, a supranational or- der on the world that will, foreseeably and avoidably, make severe poverty persist on a massive scale. We would be committing a much smaller wrong if, as so many of us believe, we merely failed to provide assistance that we could easily spare toward relieving great suffering in the less developed countries. In contrast to the great wrong we are actually committing, this smaller wrong might not count as a just cause at all (condition 1) or might count as a much less weighty just cause which could justify only correspondingly less dam- aging military attacks (condition 4). I have not published on the just cause condition or on how much violence might be justifiable against countries that kill millions of human beings annually and against countries that let an equal number die when they could save them at low cost. But I do find cred- ible Lippert-Rasmussen’s conjecture that the difference between killing and letting die can make the difference he suggests —for example, that a more violent response can be justified against a state that is actively causing wide- spread starvation in our country by blockading our ports than against a state that is letting identical starvation happen by refusing to send food aid to our country. One can then say that, on my analysis of global poverty, a redistribu- tive war by poor against affluent countries fails more narrowly to meet just ad bellum criteria. The justification of such a war is helped by my analysis to meet conditions 1 and 4 but still fails to meet conditions 5 and 6: it has no realistic prospect of success and, if it were possible, it would be unnecessary. 6. THE PERMISSIBILITY OF REDISTRIBUTIVE WARS At first blush it may seem that the conditions making a resort to war just are identical to, or coextensive with, those that make it permissible, and thus that resorting to war is permissible if and only if war is also just in the jus-ad-bellum sense. Lippert-Rasmussen holds otherwise, writing: “For reasons to be explained, it is much more unlikely that such redistribu- tive war will be morally permissible than that they will be just” (Lippert- Rasmussen 2013: 67). I find no explanation of these reasons, though there is in a footnote a sketchy remark that may suggest what he has in mind: “A war may be just and yet morally impermissible, if the country that war is waged against is liable to attack, but the consequences of attacking it are very bad” (Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 73, n. 12). But how can a war that is impermissible on account of its bad consequences also be just, given that justice takes account of bad consequences in its condition 4 of macro- conditionality? I think there is a straightforward answer to this puzzle: on Lippert-Rasmussen’s interpretation, just-war theory takes account of Poverty and Violence �0��0� LEAP, 1 (2013) some but not of all bad consequences: it takes account of the harm that the party resorting to war can reasonably expect to inflict but not of the harm that the other party might then inflict in response. Let me illustrate with an example. Nearby country Q has suddenly oc- cupied one of our islands with a few dozen marines who are now stationed there. The island lies in our territorial waters and has always been interna- tionally recognized as ours; its few inhabitants are citizens of our country and wish to remain so. The occupation is clearly wrongful, furnishing us with a just cause for war. All sorts of diplomatic means to get Q to withdraw its troops voluntarily have been tried and have failed. Counting on our aerial superiority, we can send a squadron of helicopters with a few hundred elite assault troops and quickly take the island back. We anticipate little resistance against our superior forces and expect that our planned nighttime strike can, with the benefit of surprise, keep enemy casualties to a handful and our own to zero. We are sure that Q’s marines will quickly surrender when they find themselves surrounded by superior forces with formidable air power. Under these circumstances, our planned military strike seems proportional: the harm we can be expected to inflict on Q’s marines is small relative to the importance of reclaiming our island and vindicating the principle of non- aggression. The scenario looks then like a textbook case of how a resort to war can be just by the traditional criteria. But how will Q’s government respond to its marines’ ejection from our island? It may accept defeat and go back to business as usual. But it may also respond with further aggressive action so as to divert attention from the foolishness of its occupation of our island. Thus it may harass ethnic or religious minorities that have some affiliation with people in our country, it may launch a few rockets toward our cities or it may undertake a military attack against another, weaker neighboring country. Are such harms, which Q might inflict on us or third parties, to be counted in the proportionality calculation suggested in condition 4? As I understand Lippert-Rasmussen, his answer is no. The harm Q may inflict elsewhere, though triggered by our eviction of its marines, is Q’s re- sponsibility, not ours. And including it in proportionality calculations under condition 4 would provide perverse incentives to Q: by disposing itself to re- act very violently to an ejection of its marines from our island, Q could ensure that we cannot justly undertake such an ejection.27 On Lippert-Rasmussen’s account, then, Q remains, regardless of its dispositions, liable to an attack on its marines —Q is liable to having its marines attacked and evicted— Q has 27. These thoughts are suggested in Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 81, though the passage is Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 81, though the passage is , though the passage is not clear enough to be sure. �08 Thomas Pogge LEAP, 1 (2013) no right to be spared a just attack on our part.28 And yet, our attack may still be impermissible if its expectable consequences are excessively bad.29 The previous section has shown that, given my analysis of global pov- erty, the poor countries could not initiate a just redistributive war against the rich countries. We can now add that the permissibility of such a war is, as Lippert-Rasmussen himself suggests, even more remote. This is so because, in addition to the harm that military action by the poor countries would do, reasoning about permissibility also takes account of the harm the rich countries would do in response to the poor countries’ going to war. And this harm might well be monumental. The US-led military alliance has at its dis- posal a vast arsenal of highly effective weapons of mass destruction; and it is predictable from the historical record (Nagasaki, Vietnam, etc.) that this arsenal would be liberally used to cause massive military and civilian casu- alties in the much weaker coalition countries and would also cripple their economies and infrastructure, with long-lasting devastating effects upon their poorer population segments in particular.30 Coming on top of the fact that (as argued in the preceding section) the attack would not meet jus-ad- bellum criteria, these massive expectable harms further strengthen the case against the attack’s permissibility. 