The Resource Curse: A Comprehensive Discussion of the Evidence
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Economists and astute observers of international politics and trade have long noticed that some poor nations blessed with natural resources - especially when blessed with large amounts of one scarce resource - often fare worse economically than other poor nations. This is known as the resource curse.
Why should the presence of rich reserves of resources be so commonly associated with poor economic performance and the perpetuation of poverty? It is reasonable to suppose that rich reserves of natural resources needed by the developed world would offer an exceptional opportunity to get out of poverty. However, the truth is that non-renewable resources invite exploitation from the outside, enable autocratic leaders and their cronies to finance their own lifestyles, and build up arms and infrastructure that allow them to remain in power through repression and elaborate systems of bribery and patronage. An economic irony as well is the fact that the sale of resources can strengthen a developing nation's currency and make its other exports more expensive for international buyers, and thus less competitive on the world market (a phenomenon known as the Dutch Disease).
Moreover, much of the wealth that is created by extractive industries does not come from the sale of raw materials. Firms based in developed countries often pay little for those resources and most of the market value is added through the processes of manufacture and fabrication. The real profits to be had are in the commercially tradable goods sold to the global affluent.
To make matters worse, much of the wealth that does stay in the country does not get distributed to the poor or invested for the sake of improving the well-being of future generations. The "resource curse" may not be the primary explanation of why some nations are rich while others are poor, but it is an important factor. Collier's book examines in granular detail when resources are most like to be a curse and what institutional or other factors tend to mitigate or prevent the adverse consequences so often observed.
Why should the presence of rich reserves of resources be so commonly associated with poor economic performance and the perpetuation of poverty? It is reasonable to suppose that rich reserves of natural resources needed by the developed world would offer an exceptional opportunity to get out of poverty. However, the truth is that non-renewable resources invite exploitation from the outside, enable autocratic leaders and their cronies to finance their own lifestyles, and build up arms and infrastructure that allow them to remain in power through repression and elaborate systems of bribery and patronage. An economic irony as well is the fact that the sale of resources can strengthen a developing nation's currency and make its other exports more expensive for international buyers, and thus less competitive on the world market (a phenomenon known as the Dutch Disease).
Moreover, much of the wealth that is created by extractive industries does not come from the sale of raw materials. Firms based in developed countries often pay little for those resources and most of the market value is added through the processes of manufacture and fabrication. The real profits to be had are in the commercially tradable goods sold to the global affluent.
To make matters worse, much of the wealth that does stay in the country does not get distributed to the poor or invested for the sake of improving the well-being of future generations. The "resource curse" may not be the primary explanation of why some nations are rich while others are poor, but it is an important factor. Collier's book examines in granular detail when resources are most like to be a curse and what institutional or other factors tend to mitigate or prevent the adverse consequences so often observed.
An Example from Amnesty International's Report
Amnesty International claims that rich oil reserves in the Niger Valley have resulted in massive poverty, human deprivation, and pollution.
According to the Report "Pollution and environmental damage caused by the oil industry have resulted in violations of the rights to health and a healthy environment, the right to an adequate standard of living (including the right to food and water) and the right to gain a living through work for hundreds of thousands of people."
Debates of this sort take on a familiar ring. Representatives of the oil industry active in the region were quick to dispute the Report's findings. Their claim is that the Report oversimplifies the complex causes of endemic violence and degradation in the delta.
According to the Report "Pollution and environmental damage caused by the oil industry have resulted in violations of the rights to health and a healthy environment, the right to an adequate standard of living (including the right to food and water) and the right to gain a living through work for hundreds of thousands of people."
Debates of this sort take on a familiar ring. Representatives of the oil industry active in the region were quick to dispute the Report's findings. Their claim is that the Report oversimplifies the complex causes of endemic violence and degradation in the delta.
The Resource Curse: the basics and some suggested remedies
A short introduction to the resource curse problem, along with some concrete examples and a set of policy remedies is in chapter 5 of Joseph Stiglitz's Making Globalization Work, pp. 132-159. Stiglitz discusses the problem as it plays out in Nigeria's oil boom beginning in the 1970s, along with simliar issues in the Congo and Angola and other places around the world. He highlights some of the details of the contracting process, the background of post-colonial asset privatization schemes that made mass-scale sell-off of national resources more likely, and the typical ways in which the proceeds are misspent or misappropriated.
