Why Do We Need Human Rights? (36): The Economic Case Against Democracy

Democracy is a human right. But how do we justify this right? One common argument is that democracies tend to be wealthier than non-democracies. However, there’s some disagreement about this argument: not about the goodness of wealth and wealth-enhancing institutions, but about whether democracies are in fact such institutions. Impressive economic growth rates in non-democratic countries such as China have planted doubts in many people’s minds.

Some time ago, I offered a rather “philosophical” argument against the view that democracies perform worse economically than some types of authoritarian government (i.e. China-style). But in fact we’re dealing with empirically verifiable hypotheses here. So I looked for some numbers and found this article by Dani Rodrik:

The relationship between a nation’s politics and its economic prospects is one of the most fundamental – and most studied – subjects in all of social science. Which is better for economic growth – a strong guiding hand that is free from the pressure of political competition, or a plurality of competing interests that fosters openness to new ideas and new political players? …

Democracies not only out-perform dictatorships when it comes to long-term economic growth, but also outdo them in several other important respects. They provide much greater economic stability, measured by the ups and downs of the business cycle. They are better at adjusting to external economic shocks (such as terms-of-trade declines or sudden stops in capital inflows). They generate more investment in human capital – health and education. And they produce more equitable societies.

Authoritarian regimes, by contrast, ultimately produce economies that are as fragile as their political systems. Their economic potency, when it exists, rests on the strength of individual leaders, or on favorable but temporary circumstances. They cannot aspire to continued economic innovation or to global economic leadership. (source)

The darling of the “authoritarian=efficient” crowd is, of course, China. China has indeed performed extremely well economically under a rather authoritarian government. However, that government is much less authoritarian than it was during the post-WWII decades of stagnation and extreme poverty. So maybe it’s the relative move towards greater freedom that is the true cause of China’s economic performance, rather than its authoritarian government per se.

Moreover, China has done very well in terms of growth and poverty reduction, but in terms of levels of prosperity it’s still way behind most countries that are much more free. Its astounding progress is partly due to the very low starting point that was engineered by its authoritarian rulers.

And finally, the supposed economic success of authoritarianism in China – if it exists – isn’t necessarily proof of the economic ability of authoritarianism in general (authoritarian disaster stories are unfortunately far more common than authoritarian success stories). It may not even be proof of the economic ability of authoritarianism in China, since correlation doesn’t imply causation, especially not if there are only very few observations: China’s economic success may be due to other factors – and maybe this success would have been even greater without authoritarian government.

The economic case for authoritarianism is a bit like this: usually, people don’t return from the dead. But there’s this one guy, Lazarus, who did. Some claim that there was this other fellow, Jesus, who done the deed and made Lazarus walk again. There are no other Jesuses around, and this one Jesus only did his trick once. Nobody quite knows how he did it. Some say he just happened to be around when it occurred and people put one and one together. Lazarus would have walked anyway, perhaps even sooner had this other fellow not stolen all the attention.

The Causes of Wealth Inequality (25): Globalization, Ctd.

Globalization is the usual suspect when people discuss the causes of contemporary increases in income inequality in many Western nations. As a result of easier transportation, trade and communication, low skilled workers in those nations now face ever tougher competition from cheap workers in developing countries, and this competition drives down wages at the poor end of Western income distributions: workers have to swallow wage reductions under the threat of outsourcing. Increased immigration – another facet of globalization – has the same effect.

At the top end of the income distribution, the reverse is happening: the job of a CEO is now more complicated in our globalized world, and hence his pay is higher. The threat of relocation also has an effect on income inequality through the channel of the welfare state: companies threaten to relocate, not just because of labor costs, but also because of tax rates. Taxes in Western countries tend to be relatively high because social security tends to be relatively generous. The threat of relocation convinces governments to reduce tax rates, but the price to pay is often a less generous welfare state. This as well puts pressure on the income distribution.

All this sounds convincing, but I’m afraid it’s too simple. The effects of globalization on inequality starts to look more complicated when we take consumption into account. Globalization tends to lower the consumption prizes of a lot of goods, and cheaper consumption can counteract downward pressures on wages and social security. If you can buy more and better stuff with your paycheck, your unemployment benefit or your disability check, then perhaps you’re not worse off.

There’s an interesting paper here by Broda and Romalis in which they look at

the compositional differences in the basket of goods consumed by the poor and the rich in America. Using household data on non-durable consumption between 1994 and 2005 we document that much of the rise of income inequality has been offset by a relative decline in the price index of the poor. By relaxing the standard assumptions underlying the representative agent framework we find that inflation for households in the lowest tenth percentile of income has been 6 percentage points smaller than inflation for the upper tenth percentile over this period. The lower inflation at low income levels can be explained by three factors: 1) The poor consume a higher share of non-durable goods —whose prices have fallen relative to services over this period; 2) the prices of the set of non-durable goods consumed by the poor has fallen relative to that of the rich; and 3) a higher proportion of the new goods are purchased by the poor. We examine the role played by Chinese exports in explaining the lower inflation of the poor. Since Chinese exports are concentrated in low-quality non-durable products that are heavily purchased by poorer Americans, we find that about one third of the relative price drops faced by the poor are associated with rising Chinese imports.

When measuring income inequality, we should correct for the different prices of goods and services consumed by people in different income groups. This doesn’t mean that we should be happy about the fact that poor people live on cheap stuff; it simply means that some of the rising income inequality is compensated by cheaper stuff. And we have cheaper stuff because of globalization. Turning globalization into some sort of bogey man is therefore rather too simple. Income inequality has many causes, and it’s not clear that globalization is, everything considered, an important one.

Finally, a word about the supposed wage pressures of increased immigration: they are indeed no more than supposed.

More posts in this series.

Migration and Human Rights (42): The Labor Cost Argument Against Open Borders

I’ve argued many times before against the popular view that increased immigration is detrimental to native employment and income. The simple argument about an increase in supply of cheap labor driving down wages and forcing expensive native workers out of the job market is just that: simple, too simple. There’s even evidence that the opposite is true: immigration increases native wages (because it allows native workers to move up the pay scale). But even if immigration did impose a cost on the host country, that wouldn’t be the final argument against immigration, since such a cost could be seen as a form of global redistribution and global justice: improving the lot of the poorest of the world surely justifies imposing a burden on those who have more wealth and who had the good fortune of being born in the “right” part of the world. True, this burden shouldn’t fall on the poorest members of the “right” countries, but if it does that can be corrected by national redistribution.

Still, let’s return to the labor cost argument against immigration. Here’s another piece of evidence that tips the scales yet a bit further against the view that the extremely low cost of immigrant labor results in displacement of low-level native labor. The evidence I want to cite is about internal migration in China, but it’s perfectly possible to use it against arguments favoring restrictions on international migration:

Hundreds of millions of rural migrants have moved into Chinese cities since the early 1990s contributing greatly to economic growth, yet, they are often blamed for reducing urban ‘native’ workers’ employment opportunities, suppressing their wages and increasing pressure on infrastructure and other public facilities. This paper examines the causal relationship between rural-urban migration and urban native workers’ labour market outcomes in Chinese cities. After controlling for the endogeneity problem our results show that rural migrants in urban China have modest positive or zero effects on the average employment and insignificant impact on earnings of urban workers. When we examine the impact on unskilled labours we once again find it to be positive and insignificant. We conjecture that the reason for the lack of adverse effects is due partially to the labour market segregation between the migrants and urban natives, and partially due to the complementarities between the two groups of workers. Further investigation reveals that the increase in migrant inflow is related to the demand expansion and that if the economic growth continues, elimination of labour market segregation may not necessarily lead to an adverse impact of migration on urban native labour market outcomes. (source, source)

More posts about arguments against open borders are here, here and here. More posts in this blog series are here.

