Poverty, Human Rights and the Global Order: Framing the Post-2015 Agenda
This new essay by Chair of CROP Prof. Thomas Pogge comments on the latest (March 2012) World Bank update on world poverty.
He critizes the media for reporting the World Bank’s data as straightforward unassailable facts, treated as beyond all reasonable doubt:
In the midst of a massive food price spike that, fed by our greed for land and biofuels, is disrupting and devastating the lives of billions of poor people, we affluent are celebrating our wonderful concern for the global poor and our great success in diminishing their number — excuse me — proportion. It is unknown whether there has been any such success. What is clear is that we affluent have been remarkably successful at appropriating a rapidly increasing share of global household income — and at collective self-deception.
It is set to appear in a collection of essays on the Millenium Delelopment Goals edited by Alicia Yamin.