Stiglitz's central point (in a book on making globalization work) is that the resource curse is not inevitable. For one thing, institutions such as the IMF could alter its own accounting metrics for making loan decisions, for example, shifting from the usual development targets of increased GDP to Green Net National Product (GNNP). You can find more on the problems with GDP as a developmental metric here, but two central points are significant. First, GDP is a measure of aggregate economic production. GDP can go up even if most of the wealth leaves the country, leaving GNP - gross national product - the amount of money that stays within the nation - unimproved. Second, since GDP measures only aggregate economic output it fails to capture the fact that over the long term projects that initially enhance GDP leave behind environmental degradation from extractive industries and are economically unsustainable as well.
Stiglitz offers a set of 7 other complementary strategies for combatting the resource curse and ultimately producing sustainable economic growth, reducing poverty, and constraining the politically corrosive forms of extreme economic inequality.
Stiglitz's central point (in a book on making globalization work) is that the resource curse is not inevitable. For one thing, institutions such as the IMF could alter its own accounting metrics for making loan decisions, for example, shifting from the usual development targets of increased GDP to Green Net National Product (GNNP). You can find more on the problems with GDP as a developmental metric here, but two central points are significant. First, GDP is a measure of aggregate economic production. GDP can go up even if most of the wealth leaves the country, leaving GNP - gross national product - the amount of money that stays within the nation - unimproved. Second, since GDP measures only aggregate economic output it fails to capture the fact that over the long term projects that initially enhance GDP leave behind environmental degradation from extractive industries and are economically unsustainable as well.
Stiglitz offers a set of 7 other complementary strategies for combatting the resource curse and ultimately producing sustainable economic growth, reducing poverty, and constraining the politically corrosive forms of extreme economic inequality.
The Role of Export-Led Agricultural Policies in Perpetuating Poverty and the Foreign Extraction of Local Resources
One of the contributing factors to the resource curse is the role of international economic institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in encouraging - or more accurately, prescribing - a shift from subsistence agricultural to export-driven agriculture. While few doubt that subsistence agriculture alone is a viable path to economic prosperity, or even a robustly secure bulwark against all causes of food scarcity, there many critics who argue that export-driven agricultural policies, coupled with existing agriculture subsidies in the US and EU, have accelerated domestic poverty and entrenched the role of foreign extractive industries as a major element of developing economies.
The problems of export-driven agriculture are magnified when coupled with other economic liberalization policies that open the doors to more foreign investment in extractive industries, including large agricultural facilities that are supported by host-state concessions designed to attract investment, while leaving behind considerable environmental damage but little economic prosperity. Lack of stable land ownership arrangements and secure legal mechanisms for titling of land make the worst of abuses easier.
The International Food Policy and Research Institute has published a 2012 report, Strategies and Priorities for African Agriculture: Economywide Perspectives from Country Studies, that addresses this common complaint. Its authors "argue that, although the diversity of the region makes generalization difficult, increasing staple-crop production is more likely to reduce poverty than increasing export-crop production. This conclusion is based on case studies of ten low-income African countries that reflect varying levels of resource endowments and development stages. The authors also recommend increased, more efficient public investment in agriculture and agricultural markets and propose new directions for future research."
The problems of export-driven agriculture are magnified when coupled with other economic liberalization policies that open the doors to more foreign investment in extractive industries, including large agricultural facilities that are supported by host-state concessions designed to attract investment, while leaving behind considerable environmental damage but little economic prosperity. Lack of stable land ownership arrangements and secure legal mechanisms for titling of land make the worst of abuses easier.
The International Food Policy and Research Institute has published a 2012 report, Strategies and Priorities for African Agriculture: Economywide Perspectives from Country Studies, that addresses this common complaint. Its authors "argue that, although the diversity of the region makes generalization difficult, increasing staple-crop production is more likely to reduce poverty than increasing export-crop production. This conclusion is based on case studies of ten low-income African countries that reflect varying levels of resource endowments and development stages. The authors also recommend increased, more efficient public investment in agriculture and agricultural markets and propose new directions for future research."
World Watch: "The Hidden Shame in the Global Industrial Economy"
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This WorldWatch discussion highlights the linkage between contemporary practices and consequences of extractive industries owned or managed by multinational corporations and similar practices and consequences of early forms of colonial conquest. Corruption of key local actors and the ensuing violence among competitors for the spoils are endemic.