The Causes of Poverty (54): Lack of Trade Liberalization

I mentioned before that trade liberalization – the removal of trade barriers such as tariffs, subsidies and other distortions of international trade – is, on aggregate and in the medium term, a powerful mechanism for poverty reduction. I say “in the medium turn”, because some structural adjustment may be necessary, and “on aggregate” because some may lose while others gain.

The usual fears about trade liberalization – that it reduces government revenues necessary for redistribution, that it leads to labor competition, lower wages and higher unemployment rates, or that it raises prices in developing countries – are, in general and on aggregate, unfounded (an overview of the evidence is here). Of course, trade liberalization may cause local economic shocks, and there can be distributional effects: some people will benefit more than others, and some may even be worse of after liberalization, especially in the short term. But it’s the aggregate medium term effect on a country or an economy that counts.

This is similar to the positive effect of economic growth on poverty reduction:

The vast majority of the world’s poor live in the rural areas of these two countries [China and India]. Both countries achieved significant reductions in poverty during 1980–2000 when they grew rapidly. According to World Bank estimates, real GDP grew at an annual average rate of 10 percent in China and 6 percent in India during these two decades. No country in the world had as rapid growth as China, and fewer than ten countries exceeded the Indian growth rate. The effect on reduction in poverty in both countries was dramatic, entirely in keeping with the “Bhagwati hypothesis” of the early 1960’s that growth is a principal driver of poverty reduction. (source)

Not all of the poor will be automatically better of as a result of economic growth, and growth may widen income inequality or relative poverty while reducing absolute poverty. But on average and on aggregate, economic growth – like trade liberalization – reduces poverty. That’s not just a story of “trickle down” or “all boats rising on a rising tide”; economic growth also means that the government has more resources to fund welfare and redistribution. (Obviously, none of this implies that growth is always beneficial or that there isn’t room to make growth even more “pro-poor” than it already is).

Arguments in favor of trade liberalization

The interesting part of the argument is that the positive effect of trade liberalization on poverty reduction passes through enhanced economic growth: liberalization reduces poverty because it enhances growth.

[P]ractically no country that has been close to autarkic has managed to sustain a high growth performance over a sustained period. Furthermore, … if one classifies countries into globalizers and nonglobalizers by reference to their relative performance in raising the trade share in GNP during 1977–1997, the former group has shown higher growth rates… [T]he outward-orientation of the Far Eastern strategy … led to the Asian miracle. (source)

Free trade is one of the determinants of economic growth. Growth requires increased productivity, and that’s what free trade delivers. Free trade means more productivity because it means

• more specialization
• more use of comparative advantage
• better access to technology and knowledge
• better and cheaper intermediate goods (raw products etc.) and capital goods (machines etc.)
• benefits of scale
• and increased competition.

All these consequences of free trade have a positive effect on productivity and hence on growth. And that’s not just theory; there’s empirical proof. Reductions in trade barriers were almost always followed by significant increases in productivity (source).

And it’s not just productivity; trade liberalization has other effects as well. The removal of tariffs can reduces prices for consumers and hence reduce poverty. It’s often the case that goods consumed by poor people have a higher tariff tax than goods consumed by rich people:

In his research, [Edward Gresser, senior fellow and director of trade policy at the Progressive Policy Institute] found that the tariff rate on a cashmere sweater is 4 percent; the rate for one made of much cheaper acrylic is 32 percent. A silk brassiere has a tariff rate of less than 3 percent, but the rate on a polyester one is slightly less than 17 percent. The tariff rate on a snakeskin handbag is just over 5 percent but climbs to 16 percent for one made of canvas. Similar variations occur when it comes to household goods. Drinking glasses that cost more than $5 each have a tariff of 3 percent, while those that cost less than 30 cents each have a rate of 28.5 percent. A silk pillowcase has a rate of 4.5 percent; this goes up to nearly 15 percent for one made of polyester.

Overall, clothes and shoes contributed nearly $10 billion in tariff revenue in 2009, while higher-cost items including audiovisual equipment, computers and even cars added less than $2 billion. Gresser contends that the $10 billion is disproportionately borne by people who can’t afford to buy luxury goods. What’s more, when customers pay sales tax on these products, that amount is also higher than it would otherwise be thanks to the tariff that drives up the retail price. (source)

Hence, not only does free trade alleviate poverty, trade restrictions and protectionism actually aggravate poverty. Take also the example of restrictions on rice exports in rice-producing countries:

At first glance, this seems understandable, because a country may not wish to send valuable foodstuffs abroad in a time of need. Nonetheless, the longer-run incentives are counterproductive. (source)

When farmers can’t export, there’s little incentive for them to farm rice. Result: the shortages that were meant to be avoided.

Arguments against trade liberalization

However, we shouldn’t lose sight of the undisputed downsides of trade liberalization. The removal of subsidies can hurt certain producers and it can, especially in the short run, depress employment and wages in certain sectors. It can therefore reduce some people’s incomes and push them into poverty. Trade liberalization can destroy entire markets: it can force a country to abandon tomato production for example, because nonsubsidized local producers are no longer able to compete with increased import competition coming from countries with a comparative advantage. The local producers will lose their jobs and income. However, these same people may benefit in other areas: products which they consume may become cheaper. So, when assessing the impact of trade liberalization on poverty, one has to aggregate all the losses and gains in different areas, and that’s ultimately an empirical question that has to be investigated country by country. Overall, the evidence is that, on aggregate, the effect is probably positive.

There can be individual losers from liberalization, and even individual countries can lose: countries that depend on mineral resources, for example, can take the fast lane towards the resource curse when trade is liberalized. But it’s the global balance of poverty alleviation that determines the desirability and success of trade liberalization.

The claim that liberalization negatively affects government revenues because of decreasing income from tariff taxes, and hence diminishes the generosity of the welfare state, is also not well founded. First of all, liberalization also means reduced subsidies, which should improve governments’ fiscal situation. Secondly, trade volumes increase as tariffs are reduced, and hence the net effect of reducing tariffs doesn’t have to be falling revenues. And finally, even if revenues fall, the poor don’t necessarily have to suffer: it’s ultimately a political decision where to spend which types of government revenues. Priorities can change when revenues change.

Another possible disadvantage of free trade is a cultural one. The claim is that free trade means cultural imperialism: small cultures don’t have the resources to export their cultural products and risk being overwhelmed by, in particular, American culture. Hence, there may be a case for cultural protectionism, but this case doesn’t extrapolate to protectionism writ large.

Conclusion

Liberalization isn’t a magic bullet, neither for economic growth nor for poverty alleviation. Sustained growth and substantial long term poverty reduction require more than free trade. Conflict resolution, good governance, education etc. need to accompany liberalization. It’s no secret that we don’t yet fully understand all the determinants of growth and poverty reduction. The advantage of trade liberalization, compared to other possible pro-growth or pro-poor policies, is that it’s relatively easy to implement: it is – or should be – easier to abolish tariffs and other trade restrictions (especially if there’s an element of reciprocity in global negotiations) than to create a solid education system or a non-corrupt judiciary able to enforce market rules and property rights.

