The Cost of Inaction

In the time it took for students, alumni, faculty and members of the New London community to gather for a two-hour conversation with Peter Singer debating how we rationalize our affluence in a world of poverty, approximately 2,000 people in the developing world died of starvation.

Citing his recent work, The Life You Can Save, utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer, suggested such deaths are a preventable, and not an inevitable, reality. Singer advocated for the duty of the West to aid the developing world under the premise that if we can prevent something bad (such as poverty) from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, then we ought to do it.

Singer’s suggestion that we are not only able to prevent such deaths, but that we have a moral imperative to do so, sparked controversy.

In response, a panel challenged Singer by criticizing his argument as being oversimplified, unrealistic and over-assuming as to what is the greater good. The panel was composed of Connecticut College economics professors Maria Cruz-Saco and Purba Mukerji, philosophy professor Simon Feldman, and Alice Fitzpatrick, the president of the Community Foundation of Southeastern Connecticut.

My contention with Singer’s argument was not with his idealistic solution to eradicate poverty through sustainable development aid from the West, but it was with his approach in convincing us. Singer’s suggestion that every time one purchases a luxury good, such as concert tickets, that the money spent on the tickets could be going towards aiding the developing world is problematic.

Firstly, it instantly creates feelings of guilt and of personal inadequacy. It also diverts the focus from what actions are the most effective and efficient way of decreasing poverty in the developing world.

Instead, feelings of guilt and judgment become distractions. It is self-indulgent and ethnocentric to focus on determining if we are morally indebted to improve a situation we have not directly caused or may feel that we have no significant choice or influence in as individuals. Moral abstractions are futile; for it is not about us, it is about them. Considering that “our” affluence is founded on the natural resources and labor of the South and that 85 percent of the world’s income goes to 23 percent of the world’s people, we cannot waste our time discussing if we are actions are morally indefensible.

The fact of the matter is, is that in a post-colonial, globalized world, we directly benefit from and perpetuate the world’s established inequalities. Thus, as the problem, we are also the solution. We cannot distance ourselves from the poverty of “the other”, for we dependent upon it as the status quo. Whether we like it our not, the price of living a quality of life overtly better than the rest of the world has its price.

We should be way beyond asking ourselves if we are responsible for aiding the developing world, for it is fact that our overconsumption of nonrenewable resources is only possible if another consumes less.

Singer’s impassioned rational of the wrongness of the suffering of the developing world by suggesting the West’s dismissal of aid correlates to passing by a drowning child is not only distracting, but it is misleading.

If Singer’s scenario truly correlated with our relation to the developing world, Singer should propose that we not only threw a child, but children, into the pond. Although it is difficult to fathom the economic, political and social consequences of our actions, Singer is wrong not to try and resort to manipulating our emotions. Singer should avoid guilting us by proposing a scenario that is not even realistic, we are better and more educated than that.

All Singer accomplishes in his suggestion that not giving aid to the developing world is the moral equivalent of passing by a drowning child, is distancing himself from those who may be initially sympathetic to his claim by framing them as moral monsters.

Singer’s application of Newton’s law of physics, (that every action has an equal and opposite reaction) to the scenario of the developing world fails because it is accusatory. Singer’s emphasis that every action we take has a negative impact led panelist, Alice Fizpatric, to voice her dissent.

Fizpatric dismissed the notion that every dollar we spend on ourselves could be spent as aid to the developing world as unconstructive and offensive. However, I firmly believe that we can only be offended if we allow ourselves to be offended. We do not need to victimize ourselves with the burden of giving (and of knowing when to stop), for enjoying consumption of unnecessary but desired luxuries is not mutually exclusive from provided aid for sustainable development efforts.

So, there is good news: we can have both! Singer’s suggestion that people allot at least one percent of their income redeems him. In the big picture, one percent of one’s income is a negligible amount of money. Furthermore, setting aside one percent of one’s income towards aid increases feeling of self-reliance, as opposed to increasing feelings of hoplessness and consequent carelessness that develop when debating between purchasing a concert ticket or feeding a village.

The fact that we can both satisfy ourselves and aid the developing world relies upon people actually setting aside their income. Does this require government intervention? Notwithstanding concerns of transparency and accountability, objections would likely arise if the US government implemented a law that reserved one percent of US citizens’ income for the developing world out of the concern that such a law would violate civil liberties. However, laws that restrain our freedoms are necessary because our choices do not always benefit the common good. The cost of unrestrained freedom can be greater than the cost of restriction, for laws can function as public goods that protect us, such as laws against manslaughter. If then, the public could be convinced that an aid law was a public good, perhaps a consensus for donating one percent of one’s income towards aid could be reached.

If aid is possible, what is needed, is a transparent and sustainable structure for aid. However, because aid is complex in its involvement of various stakeholders, aid needs to be managed by non-biased actors. We need to ask ourselves who we are really aiding.

For instance, when Bush first came into office, he stated he wanted America to feed the world. To the public, this may at first sound altruistic, however, by sending our food to the developing world, we are only aiding ourselves.

Sending food aid directly puts farmers in the developing world out of business (which affects the entire local economy because subsistence agriculture is the basis of most developing economies) and thus, only exacerbates the long-term poverty of the recipients.

Furthermore, short-term food aid increases environmental degradation, because farmers are forced to produce more food to compete in the market. Thus, what is essential to consider is that aid can only be sustainable if it is contextualized. Without context, aid based policies will only foster corruption, dependency and environmental degradation if they do not engage and respect the interests of the recipients.

We must also realize that the greatest deterrent to creating an efficient aid structure is ourselves. If we perceive aid to be obligatory, aid will continue to be problematic because it will not be given or distributed thoughtfully. Instead, aid needs to understood as an investment. However, investment in development aid is futile towards countries with the presence of a security and accountability vacuum.

For instance, many African countries face problems much greater than their dependence on aid, such as their large size (which consequently leads to their division by ethnic loyalties), their massive presence of arms (as a consequence of US policy in the Cold War) and global warming (which decreases the availability of water, food, and soil). Aid will only be disempowering if such factors are not accounted for. And although aid cannot improve such issues, US foreign policy can spark favorable circumstances for increased accountability and peacekeeping.

I conclude by suggesting that you earnestly consider Singer’s appeal to allot one percent of your income towards a sustainable development organization, such as Oxfam (its aid efforts range from educating women to providing farmers with the necessary tools to support themselves), or that you encourage your friends and family members to do so. However, as a student without a disposable income, I have found that acting as a conscientious consumer when presented with the opportunity is at least a somewhat satisfying action.

From eating less meat (as 70 percent of US cropland is devoted to livestock), to purchasing New London goods at the Fiddlehead’s Co-op and the Flavors of Life fair trade store, I can at least feel empowered by knowing that the money I am spending is not further promoting the exploitation and cyclic poverty of the developing world.

Give it a try, what do you really have to lose?