But what is different now is that the resource curse is not confined to traditional non-renewable resources:
"When economists talk about "extractive industries" they're usually referring to mining, oil or gas drilling, or logging-essentially, the use of heavy machinery to cut raw materials from the planet. The concept could easily be broadened to include pumping water from aquifers, hauling fish from the oceans, shooting monkeys for bushmeat, or collecting honey from wild bees. We focus here on mining, oil drilling, and logging because they have been so heavily concentrated in places that are both the homelands of the world's marginalized peoples and the habitats of the most threatened ecosystems. These industries are therefore the most direct-and least regulated-assaults of industrial society on the Earth's cultural and biological stability."
But what is different now is that the resource curse is not confined to traditional non-renewable resources:
"When economists talk about "extractive industries" they're usually referring to mining, oil or gas drilling, or logging-essentially, the use of heavy machinery to cut raw materials from the planet. The concept could easily be broadened to include pumping water from aquifers, hauling fish from the oceans, shooting monkeys for bushmeat, or collecting honey from wild bees. We focus here on mining, oil drilling, and logging because they have been so heavily concentrated in places that are both the homelands of the world's marginalized peoples and the habitats of the most threatened ecosystems. These industries are therefore the most direct-and least regulated-assaults of industrial society on the Earth's cultural and biological stability."
The Rule of Law As A Countermeasure Against the Resource Curse
The United Nations estimates that 4 billion people live outside the protection of the law. Generally, they are poor. The lack of basic rules of law establishing rights to property and remedies for dispute resolution. Legal disempowerment not only occurs in a context in which there are many poor, powerless people, but it also works to keep them poor. Indigenous communities often lack formal legal title to their ancestral lands. Land that is in theory held in common by the citizens of a county is easily expropriated by the state and then made available either for the use of local elites or foreign business interests who pay the state for mining rights or for establishing large agricultural enterprises. While grossly unfair systems of property ownership are problematic for obvious reasons, lack of any publicly known, regularly enforced, and transferable system of property rights can limit access to credit, undermine opportunities for economic improvement, and leave the poorest segment of society at the absolute mercy of ruling elites and foreign business who cater to them.
One international organization devoted to legal empowerment is Namati.org. You can download the executive summary of their report on success in the protection of community land and resources through legal title arrangements, or the whole report, Protecting Community Lands and Resources from their website.
One international organization devoted to legal empowerment is Namati.org. You can download the executive summary of their report on success in the protection of community land and resources through legal title arrangements, or the whole report, Protecting Community Lands and Resources from their website.
Some Recent Explanations of the Cause of the Curse and Suggestions for Remedy
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The publisher's description of this 2007 book, edited by major figures in developmental economics and policy says it all:
"In this volume, leading economists, lawyers, and political scientists address the fundamental channels generated by this wealth and examine the major decisions a country must make when faced with an abundance of a natural resource. They identify such problems as asymmetric bargaining power, limited access to information, the failure to engage in long-term planning, weak institutional structures, and missing mechanisms of accountability. They also provide a series of solutions, including recommendations for contracting with oil companies and allocating revenue; guidelines for negotiators; models for optimal auctions; and strategies to strengthen state-society linkages and public accountability."
"In this volume, leading economists, lawyers, and political scientists address the fundamental channels generated by this wealth and examine the major decisions a country must make when faced with an abundance of a natural resource. They identify such problems as asymmetric bargaining power, limited access to information, the failure to engage in long-term planning, weak institutional structures, and missing mechanisms of accountability. They also provide a series of solutions, including recommendations for contracting with oil companies and allocating revenue; guidelines for negotiators; models for optimal auctions; and strategies to strengthen state-society linkages and public accountability."