The evidence in favor of the pro-poor effects of trade liberalization is compelling, but we shouldn’t underestimate some measurement difficulties: the measurement of poverty, of trade liberalization and of the effect of the latter on the former is by definition imprecise. The concept of trade liberalization may also be too broad or too vague. And the specific outcomes of liberalization policies depend not only on the precise reforms being undertaken, but also on the context in which they are undertaken. The same measures will have different results in different economic environments. The extent of multilaterality also determines the effects.

Read more on the topic here and here. More posts in this series are here.

Why Do We Need Human Rights? (18): The Economic Case Against Human Rights

Some more comments following two previous posts on the topic (see <a href="http://here and here).

Do human rights promote or depress economic growth and prosperity? (I’ll focus on non-political rights for the moment because political rights – i.e. democracy – have very specific effects on the economy). The economic case against human rights could go something like this. Economic growth would be enhanced by different policies and actions that imply violations of human rights. E.g.

• Killing criminals instead of incarcerating them would make substantial resources available for more productive investments.
• The same is true for the resource that go into running legal and criminal judiciary systems that correspond to human rights requirements (e.g. high burden of proof, appeals systems, legal representation etc.).
• Human rights, and specifically those regulating the judiciary, make it more likely that suspects who have indeed committed a crime are set free, which imposes an economic cost on society.
• Killing the poor, the sick and the elderly rather than helping them would likewise liberate resources for more productive use.
• Less extremely, assisting the poor, the sick and the elderly means creating a large government and a heavy tax and regulatory burden. These are detrimental to entrepreneurship and business because they are disincentives for wealth creators. When wealth creators are burdened, prosperity suffers.
• Social and economic human rights such as a right to strike, to a decent wage, limited working hours etc. undermine productivity and hence prosperity.
• Etc.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that all these effects are real and not compensated by

• positive economic effects of respect for human rights
• other, negative economic effects of violations of human rights, or
• long term disadvantages following the possible short term advantages of rights violations (the fear, distrust and uncertainty resulting from some if not all of the claimed economic advantages of the rights violations that I just cited would likely harm long term prosperity).

Then you still don’t have a watertight case against human rights because people may still be willing to pay the economic price for respect for human rights. They may prefer to have their rights respected even if that has economic costs.

But, of course, that assumption doesn’t hold. The possible economic benefits of rights violations are easily offset by their costs and by the benefits of respect for human rights. Ultimately, the question of the effect of respect for human rights on the economy is an empirically verifiable hypothesis: we have data on economic performance, and – to some extent – on rights performance. It’s just a matter of linking the two. There’s an interesting paper here trying to do just that. The conclusion:

Our results show that high degrees of human rights are conducive to economic growth and welfare in a significant manner.

Through which channels is this effect supposed to operate? There are a few candidates:

• Physical security is a necessary precondition for the productive use of one’s resources and property.
• Property rights and the rule of law – both are human rights – are necessary for the effective operation of free markets, and free markets promote growth. Neither the rule of law nor property rights are safe in authoritarian regimes: why would a government that imposes physical harm respect property rights?
• Countries don’t attract Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) when they have a poor human rights record, rampant insecurity, ineffective rule of law and protection of property rights, poor labor conditions and the worker unrest that it implies etc. Stability, predictability, peace and calm lead to investment. Investment in rights abusing countries can also harm companies domestically when consumers revolt against the foreign conduct of their national companies.
• Education is a human right, and investments – especially FDI – usually follow the trail of education. Education is typically considered growth enhancing.

The discussion should separate between growth and levels of prosperity. There is an obvious correlation between respect for rights and levels of prosperity: the most prosperous countries in the world are also those where respect for rights has achieved a higher level. The case that growth rather than level of prosperity is also correlated with respect for human rights seems a lot harder to make, given the high growth levels of countries such as China. The argument could be that respect for rights promotes but is not a necessary condition for growth. Or it could be that authoritarian countries with high growth rates would have had still higher rates had they respected rights to a higher degree. Such a counterfactual is of course very hard to measure.

So, it’s not just that richer countries can start to afford human rights (to some extent that’s true, because rights cost money); it’s also the case that respect for human rights leads to higher wealth. There’s a two-way causation at work here.

Freedom of Expression and the Internet

The internet is undoubtedly a huge boost for freedom of expression, and not only a quantitative boost. It has certain qualitative characteristics that older media don’t have, which make it particularly beneficial for free speech.

A first reason why the internet promotes free speech is its relative cost: it has made speech much less expensive. You even don’t need to own a computer since you can, with relative ease, use a public one. And even the cost of a computer pales compared to the cost of many older media.

Another reason is that governments find it much more difficult to censor speech on the internet. Speech is no longer bound to a particular carrier which can be easily confiscated or destroyed, or to a particular territory where a state can exercise its power. People can publish on websites in other countries without being there. Of course, governments do retain some considerable censorship power over the internet, as is demonstrated by the case of the Great Firewall of China, but it’s safe to say that this power is relatively weak compared to government’s powers over traditional media, precisely because of the international character of the internet.

Unfortunately, we see that private actors sometimes replace the government as censors. The discussions on net neutrality for example result from some cases where internet providers have blocked access to competitor sites or favored access to friendly or related sites (see the case of Telus blocking access to a labor union website). One could also claim that Google, for instance, despite the good it does for free expression, also in a way limits it, since it systematically channels people towards speech that already has much exposure and freedom, and “buries” all the rest (read more about this here). There is still domination and inequality on the web; the question is whether on average the internet has done more to limit it or to advance it. I believe the former.

A third reason why the internet promotes free speech is the gradual disappearance of middle men. You don’t need editors, publishers or peer review to publish your views. In traditional media, these middle men normally filter out a lot of speech, often to the benefit of the public but never to the benefit of speech.

So these are three reasons (among many others) why the internet expands the amount of speech and promotes free speech in a quantitative way. But it can also be argued that the internet has improved speech in a qualitative way. That may be a counter-intuitive claim, given the amount of bullshit that’s present on the web, and yet I think it’s true for many pockets of the internet. Because the internet creates a quantitative boost for speech, it also produces a qualitative one. The internet has allowed more people to speak, listen and discuss, and it’s a common argument in philosophy that widespread participation in discussions tends to improve the quality of people’s opinions, under certain ideal circumstances. I won’t make the detailed argument here, since I’ve done that many times before. In a few words, the argument boils down to this: the freedom to speak, the equal freedom to speak, and massive use by large numbers of people of this freedom, result in the appearance and confrontation of a large number of points of view and of perspectives on issues. It means that a proposal or opinion or policy is subjected to intense scrutiny and criticism. If it survives this, it is bound to be of better quality.

Why Do We Need Human Rights? (15): Is Human Rights Talk Mere Signaling?

There’s certainly a lot of signaling going on in human rights talk. People who engage in human rights talk don’t necessarily have as a first priority the goal of improving respect for human rights, but rather want to convey some meaningful information about themselves and use human rights talk to do that.