28. Note that the rights of Q as a country are distinct from the individual rights of its oc- cupying marines. The soldiers who were ordered by Q’s government to occupy our island have not forfeited any component of their right to life. Their rights are counted in the proportional- ity calculation as reasons against our liberation strike. If our strike nonetheless meets jus-ad- bellum standards, then unavoidable infringements of rights of such marines are permissible infringements. By contrast, our strike does not permissibly infringe any rights of Q because Q has no right to any military presence on our island. 29. This statement raises, of course, once more the problem of perverse incentives. If Q disposes itself to do terrible things in response to our eviction of its marines from our island, then our evicting action, instead of being just and permissible, becomes just and impermis- sible. Insofar as we respect this impermissibility, Q’s aggressive dispositions enable Q to retain our island. The statement also raises the question whether expectable good consequences should count for purposes of deciding permissibility. Suppose we predict that, in response to its evic- tion from our island, Q will brutally attack a smaller neighbor, but that many other countries will then quickly come to the defence of that small country with the result that Q will get into a militarily hopeless position and its aggressive government will finally be replaced by a more civil one, ridding the world of a long-standing and dangerous bully. This scenario invites us to consider whether there might be resorts to arms that are unjust and yet permissible on account of the very good consequences serendipitously associated with them. 30. Lippert-Rasmussen seems to agree by leaving undisputed the following anticipations about his redistributive war: “we could expect the costs in lives to be tremendous. Given the military hardware possessed by rich countries, redistributive wars will probably result in num- bers of casualties well in excess of the two previous world wars. They will also involve damage to economies on such a scale that poor people, their supposed beneficiaries, will suffer mas- sive harms greater even than (or: in addition to) those involved in global poverty” (Lippert- Rasmussen 2013: 80). Poverty and Violence �0��0� LEAP, 1 (2013) 7. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS It is clear that Lippert-Rasmussen has not established any of his three claims about the implications of my analysis of global poverty in our actual world. Still, there is a kernel of truth in his commentary: the fact that (as I have argued) world poverty is worse than commonly believed and our responsi- bility for it greater than commonly believed can be helpful in establishing that the goal of eradicating world poverty is a just cause of war (condition 1) whose pursuit can meet condition 4 of macro-proportionality. This is not an intellectual embarrassment. But it is also not an implication that I am eager to acknowledge and to advertise. The reason is that I take violence to be a great obstacle to the emancipation of the poor and a welcome smokescreen for the defenders of the status quo. In the world as we know it, violence is a manifestly unpromising means toward solving the global poverty problem (and pretty much any other real moral problem, for that matter) and talking about violence as a response to global poverty is patently counterproduc- tive. Let me briefly sketch the reason why. Political power derives from three main sources: military might, the ca- pacity to hurt and kill and thus to coerce other people; economic wealth, the capacity to buy others and their services; and moral strength, the ca- pacity to convince others. Each of these sources of political power are un- equally distributed but, because military and economic strength can to some extent be converted into one another, their distributions tend to be correlated (in the case of states, economic wealth and military might tend to go together). Now, how much each of the three components contrib- utes to political power depends on the context. Military strength will be the dominant contributor to political power in periods of tension and hostility, while moral wisdom and reasoning can gain much influence in a context of peace and harmony. Different political-power-maximizing actors may therefore have opposing interests with regard to the context. A militarily dominant state can benefit from a global climate of tension and hostility in which its military strength commands deference from others, in which it can maintain special privileges that would be indefensible in any seri- ous moral discussion among equals. This benefit is especially large for the head of such a state’s executive branch, because a climate of tension and hostility will enhance not merely his state’s power relative to other states but also his own power domestically relative to the other branches of gov- ernment and any politically significant popular movements. Anyone inter- ested in justice and moral progress, by contrast, should have the opposite preference: for a world in which organized violence is rare and eventually comes to be regarded as a barbarous and antiquated way of settling dis- agreements. ��0 Thomas Pogge LEAP, 1 (2013) To achieve such a world, we must anticipate it in our conduct. But we must also realize that, unfortunately, tension, hostility and violence are much easier to create and to provoke than to stop, avert and avoid. 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