The Natural Resource Charter: a resource management tool
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The Natural Resources Charter describes its underlying philosophical commitment as follows:
"Resource governance and policy formulation should be guided by the principle of securing the greatest social and economic benefit for current and future citizens, including an equitable distribution of resource wealth." One way of contributing to that mission is to assist nations in identifying best practices at every step of the decision chain, from initial contractual negotiation, through the revenue collection process, all the way down to revenue investment for purposes such as poverty alleviation and economic development, including investment in infrastructure, health and education. |
Spend Now or Save for Later? A New (2012) IMF Working Paper on the Choices
A standard assumption among many who work on problems associated with extractive industries in developing nations is that the lack of long-range investment in infrastructure for the sake of future generations is one of the worst side-effects of rapid depletion of natural resources. A working paper published in Finance and Development published by the IMF offers reasons for reconsideration of that standard assumption, at least in an important set of cases. The main claim of the report is encapsulated in the following quote:
"The traditional argument is that countries should use their resource revenues to finance public investment. But there are questions about whether this is always the best approach. The limited state capacity of many resource-based countries makes appropriate and effective investment difficult to achieve. Limited capacity reflects not only a government’s lack of technical ability to identify, implement, and monitor key investment projects. It is often also the result of public sector corruption that allows those with clout to misspend and misallocate the resource windfall, including through high-value construction contracts that are especially susceptible to mismanagement. As a result, in some cases sharply scaled-up public investment may be the wrong way to go. It may be more effective in the short run to distribute some of the windfall as a direct dividend to citizens and rely on their spending choices to create and foster nonresource industries. In the medium and long run, countries should beef up their governing capacity—investing in investment capacity, so to speak—to relax some of the constraints on the use of revenues."
The report, "Spend or Send" is available online and a pdf can be downloaded from the website.
"The traditional argument is that countries should use their resource revenues to finance public investment. But there are questions about whether this is always the best approach. The limited state capacity of many resource-based countries makes appropriate and effective investment difficult to achieve. Limited capacity reflects not only a government’s lack of technical ability to identify, implement, and monitor key investment projects. It is often also the result of public sector corruption that allows those with clout to misspend and misallocate the resource windfall, including through high-value construction contracts that are especially susceptible to mismanagement. As a result, in some cases sharply scaled-up public investment may be the wrong way to go. It may be more effective in the short run to distribute some of the windfall as a direct dividend to citizens and rely on their spending choices to create and foster nonresource industries. In the medium and long run, countries should beef up their governing capacity—investing in investment capacity, so to speak—to relax some of the constraints on the use of revenues."
The report, "Spend or Send" is available online and a pdf can be downloaded from the website.
How Useful Are Sanctions?
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One frequently discussed option for addressing the root causes of the resource curse is the implementation of economic sanctions against countries that misappropriate or squander the revenues from the extraction of natural resources. There are a number of worries about the wisdom and effectiveness of such proposals, both in terms of the effectiveness of economic sanctions in general and in terms of their likely success in achieving the aims of curbing some of the main problems associated with the use of revenue from resource extraction in developing countries characterized by dictatorial regimes and lack of democratic institutions.
A general problem is that the track record of economic sanctions since the end of World War I is not that impressive. The third edition of Economic Sanctions Reconsidered published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics surveys 170 case studies of economic sanctions and offers quite a bit of insight into assessing the circumstances in which economic sanctions are most likely to work. Here are some of the highlighted findings, quoting directly from the 2008 press release accompanying publication:
With regard to the prospect of altering resource extraction practices, the case studies and general guidelines of advice suggest several worthwhile questions to be considered.
A general problem is that the track record of economic sanctions since the end of World War I is not that impressive. The third edition of Economic Sanctions Reconsidered published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics surveys 170 case studies of economic sanctions and offers quite a bit of insight into assessing the circumstances in which economic sanctions are most likely to work. Here are some of the highlighted findings, quoting directly from the 2008 press release accompanying publication:
- Sanctions "succeed" in about one-third of the cases overall, but the success rate depends importantly on the type of objectives sought.
- Success means sanctions contributed significantly to the partial or full achievement of the foreign policy goal.
- Partial achievement of foreign policy goals is far more common than full achievement.Sanctions are often more effective when aimed against friendly and democratic countries than against adversaries and autocrats.
With regard to the prospect of altering resource extraction practices, the case studies and general guidelines of advice suggest several worthwhile questions to be considered.
- Are such sanctions likely to run afoul of WTO policies and rules?
- Would sanctions merely shift exports to other buyers that are less concerned with the effects of such sanctions?
- Are sanctions without broad multilateral participation doomed to failure?
- Are sanctions better tailored to emerging resource producing countries that do not have established overseas markets?
- Might the worst offenders be precisely the countries most immune to the threat of sanctions?