For example, it’s possible that some of the people who are very expressive about perceived discrimination of a particular minority group may be primarily motivated by a possible leadership position within that minority group. Their human rights talk signals leadership aspirations. Some allegations by torture victims may not be intended to stop a torture regime, but to signal extremist credentials to like-minded people. Also regarding torture, I’ve written not so long ago about a study suggesting that some governments sign torture conventions, not to rid the world of torture, but to signal ruthlessness: they sign the convention and just continue their torture methods, thereby telling their victims and their population in general that they are so powerful that they can voluntarily submit to laws and then deliberately and openly break them in the face of impotent international opprobrium.

Another example is the ritualistic condemnation of China’s human rights record. Western leaders, when visiting China or playing host to Chinese leaders, are expected to repeat some standard phrases about human rights in China. That’s what their national constituencies expect from them, and they grudgingly comply. It has become part of protocol, like kissing the Pope’s ring. It’s utterly meaningless because real action to pressure China is completely lacking. China knows this, but goes along and issues its equally ritualistic counter-claims of national sovereignty blah blah. The West signals that it cares about human rights; the Chinese leaders that they don’t.

Something similar is happening with universal jurisdiction. Countries engaging in universal jurisdiction often start court cases against foreign dictators, without the slightest hope of actually punishing and imprisoning those dictators, but at least they signal that the “world community” doesn’t silently accept atrocity. And perhaps they also signal their own country’s moral superiority. A lot of human rights talk seems to be about moral superiority.

Karl Marx already identified signaling as a important function of human rights, although he pushed his point a bit too far. Human rights, according to him, are an ideology. An ideology pretends to be a description of the world but in reality it masks certain key aspects of it in order to maintain the economic status quo. It is an instrument in the continuation of the existing social order. Those who may threaten the status quo in a revolutionary way can be convinced by the ideology of human rights to work within the system and struggle for equal rights. However, these equal rights, according to Marx, can only deliver formal equality, not real equality. Only a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism can achieve the latter. Human rights signal equality but in reality serve to maintain class rule.

Those who benefit from the existing order and who are therefore part of the ruling class, will tend to produce and propagate ideologies. Religion is another example of an ideology, and one that works in much the same way as the ideology of human rights. Desires that can harm the existing order and the status quo – such as desires for equality – must be neutralized. The idea of the Christian paradise expresses certain desires for a better world but makes it impossible to realize them and to threaten the existing order. By convincing people that these desires can only be realized in the afterlife, the idea or better ideology of paradise pacifies relationships in this life. Why revolt if you know that equality and happiness are there for the taking in a future life? Especially when you will only get paradise if you respect morality in this life and when morality is often and conveniently incompatible with the consequences of revolt.

Religious ideology neutralizes desires by situating them in the afterlife. Religion is opium for the people, a drug that makes them forget the pain of this world, or at least convinces them to accept this pain, because pain can lead to revolt and those in power never like revolt. Something similar is inherent in the ideology of human rights. The use of force or coercion by the state in the defense of the right to capitalist property, for example, is not necessary when the poor can be convinced that property is a human right which is in their interest, rather than a right of the wealthy. The economic relationships and structures are maintained with political and legal force but also with legal ideology.

All ideologies are similar. Christianity can convince people to accept their situation by promising salvation in a future life, and the ideology of human rights does the same by convincing people, all people, that they have the same rights and that they are therefore equal. When this universality and equality of rights is accentuated, people do not see that others who have the same equal rights profit more from these rights. Human rights signal freedom and equality, and give the impression of guaranteeing freedom and equality, but in reality give those who are better off tools to improve their situation even more, and at the expense of the poor. Instead of real equality there is only legal and formal equality, and the latter takes us further away from the former because the rich can use their equal rights to promote their interests. Rights, according to Marx, give us the freedom to oppress rather than freedom from oppression.

Human rights, he says, are a set of false ideas that have to cover up class rule and make it acceptable. The continuation of inequality by political and legal means is based on the combination of coercion and false consciousness. Christians are equal in heaven and thereby maintain inequality on earth, and believers in human rights are equal in the heaven of their political ideals and thereby forget the inequality that these ideals help to maintain.

I think that view is far too pessimistic and takes the signaling thing way too serious. It ignores the transformative power of human rights. There is signaling going on in human rights talk, but a lot of other stuff as well. Some talk is really aimed primarily or exclusively at a real transformation of reality toward a higher level of human rights protection. And a lot of that talk really works in the sense that life is changed by speech. Sometimes human rights aren’t about human rights, but often they are.

Gender Discrimination (22): Gendercide

The Economist has a front page story this week on “gendercide”, the millions of girls missing in the world, especially in India and China. Perhaps as many as 100 million girls have disappeared in the last decades because of

• selective abortions encouraged by new medical technology (ultrasounds and fertility technology)
• childhood neglect of girls (nutritional, educational neglect and neglect in health care)
• prejudice, preference for male offspring and
• population policies such as the “one child policy” in China.

Interestingly, the skewed sex ratios that result from gendercide (in some areas of China, 130 boys are being born for every 100 girls) are coming back to haunt the men that are responsible (although many mothers probably aren’t without fault either). Because of their relative scarcity, women have found an unlikely source of power. They have a competitive advantage in the marriage market, and can demand more in marriage negotiations, or at least be more selective when choosing a mate.

Causes

In my view, the word “gendercide” is somewhat overwrought because, contrary to genocide, the word that inspired the neologism of gendercide, there’s no centralized plan to exterminate women. Femicide would be a better term since it’s obviously only one of two genders that’s targeted, but it still sounds like a government organized campaign of extermination. Gendercide is the result of a combination of causes:

• individual choices based on
• plain prejudice against girls
• cultural and legal traditions, or
• economic incentives that have been formed by historical prejudice.

Perhaps girls still need a dowry, and poor parents may find it difficult to save enough and hence prefer a boy. Or perhaps they prefer a boy because the law of their country or tribe – inspired by age-old prejudice – says that only boys can inherit land or the family business. Again, the parents may prefer a boy for this reason, not because they dislike girls. Or perhaps tradition holds that girls marry off into their husbands families, and parents simply want to be sure to have someone in their home to care for them when they are old (“raising a daughter is like watering your neighbor’s garden”, is a Hindu saying).

Consequences

The consequences of gendercide are mixed. It’s obviously horrible to the girls that are aborted or neglected to death. But, as in the “boomerang” case cited above, gendercide may ultimately empower women. However, the skewed sex ratios also spell trouble: the presence of armies of men who can’t find wives and have children (“bare branches” or “guanggun” they are called in China) may result in more sexual violence, depression, suicide, human trafficking etc. It’s estimated that in 10 years time, one in five young Chinese men won’t be able to find a bride. On the other hand, a shortage of women will encourage immigration, and immigration may help some women escape poverty, and perhaps will also result in more intercultural tolerance.

Solutions

Economic development won’t stop it. In China and India, the regions with the worst sex ratios are wealthy ones, with educated populations. Even in some population strata in the U.S. sex ratios are skewed. When people escape poverty, fertility rates drop, and when families have fewer children, the need to select for sex only becomes more important in order to realize their son preference. In poor societies with high fertility rates, families are almost destined to have a boy at some point. Female children will suffer relative neglect and may die more often and more rapidly (skewing the sex ratios), but selective abortions aren’t much of a risk: families don’t really feel the need to limit the number of children (on the contrary often, because children are a workforce), and ultrasound technology for sex determination of fetuses isn’t as readily available as in rich countries or regions. When families want few children – as they do in more developed regions – or are forced by the government to limit their number of children (as in China), they will abort female fetuses in pursuit of a son.

