The Singer Solution to World Poverty--Something all humans need to really think about

The Singer Solution to World Poverty
Peter Singer
The New York Times Sunday Magazine, September 5, 1999, pp. 60-63

"In the Brazilian film "Central Station," Dora is a retired schoolteacher who makes ends meet by sitting at the station writing letters for illiterate people. Suddenly she has an opportunity to pocket $1,000. All she has to do is persuade a homeless 9-year-old boy to follow her to an address she has been given. (She is told he will be adopted by wealthy foreigners.) She delivers the boy, gets the money, spends some of it on a television set and settles down to enjoy her new acquisition. Her neighbor spoils the fun, however, by telling her that the boy was too old to be adopted —he will be killed and his organs sold for transplantation. Perhaps Dora knew this all along, but after her neighbor's plain speaking, she spends a troubled night. In the morning Dora resolves to take the boy back.

Suppose Dora had told her neighbor that it is a tough world, other people have nice new TV's too, and if selling the kid is the only way she can get one, well, he was only a street kid. She would then have become, in the eyes of the audience, a monster. She redeems herself only by being prepared to bear considerable risks to save the boy.

At the end of the movie, in cinemas in the affluent nations of the world, people who would have been quick to condemn Dora if she had not rescued the boy go home to places far more comfortable than her apartment. In fact, the average family in the United States spends almost one-third of its income on things that are no more necessary to them than Dora's new TV was to her. Going out to nice restaurants, buying new clothes because the old ones are no longer stylish, vacationing at beach resorts —so much of our income is spent on things not essential to the preservation of our lives and health. Donated to one of a number of charitable agencies, that money could mean the difference between life and death for children in need.

All of which raises a question: In the end, what is the ethical distinction between a Brazilian who sells a homeless child to organ peddlers and an American who already has a TV and upgrades to a better one —knowing that the money could be donated to an organization that would use it to save the lives of kids in need?"

...

"In the world as it is now, I can see no escape from the conclusion that each one of us with wealth surplus to his or her essential needs should be giving most of it to help people suffering from poverty so dire as to be life-threatening. That's right: I'm saying that you shouldn't buy that new car, take that cruise, redecorate the house or get that pricey new suit. After all, a $1,000 suit could save five children's lives.

So how does my philosophy break down in dollars and cents? An American household with an income of $50,000 spends around $30,000 annually on necessities, according to the Conference Board, a nonprofit economic research organization. Therefore, for a household bringing in $50,000 a year, donations to help the world's poor should be as close as possible to $20,000. The $30,000 required for necessities holds for higher incomes as well. So a household making $100,000 could cut a yearly check for $70,000. Again, the formula is simple: whatever money you're spending on luxuries, not necessities, should be given away."

Some may argue against his proposal. They might say that since the money is just being given away without any incentive, people will take what they wish and not do things like get a job or start to support themselves. These people will live longer and reproduce. Therefore, giving more aid would simply create more need, not less of it.

However, why think this will happen? There is no evidence that the people who are near death would just do nothing once they didn't have to worry about malnutrition and death of loved ones and sickness, etc. Imagine that we cured people of their sickness, gave them a sufficient amount of food, gave them a nice place to live, set up factories where they could work, and said, "Okay, if you want to keep what you have, you must work."

I think most people who are near death would agree to these conditions. I think most people who are suffering from malnutrition wouldn't mind working once they got enough food and water and shelter to do so.

There is no good reason why essentially all Americans cannot give aid to dying countries. The price of a new TV is not just a couple thousand dollars, it's a couple hundred lives.

See my paper on possible objections to giving aid here.