- Are international aid programs already set in place for such a lengthy time frame (several years out) that they are infeasible?
Transparency Strategies for Ensuring that Revenues go to the People and not Private Pockets
One strategy for dealing with the resource curse involves adoption of resource purchasing standards that ensure greater transparency within resource exporting countries. The ETTI is a globally developed standard that promotes revenue transparency at the local level. The EITI Rules are designed to require exporting companies to publish what they pay for resources and exporting countries to publish their revenues. The EITI has established a methodology and set of procedures that countries need to follow to become fully compliant with the EITI. A number of companies have signed on to the Initiative.
The idea of seeking greater transparency rests upon the assumption that buyers and sellers are plausible candidates for shaming, that political processes within nations will allow revenues to go to public purposes rather than private coffers, and the assumption that resource supply chains can be monitored well enough to have a significant impact. There are quite a few questions that arise from reflection on these assumptions.
For an 11 minute video introduction of the practical ambitions and philosophical origins of the Initiative, click here. For a list of participating countries and their reports, click here.
The idea of seeking greater transparency rests upon the assumption that buyers and sellers are plausible candidates for shaming, that political processes within nations will allow revenues to go to public purposes rather than private coffers, and the assumption that resource supply chains can be monitored well enough to have a significant impact. There are quite a few questions that arise from reflection on these assumptions.
- While the intended effect of disclosure is largely the prevention of government corruption and the failure of resources to go to poverty alleviation and infrastructure development, but how much can it be expected to accomplish with regard to improving the environmental and social impact of extractive industries operating within developing nations?
- To what extent are some of the worst offenders motivated by shaming?
- How much incentive do leaders have to disclose and change their behavior when it means taking great sums out of their pockets?
- Will not the greatest offenders simply sell to nations and corporations based in nations that are not much concerned with reputation?
- What practical effect, if any, beyond bad publicity can be expected when payment reports from companies and revenue reports by countries are discrepant?
For an 11 minute video introduction of the practical ambitions and philosophical origins of the Initiative, click here. For a list of participating countries and their reports, click here.
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Oil to Cash: Beyond Public Sector Social ServicesOne of the major problems that oil production brings to developing economies is that little of the new wealth goes to the general population. If government decisions are so bad, and so readily subject to corruption, why not send more of the revenues back to the citizens directly in the form of cash payments instead of investing in state run social welfare programs? A number of countries have done just that. In 1997, Bolivia dedicated a quarter of the proceeds from the privatization of oil and other industries to pensions for every Bolivian over 65. Mongolia used its copper and gold mining revenues to pay stipends to poor families with children. There are cash transfer programs in more than 40 countries including Bolsa Familia in Brazil and Oportunidades in Mexico. The video on the left explains how they work and presents some of the arguments for the approach.
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A Global Resources Dividend Proposal
Against the view that the primary causes of extreme poverty are largely endogenous - e.g., due to corruption, geography, institutional and cultural factors - some argue that we have not given enough attention to exogenous factors, including the continuing and deepening of impoverishment from the so-called "resource privilege" implicitly recognized in international trading regimes. The resource privilege, as Thomas Pogge calls it, is the practice of regularly buying natural resources from corrupt and illegitimate regimes and simply paying whomever is in charge of those nations for the resources without asking any questions about how the proceeds will be distributed. Pogge's complaint is that wealthy corporations, nations and their citizens are morally complicit in the creation and perpetuation of deep poverty by such routine transactions that avoidably and foreseeably deprive the poorest citizens of developing nations of income that could go a long way toward the alleviation of their condition.
Pogge proposes a Global Resources Dividend (GRD) as an anti-poverty measure designed to address the problem of moral complicity. The plan would impose a 1% tax on natural resources at the point of extraction. Pogge estimates that such a tax could generate hundreds of billions of dollars per year. The funds collected would be distributed in accordance with the judgments of expert panels in the position to evaluate alternative poverty reduction programs, and in addition, such a tax might serve as a disincentive to profligate resource extraction. His proposal, "Eradicating Systemic Poverty: A Brief for A Global Resources Dividend, can be found (among various places) in the second edition of his book, World Poverty and Human Rights, pp. 202-221.