Ultimately, only a cultural change will help. The son preference has to die out. Education probably will help, as it always does. Ending pernicious policies such as the one child policy will also help, but then overpopulation hysterics will have to be dealt with. This policy didn’t help stop population growth anyway. Other East Asian countries reduced population pressure as much as China without brutal policies.

Old customs and discriminating laws should also be abolished. Think of the dowry system, or inheritance rights. Stigmatizing abortion, especially sex selective abortion, will also help.

The Causes of Wealth Inequality (5): Globalization

Globalization is supposed to have lowered the earnings of less-educated workers by putting them in direct competition with low-wage workers around the world. This competition put pressure on wages through international trade in goods and services; through the relocation or threat of relocation of production facilities to overseas locations; through competition with immigrants in local labor markets; and through other channels. …

U.S. and European workers are told that … our societies can no longer afford a generous welfare state. …

Contrary to the standard framing, which presents globalization as something that no nation can escape or even attempt to shape, we can choose the terms under which we integrate capital, product, and labor markets across countries. Over the last 30 years we have indeed “chosen” a particular form of globalization in the United States – a form that benefits corporations and their owners at the expense of workers and their communities. If we had chosen globalization on different terms, however, economic integration would not have required rising inequality. Another globalization is possible. (source, source)

So globalization, as it has occurred and is occurring, causes higher inequality in the West in two ways:

• The direct competition with overseas workers who can produce at lower wages puts downward pressure on wages in the West, especially for low-skilled workers at the wrong end of inequality.
• Governments in developed countries react to this competition by restricting social safety nets because the taxes necessary for the funding of these safety nets hurts the competitiveness of local businesses, a competitiveness already under pressure from low-cost labor in the developing world. Less generous safety nets obviously also have a negative effect on inequality.

If these effects are real, perhaps they can explain the decline of manufacturing in many developed countries.

However, I’m not sure this pressure on wages is real and significant (I’ll try to find some data), and we also shouldn’t dismiss the benefits for low-wage workers in the West of cheaper products. This particular result of globalization can offset the possible negative wage effects of wage competition.

Also, I’m not sure governments in the West are actively attacking safety nets (here it says they haven’t during the last decades, but it seems that the recent economic crisis has convinced some to start cutting benefits). And finally, we should remember that inequality isn’t just a national problem. The inequality between countries is just as, if not more, important. And globalization has had a beneficial effect on inter-country inequality because it has redistributed wealth from rich countries to poor countries. For example, it’s hard to imagine how China could have had the same success in poverty reduction without globalization. The question is of course whether this redistribution had to come from low skilled workers in the West, rather than from their more wealthy fellow citizens. The fact that it did come, however, was undoubtedly beneficial to the poor in the receiving development countries.

The Causes of Poverty (30): Lack of Economic Growth

When a country achieves a certain level of economic growth – or, more precisely, rising levels of GDP per capita because economic growth as such can be the result of rising population levels – it is assumed that this reflects a higher average standard of living for its citizens. Economic growth is therefore seen as an important tool in the struggle against poverty. If a country is richer in general, the population will also be richer on average. On average meaning that GDP growth isn’t necessarily equally distributed over every member of the population. That is why GDP growth isn’t sufficient proof of poverty reduction. Separate measurements of poverty and inequality are necessary.

So in theory, you can have GDP growth and increasing levels of poverty, on the condition that GDP growth is concentrated in the hands of a few. However, that’s generally not the case. GDP growth benefits to some extent many of the poor as well as the wealthy, which is shown by the strong correlation between poverty reduction and levels of GDP growth (always per capita of course). It’s no coincidence that a country such as China, which has seen strong GDP growth over the last decades, is also a country that has managed to reduce poverty levels substantially.

Unfortunately, growth isn’t a silver bullet. Poverty is a complex problem, requiring many types of solutions. Promoting economic growth will do a lot of the work, but something more is required. In a new paper, Martin Ravaillon gives the example of China, Brazil and India. The levels of poverty reduction in these three countries, although impressive, do not simply mirror the levels of economic growth. Although half of the world’s poor live in these three countries, in the last 25 years China has reduced its poverty level from 84% of the population in 1981 to just 16% in 2005. China is exceptional, but Brazil also did well, cutting its rate in half over the same period (8% of Brazilians still live on less than $1.25 a day). Regarding India, there are some problems with its statistics, but whichever statistic you use, there’s a clear reduction.

Ravaillon points out that the intensity of poverty reduction was higher in Brazil than in India and China, despite lower GDP growth rates.

Per unit of growth, Brazil reduced its proportional poverty rate five times more than China or India did. How did it do so well? The main explanation has to do with inequality. This (as measured by the Gini index, also marked on the chart) has fallen sharply in Brazil since 1993, while it has soared in China and risen in India. Greater inequality dampens the poverty-reducing effect of growth. (source)

Which is rather obvious: lower levels of income equality means a better distribution of the benefits of growth. So the “pro-growth strategy” against poverty is important but not enough, and should be combined with Brazilian type anti-inequality measures (focus on education, healthcare and redistribution).

The Ethics of Human Rights (25): Free Organ Trade and the Commodification of the Body

The case for allowing free organ trade seems like a no-brainer. Many countries, including the U.S., now forbid the sale and purchase of most organs, and, as a consequence, sick people die because of organ shortages, and poor people stay poor because they can’t “monetize” their organs. Poor people suffer a “double injustice”:

[We say] to a poor person: “You can’t have what most other people have and we are not going to let you do what you want to have those things”. (source, source)

However, when organs are freely tradable, many extremely poor people, especially those struggling to survive, will be tempted and even forced to sells parts of their bodies. Moreover, the rich will be able to benefit disproportionately from the market because prices will be high, given that demand will outstrip supply in an ageing society. The most obvious means to balance supply and demand, and to force down prices and allow the less than wealthy patients to participate in and benefit from the market, is to create a global market without trade restrictions, an organ-GATT if you want. This will bring in the masses of poor people from Africa and Asia, pushing up supply of organs and hence bringing down prices. This will supposedly benefit both the less than wealthy patients and the very poor donors. The latter will benefit even with prices for organs falling because of increased supply, because they start at extremely low levels of income. Even the sale of a cheap kidney can mean years of income for them.

The problem with this global market is that organ extraction will take place in sub-optimal medical conditions, creating risks for donors (if you can still call them that), also in the case of renewable tissue donation. Paradoxically, the poor are driven to risk their lives in the process of saving their lives. Even in the best healthcare systems in the world, organ extraction is often very risky. In the U.S., the extraction of a section of the liver, for example, carries a risk to the donor’s life of almost 1 percent (source). That’s not negligible. I doubt anyone would cross a street if that were the odds of getting hit by a car.

I’m convinced that an opt-out regulation for cadaveric donors (meaning that everyone’s a donor after death unless an explicit opt-out), combined with non-financial encouragement of voluntary pre-death donation, is the best way to solve the organ shortage problem. A free organ market will obviously also solve the organ shortage problem, but will create new problems instead.

The distinction between renewable tissue such as bone marrow, and non-renewable organs such as kidneys, eyes, etc. is a relevant one. If the donation of renewable tissue can take place in medically safe conditions, I can’t see a problem with being allowed to trade, on the condition that poor patients have the same opportunity and power to buy as rich ones (and that’s a pretty big “if”). The needs of the sick or disabled who risk dying or suffering because of a lack of available organ, clearly outweigh any remaining concerns.

One of those remaining concerns is the problem of the commodification of the body. Organ trade is obviously commodification, and commodification is dehumanization. I don’t want to imply that organ trade liberalization necessarily results in “organ farms”, dystopian places where people are “cultivated” solely for the harvesting of their organs – although the Chinese criminal justice and capital punishment system for instance comes awfully close. (I sometimes wonder if deterrent and punishment is the real goal of executions in China). But people can commodify and dehumanize themselves. And although we should normally respect people’s self-regarding choices, what looks like a choice may not always be a true choices.

The logic of economics tends to overtake all other domains of life, even those where it doesn’t belong and can do serious harm. Why is it so evident to so many that body parts are something that it supposed to be tradable? Even the most outspoken proponents of organ trade draw the line somewhere: they won’t allow people to sell parts of their brains, I guess, or their children and wives, or the parts of aborted fetuses (perhaps fetuses specially conceived and “harvested” for their parts), not even if this would fill a great social need. And yet they accept as natural that non-vital body parts should be tradable and seem to forget that irreplaceable body parts form our body and that we can hardly exist without our body. If we allow total freedom of organ trade, we will have to accept the case in which a poor father decides to sell off every single one of his organs for the survival of his family. After all, he is the master of his own body, he has a right to self-determination, and the government has no right to limit what masters of their own bodies should be allowed to do with it. If you don’t accept the legitimacy of this extreme case, you accept limitations on the freedom to trade organs. Since most opponents of organ trade also accept certain types of trade – e.g. renewable organs such as bone marrow and skin – the disagreement isn’t a principled one but one about degree.

Underlying the argument in favor of organ trade is the fiction of a market populated by free, equal and self-determining individuals who make free and rational economic decisions and agreements on what to sell and buy, free from government interference. The reality is of course that organ trade isn’t an expression of self-determination or autonomy but rather of the absence of it. And that organ trade, just like a lot of other trade, is radically asymmetrical: some are forced to sell in order to survive, especially if the price and hence the reward is very high, as it will be relatively speaking for the poor. And others will sell without rationally examining the benefits for or risks to their interests (absence of informed consent). It’s beyond my powers of comprehension that all this can be denied:

It’s true that I don’t find any of the arguments about the coercive effects of money on peoples’ decisions particularly compelling.  Megan McArdle (source)

Any potential paid organ donor is always free to decline the transaction, and is left no worse off than before. What next, will you tell me that I “coerced” Apple into sending me a Macbook? (source)

This seems to me to be more correct, or at least less outrageous:

Talk of individual rights and autonomy is hollow if those with no options must “choose” to sell their organs to purchase life’s basic necessities. … Choice requires information, options and some degree of freedom. (source)

Of course, some would say: if someone is forced by poverty to sell her organs, would you stop her and make her worse off by imposing legal restrictions on her autonomy and “reducing her resources”? That’s again the myth that markets always make things better. What if she does get some money, has a better life in the short run, but gets sick because of the operation (or do we also assume the myth of perfect healthcare for the world’s poor?) or because of the lack of an organ? Who would make her worse off? The one allowing her to sell, or the one stopping her? And anyway, there are better ways to protect the poor than to allow them to harvest their organs.

So, if we’re afraid that free organ trade might be exploitative for the poor, why not allow free trade but exclude the poor from selling? Because the poor will be, in general, the only ones tempted to sell. A wealthy person has no incentive to sell organs. Hence a free trade system restricted in this way will not solve the shortage problem, the main concern of proponents of free trade.

I’ve stated before that government interference can promote rather than restrict freedom. In the case of organ trade and donation, two specific types of interference can help:

• Restricting the freedom to trade non-renewable organs, as well as renewable organs in circumstances in which extraction poses a health risk to donors, will protect the freedom of the poor. Not their freedom to sell organs obviously – which isn’t freedom for them anyway but compulsion – but the freedom to live a healthy live.
• Imposing default cadaveric donation with an opt-out clause will protect the freedom to live a healthy live of patients in need of replacement organs. Of course, if it’s the case that for some organs cadaveric donation isn’t possible medically, I’m willing to accept an exception.

How about allowing people to sell their organs after death? This would evidently remove the health risks for donors. It could be considered a kind of life insurance for the deceased’s family. That would indeed remove all the concerns from the donor side. (The counter-argument that such a system would encourage families to kill their members for the “insurance money” seems a bit weak, and just as weak as the similar counter-argument against generalized organ trade liberalization, namely that people would murder in order to sell organs; I guess they already do).

But assume that we would allow free post-mortem trade: what would happen with the organs? They would be sold of course, but to whom? The most wealthy first, and hence we still have our problem on the beneficiary side: wealth yields better health. Of course, that’s already the case in healthcare in general: rich people also have better dental care etc. But do we want to add to the existing injustice by allowing wealth to determine who gets an organ?

If we allow limited organ trade of deceased’s organs, we’ll have to do something on the beneficiary side in order to neutralize the effects of wealth. A lottery system could be an option. Or subsidies for the poor, or price caps etc.

Types of Human Rights Violations (1): Fake Zero-Sum Human Rights Violations

We usually, and correctly, think of human rights violations as a zero-sum game (although the word “game” is hardly appropriate here). A rights violation is a harm inflicted by one person on another, for the benefit of the former. And although the benefits for the violator do not always equal the harm for the victim in a quantitative sense, we can safely call it zero-sum. In fact, neither the harm nor the benefits that result from rights violations can always be quantified.

I have represented these harms and benefits in the table below (just look at row number 1 for the moment): a plus sign for “violator value” means that he or she receives some benefits from the violations (otherwise there probably wouldn’t be a violation); a minus for “victim value” means a harm done to him or her. And indeed this is the usual case. But you can see in the table that other combinations of values and signs are possible. But more on that in a moment.

The usual case – number 1 – is what we could call the typical human right violation. It’s zero-sum: the thief who steals from me gains what I lose; the oppressive government that limits my right to free speech or movement or assembly or organization, gains stability and regime security while I lose freedom. In case number 1, the violator always wins, and the person(s) whose rights are violated always lose(s), in roughly the same proportion (if proportions are at all relevant here).

The second, more exceptional case, occurs when not only the victim of the violations loses out, but also the perpetrator. Examples: the suicide bomber (except when he or she is right about Paradise, which I doubt); the use of torture, invasion, drone attacks etc. by the U.S. in its “war on terror” (tactics which may create more terrorists than they eliminate).

The third case is still more exceptional, unfortunately, because it is really a win-win situation, disguised as zero-sum. Two examples. Take the development of the economies of India and China. It can be argued that these economies “take jobs away” from the developed countries, and that in a sense the right to work of many people in the West are violated because of it (the fact that none of this is intentional isn’t sufficient to claim that no rights are violated). However, as these developing countries increase the size of their economies, they will provide valuable and relatively cheap goods and services to businesses and households in developed countries, stimulating the economies there, and boosting disposable income, which reduces poverty in developed countries. As developing countries develop, they will also start to consume more western goods and services, with the same result. Again, no guarantee of course that the gains of one will equal the gains of the other, but at least it’s win-win and not zero-sum.

A second example, also to do with work: when a government withholds or stops unemployment benefits, it violates the rights of the unemployed. But when done under certain circumstances, this will encourage people to find work, and hence will make them better off in the end.