Pogge proposes a Global Resources Dividend (GRD) as an anti-poverty measure designed to address the problem of moral complicity. The plan would impose a 1% tax on natural resources at the point of extraction. Pogge estimates that such a tax could generate hundreds of billions of dollars per year. The funds collected would be distributed in accordance with the judgments of expert panels in the position to evaluate alternative poverty reduction programs, and in addition, such a tax might serve as a disincentive to profligate resource extraction. His proposal, "Eradicating Systemic Poverty: A Brief for A Global Resources Dividend, can be found (among various places) in the second edition of his book, World Poverty and Human Rights, pp. 202-221.
Violation of Property Rights as What's wrong about the Resource Curse
For an interesting philosophical discussion of the primary injustice associated with the resource curse, along with an intriguing practical suggestion on how to stop the cross-border outflow and private domestic capture of the wealth generated by the natural resources extracted from within many lesser developed nations, see a 2008 article by Leif Wenar, "Property Rights and the Resource Curse". Philosophy & Public Affairs 36 (1): 2–32.
Wenar's argument begins with the recognition that there are in play a variety of economic incentives that perpetuate the resource curse. Corporations based in developed nations have incentives to ignore local consequences as long as there is a steady supply of the needed resources at relatively low prices. They have few countervailing incentives to concern themselves with whether the money goes to a dictator or is more dispersed for the benefit of the citizens as a whole. Wenar's philosophical point is that we should question whether the heads of nations that control these resources and pocket the money (for themselves or quite often, for the cronies who keep them in power) should be treated as the rightful owners with authority to sell in the first place. He notes that under international law such assets are considered as belonging to the community as a whole. A sale that does not involve the true owners is an illicit sale, or one that is the equivalent to the criminal receipt of stolen goods.
The practical suggestion is that the global community could change the incentive structure by imposing a tariff on any imported finished goods that uses raw materials obtained by illicit methods, and the proceeds of the tariff could be put in trust for the citizens of the community for their access at such time as the dictator is no longer in power. Unlike Pogge's GRD as a generalized global poverty alleviation strategy, Wenar's proposal is meant to restore wealth generated from natural resources to their rightful owners located within the specific countries from which assets were wrongfully stolen and sold illicitly. The abstract of Wenar's paper can be found here.
Wenar's argument begins with the recognition that there are in play a variety of economic incentives that perpetuate the resource curse. Corporations based in developed nations have incentives to ignore local consequences as long as there is a steady supply of the needed resources at relatively low prices. They have few countervailing incentives to concern themselves with whether the money goes to a dictator or is more dispersed for the benefit of the citizens as a whole. Wenar's philosophical point is that we should question whether the heads of nations that control these resources and pocket the money (for themselves or quite often, for the cronies who keep them in power) should be treated as the rightful owners with authority to sell in the first place. He notes that under international law such assets are considered as belonging to the community as a whole. A sale that does not involve the true owners is an illicit sale, or one that is the equivalent to the criminal receipt of stolen goods.
The practical suggestion is that the global community could change the incentive structure by imposing a tariff on any imported finished goods that uses raw materials obtained by illicit methods, and the proceeds of the tariff could be put in trust for the citizens of the community for their access at such time as the dictator is no longer in power. Unlike Pogge's GRD as a generalized global poverty alleviation strategy, Wenar's proposal is meant to restore wealth generated from natural resources to their rightful owners located within the specific countries from which assets were wrongfully stolen and sold illicitly. The abstract of Wenar's paper can be found here.
A Global Fund Proposal For Redistribution of Resource-Based Wealth
Collective ownership by the citizens of a nation is not the only way we might think of the property rights to natural resources found within developing nations. Most of the property reform suggestions (discussed above) for combatting the resource curse and Wenar's proposal for a tariff with proceeds to be held in trust rests on the assumption that those who often control valuable resources in highly undemocratic developing nations do not have legal title to the assets they are selling on a world market. The assumption is that each nation owns - both legally and morally - whatever natural resources are found within a country's borders.
Other critics of the way the world's resources are distributed also favor a kind of tax and revenue transfer scheme, but the intellectual underpinnings of such proposals are quite different. Hillel Steiner, for example, argues that the value of the natural assets of the world are very unevenly distributed, but most importantly, that uneven distribution is from a moral point of view arbitrary and itself indefensible. National borders themselves are often the product of historic injustices and the legacy of colonialism, and apart from that, Steiner defends a kind of cosmopolitan view of justice in which no one on the basis of the accident of birth deserves the particular distributive share that happens to be available to him or her as a consequence of morally arbitrary borders and the value of the resources that just happen to be found there.
So Steiner favors a global tax on the value of the improved land in each country, such that land-rich nations would then transfer compensating sums of wealth to those who through no fault of their own have a smaller share of the value.
Steiner's argument, then, is no mere plea for some sort of global redistributive tax for the purposes of lifting the very poorest persons out of poverty by way of a modest income transfer from wealthy countries. His argument is that the people in rich and poor countries do not deserve the share of resource value they happen to have as a consequence of national boundaries.
Steiner's argument can be found in his essay, "Territorial Justice and Global Redistribution," in Brock and Brighouse, eds, The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism.
Other critics of the way the world's resources are distributed also favor a kind of tax and revenue transfer scheme, but the intellectual underpinnings of such proposals are quite different. Hillel Steiner, for example, argues that the value of the natural assets of the world are very unevenly distributed, but most importantly, that uneven distribution is from a moral point of view arbitrary and itself indefensible. National borders themselves are often the product of historic injustices and the legacy of colonialism, and apart from that, Steiner defends a kind of cosmopolitan view of justice in which no one on the basis of the accident of birth deserves the particular distributive share that happens to be available to him or her as a consequence of morally arbitrary borders and the value of the resources that just happen to be found there.
So Steiner favors a global tax on the value of the improved land in each country, such that land-rich nations would then transfer compensating sums of wealth to those who through no fault of their own have a smaller share of the value.
Steiner's argument, then, is no mere plea for some sort of global redistributive tax for the purposes of lifting the very poorest persons out of poverty by way of a modest income transfer from wealthy countries. His argument is that the people in rich and poor countries do not deserve the share of resource value they happen to have as a consequence of national boundaries.
Steiner's argument can be found in his essay, "Territorial Justice and Global Redistribution," in Brock and Brighouse, eds, The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism.
The Philosophical Foundations of the Cosmopolitan Complaint against the Present Distribution of Resources
The idea that the current global distribution of resources is inherently unjust is one that many will find intuitively difficult to accept. At least many relatively privileged persons in the world will find it jarring. The rough idea, however, is found in Charles Beitz's classic book, Political Theory and International Relations. The core claim is that from a moral point of view the current distribution is arbitrary in the sense that it largely arises from factors for which neither its most favored beneficiaries nor those whose fortunes are meager are morally responsible. Beitz is what is known as a "resource egalitarian." Ideally, everyone is due an equal share of the world's resources. The distribution is such that the life prospects of persons around the world are vastly different in ways that are not morally defensible. His conclusion is that we need a global resource distribution principle that would remedy the "brute bad luck" of some who are poor through no fault of their own. Unlike Pogge and Wenar who emphasize the injustice of global legal rules of ownership and sale as contributors to poverty, Beitz argues - and Steiner generally agrees - that the pattern of resource holdings itself is indefensible, at least to the extent that the distributive pattern is a matter of brute luck.
Critics, of course, doubt the extent to which differential resource holdings can be attributable to brute bad luck, and they doubt also that a plausible task of justice is to smooth out all inequalities in life prospects, but for those resulting from the voluntary choices of individuals. At the very least, however, Beitz thinks that some sort of resource distribution principle - modeled on Rawls's Difference Principle, perhaps - should be put in place such that every citizen in every nation in the world has a fair chance of satisfying their basic needs. Some priority to the world's worst-off then seems to be the minimum requirement of global justice, even if we cannot say with any certainty what proportion of extreme poverty is due to inequality of resources versus other factors.
Critics, of course, doubt the extent to which differential resource holdings can be attributable to brute bad luck, and they doubt also that a plausible task of justice is to smooth out all inequalities in life prospects, but for those resulting from the voluntary choices of individuals. At the very least, however, Beitz thinks that some sort of resource distribution principle - modeled on Rawls's Difference Principle, perhaps - should be put in place such that every citizen in every nation in the world has a fair chance of satisfying their basic needs. Some priority to the world's worst-off then seems to be the minimum requirement of global justice, even if we cannot say with any certainty what proportion of extreme poverty is due to inequality of resources versus other factors.