At first sight, these two examples look like typical zero-sum human rights violations, but not when look a bit closer.

The fourth case, where the victim of rights violations benefits from them, and the perpetrators lose out, is extremely exceptional, I guess. I could only come up with one example: the dictator becoming so oppressive that he creates revolt and ushers in his own downfall and the liberation of his people.

Gender Discrimination (18): Missing Women and Gendercide in China and India

The word gendercide describes the results of sex-selective abortions that take place on a massive scale in some countries, particularly India and China. These abortions have led to the “disappearance” of perhaps more than 100 million girls and women (or about 1 million a year). Evidence of this can be found in the abnormal sex-ratios in both countries:

The sex ratio at birth was only 893 female births per 1,000 male births in China and India and 885 in South Korea (as compared to 980 for Kenya and South Africa and 952 for Cambodia and Mexico). … In India, the juvenile sex ratio (often defined as the sex ratio among children aged 0-6 years) has been falling … over the last 3-4 decades – from 964 females per 1,000 males in 1971 to 927 in 2001. … In China, too, the problem has become more acute over time. A study based on a survey of over 5 million children in China found that among children born between 1985 and 1989, there were 926 female births for 1,000 male births. But, among children born between 2000 and 2004, the number had fallen to 806. Thus, in both countries, the situation appears to be worsening. (source)

The main reason for these gendercides seems to be a strong cultural preference for male offspring. This makes it difficult to do something about it. Cultures change very slowly. Outlawing sex-selective abortions and prenatal ultrasounds doesn’t seem to work very well. It has been tried in both China and India, but the sex-ratios don’t seem to improve much.

It might seem that improving literacy and schooling among women might reduce the parental preference for sons. However, here, too, the evidence is not encouraging. There is disturbing evidence from India which points to a worsening of the juvenile sex ratio with increased female education and literacy. Why the perverse effect? A possible explanation has to do with the negative effect of female literacy on fertility. Educated women tend to have fewer children than less-educated women, and, in the context of a strong son-preference culture, the lower levels of fertility lead to greater pressure on couples to have boys instead of girls. This relationship between fertility decline and lower juvenile sex ratios has also been observed in South Korea and China. (source)

The only successful counter-measures are those that tackle gender discrimination at the root. There will no longer be parental preference for male children when man and women are considered equal human beings.

It is important to recognize that one (although not the only) reason for son preference is that, historically, inheritance laws in both countries have favored sons over daughters. While both countries now do not restrict women’s access to parental property, customary practices which consider sons the natural heirs of land are still prevalent in much of rural China and India. India only recently (in 2004) removed the discriminatory provisions of earlier legislation and allowed parents to bequeath their property to their daughters.

What is needed in both countries to combat the scourge of low juvenile sex ratios is a package of interventions that includes stricter enforcement of equal inheritance laws, economic incentives for parents to have daughters and educate them, and an educational curriculum at the primary and middle school levels that highlights the importance of equal treatment of boys and girls in the family. Even with such a package, it will take years for attitudes to change and for the practice of prenatal sex selection and neglect of the girl child to end. (source)

Migration and Human Rights (21): China’s Demographic Aggression and Provocation of Racism, The Cases of Tibet and Xinjiang

If only Han Chinese inhabit Tibet, what is the meaning of autonomy? Dalai Lama (source)

The recent protests and violence by Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang province are reminiscent of the March 2008 protests in Tibet. Like the Tibetans, the Uighurs believe that they are colonized by Han Chinese who have settled in the Tibetan and Uighur provinces in large numbers, and continue to do so. (92% of Chinese are Han). As a result, the ethnic Turkic Muslim Uighurs now make up less than half of the 20m population in their province, and probably less given the tendency of official Chinese statistics to underestimate internal migration flows. This is compared to 75% in 1949. (In Tibet, the indigenous population is still the majority according to official statistics, but this is likely to change with the new train link to the province).

It is widely accepted that these migration flows are part of official Chinese government policy. Populating border regions with Han Chinese is believed to lessen separatist tensions and demands for autonomy, and is handy when it comes to expropriating the local resources. The local populations however see this as demographic aggression and an attack on their culture. If their land is taken over, so will their culture, language, traditions and religion. In Xinjiang, evidence of this is the prohibition on headscarves, the languages used in schools etc.

Not surprisingly, these policies of demographic aggression – which the Dalai Lama has called a form of cultural genocide – combined with other authoritarian policies, provoke a reaction, and unfortunately, this reaction often takes the form of anti-Han racism. (Most victims of the recent clashes in Tibet and Xinjiang were Han, although – as usual – the victims of the government’s reaction don’t get mentioned).

The Ethics of Human Rights (5): China, Confucianism and Authoritarianism

Confucianism, the traditional Chinese ethical and philosophical system based on the teachings of Confucius (551 BCE – 479 BCE), is often blamed for the lack of freedom and the authoritarian and anti-democratic form of government in China. This post examines the merits of this attack.

Confucianism is not a religion, although many believe it is, perhaps because of its emphasis on morality and the extent to which it has shaped and become synonymous with the culture of much of East-Asia, including of course China but also Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam and many other countries with large Chinese communities. It is rather a philosophy and a culture.

Although vigorously attacked by the Chinese communists, it is beyond doubt that Confucianism still remains a strong force in Chinese thinking.

Arguments against the link between Confucianism and authoritarianism

Confucianism does not have to lead to authoritarianism. Indeed, Confucianism places more value on internalized morality than on external repression of deviant behavior:

Confucius argues that under law, external authorities administer punishments after illegal actions, so people generally behave well without understanding reasons why they should; whereas with ritual, patterns of behavior are internalized and exert their influence before actions are taken, so people behave properly because they fear shame and want to avoid losing face. (source)

The exercise of rituals or rites (not in the religious sense but in the sense of everyday ritual actions or routines) teaches people to internalize norms and respect them voluntarily, not because of fear of punishment. Formalized behavior through rituals becomes progressively internalized. Laws and governmental power are relatively unimportant to Confucianism.

Another reason why Confucianism is not necessarily autocratic is the teaching that the king’s personal virtue spreads a beneficial influence throughout the kingdom. With a virtuous king, the need for the use of force is limited.

Arguments in favor of the link between Confucianism and authoritarianism

Rituals are not only used to internalize morality and to instill a sense of propriety or politeness, but also to assign everyone a place in society, a kind of relationship to others and a form of behavior towards others.

While juniors are considered in Confucianism to owe strong duties of reverence and service to their seniors, seniors also have duties of benevolence and concern toward juniors. (source)

This leads to a strict hierarchy in society, which is opposed to equal rights, universality of rights and the equal influence that is found in a true democracy.

Social harmony is the ideal that results from every individual knowing his place in society, assuming his role and responsibilities towards others and establishing the right kinds of relationships and forms of behavior. However, this social harmony is clearly opposed to adversarial democratic politics.

There is government, when the prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when the father is father, and the son is son. (Confucius, Analects XII, 11).

There can be no objection to filial duties and filial piety. But the duty of benevolence and concern of the older towards the younger, and the extension of this duty to the rulers with regard to the people, can lead to paternalism and an infringement of the right to chose one’s own style of life.

Confucianism sees a moral role of government, and a responsibility of the government for the physical and moral well-being of the people. Filial piety is extended within Confucianism to political loyalty of the subjects of a state or even outright submission to authority. This leads to political inequality and elitism which is hard to reconcile with democracy.

However, the original teachings of Confucius forced the subjects to obey only as long as the rulers showed moral rectitude and responsibility for the well-being of the people. When the rulers assume their duties, strict obedience is required. But when they fail, the people can rebel. So no “might is right” or absolute power. Later rulers of course interpreted Confucianism in a more authoritarian way, for their own benefit.

Other aspects of Confucianism, such as the priority of the state and the community over the individual, meritocracy etc. make it hard for a democratic culture of freedom to take root.

Incompatibility of Confucianism and democracy, human rights and freedom?

Democracy, rights and freedom are not the exclusive product of the West and they are compatible with all cultures and religions. However, all cultures and religions also contain elements that inhibit the development of freedom. But it is possible tochange these elements.

Other causes of authoritarianism

One should also be careful not to overstate the importance of culture. First of all, culture is often used by rulers to justify themselves, and in doing so they tend to distort the real meaning of the culture in question. As is evident from the examples above, many elements of Confucianism cannot justify authoritarianism. Secondly, authoritarianism has other, non-cultural causes. In the case of China: the legacy of communism, the priority accorded to the economy (a priority that is supposed to warrant human rights violations) etc.

Human Rights and International Law (9): Impunity

I deeply hope that the horrors humanity has suffered during the 20th century will serve us as a painful lesson, and that the creation of the International Criminal Court will help us to prevent those atrocities from being repeated in the future. Statement made by Luis Moreno-Ocampo on the occasion of his election as first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court by the Assembly of States Parties in New York on 22 April 2003.

Many gross violations of rights such as genocides, state oppression, torture etc. are committed by the political class of a country, and in particular by the political leaders. And if they don’t personally dirty their hands, they organize, order, facilitate and protect the executors. They view rights violations as a necessary element in the exercise of power.

For many reasons, legal and practical, these leaders often enjoy impunity, meaning literally “without punishment”. The “Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights Through Action to Combat Impunity” describes impunity in this way:

The impossibility, de jure or de facto, of bringing the perpetrators of violations to account ’96 whether in criminal, civil, administrative or disciplinary proceedings ’96 since they are not subject to any inquiry that might lead to their being accused, arrested, tried and, if found guilty, sentenced to appropriate penalties, and to making reparations to their victims. (source)

Reasons for impunity

Here are some of these reasons for impunity:

1. Self-Preservation

A first reason for impunity is the fact that the perpetrators are in power and have subjected the justice system and the judiciary to their command. They have, in other words, destroyed the division of powers or failed to institutionalize it. Because they are so powerful, most of them die in the saddle and only have to fear a Higher Judge.

But some do not and end their reign (or see it ended) during their lifetime. But even then they manage to protect themselves. If they still have enough influence to stay in the country, they can either negotiate immunity or amnesty (take the case of Pinochet), or they have enough friends in high places to dispense with such formalities (take Deng Xiaoping, the butcher of Tienanmen).

2. The solidarity of tyrants

If their exit from power is somewhat acrimonious, they may have to flee to another country where a friendly dictator will do everything to avoid a precedent of justice and will harbor the criminal until the end of his days (take Karadzic). How beautiful solidarity can be.

3. The law

Sometimes the national justice system can’t help, and at other times the international solidarity of tyrants hinders an otherwise able and willing justice system. Also the law can come to the rescue. State functionaries (sometimes even former functionaries) claim to enjoy legal immunity in national or even international law for acts carried out while in office. Individual perpetrators hide behind their states. Heads of state or leading functionaries are said to represent their states and all their actions are “acts of state”, and therefore the state is responsible for these acts.

Lower ranking officials are not responsible either, because they can hide behind the “Befehl ist Befehl” principle. They cannot be punished because they follow orders from people who themselves are not responsible either.

Only by transcending these principles of immunity and command can individuals be punished for violations of human rights and can human rights be protected (punishing states is very difficult and is not fair because it is a kind of collective punishment.) This has been the main achievement of the Nuremberg Tribunal. The Nuremberg tribunal was the first tribunal to judge the crimes of political leaders and to refuse to grant them immunity for war crimes and gross violations of human rights such as the holocaust. The charter of the fledgling International Criminal Court (ICC) also rules out defenses based on immunity:

Immunities or special procedural rules which may attach to the official capacity of a person, whether under national or international law, shall not bar the Court from exercising its jurisdiction over such a person. (source)

Charles Taylor of Liberia was indicted in 2003 while still in power, and is now in the dock in The Hague. Milosevic went before him and others will follow. But they have to be extradited. Political leaders will not extradite themselves, and after they leave office they will continue to enjoy some protection at home. Taylor was arrested because he first agreed to accept exile in Nigeria.

Moreover, countries have to sign up to the ICC treaty. Zimbabwe for example has not signed up, so Mugabe will not have his day in court, unless there is a referral to the court by the Security Council. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is now indicted on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes over the slaughter in Darfur, but will probably remain comfortably in his seat.

Some claim that the possibility of being handed over to the ICC after the end of their reign, forces tyrants to cling to power and use ever more violent means to do so. But then you could as well grant amnesty to all hostage takers out of fear that they would otherwise do more harm to their hostages.

4. Institutional problems

The impunity of ordinary civil servants or members of the police is often the consequence of under-developed state institutions. Judiciaries that are malfunctioning or corrupt, policemen who are underpaid or have a lack of training etc.

Impunity arises from a failure by States to meet their obligations to investigate violations; to take appropriate measures in respect of the perpetrators, particularly in the area of justice, by ensuring that those suspected of criminal responsibility are prosecuted, tried and duly punished; to provide victims with effective remedies and to ensure that they receive reparation for the injuries suffered; to ensure the inalienable right to know the truth about violations; and to take other necessary steps to prevent a recurrence of violations. (source)

Data

The Committee to Protect Journalists has an impunity index in which countries are ranked according to the number of murder of journalists that are unresolved. More statistics are here.

Human Rights and International Law (8): Real and Normative Universality of Human Rights

No doubt the commitment of many countries to human rights is less than authentic and whole-hearted. Yet, the fact of the commitment, that it is enshrined in a constitution, and that it is confirmed in an international instrument are not to be dismissed lightly. Even hypocrisy may sometimes deserve one cheer for it confirms the value of the idea, and limits the scope and blatancy of violations. Louis Henkin

Even though human rights are violated virtually everywhere, the principle that they should be defended is asserted virtually everywhere. Virtually no one actually rejects the principle of defending human rights. Susan Mendus

The Vienna Declaration of 1993, accepted by almost all states of the world (more than 170), affirms that the universal nature of human rights is “beyond question” and that these rights are “the birthright of all human beings”. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – the two major treaties for the protection of human rights – have been signed by more than 140 countries (one of them is China). All of these countries have undertaken the legal obligation to respect human rights (including political and economic rights). The universality of human rights is a fact in positive law.

However, all we have is normative universality. Everybody or almost everybody agrees on the norm, but there is as yet, no actual universal application of the norm. Theory is one thing, but reality often struggles behind. Promises are not kept, declarations of good intent are outright lies and treaties are violated. Furthermore, it is very difficult to enforce treaties. There is no global police force or executive power and there is the principle of national sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs.

However, theoretical or normative consensus is not useless. It means that evil is not almighty. Evil has to lie and cheat. Hypocrisy is always a compliment to virtue. There can be no hypocrisy, if virtue does not have at least some influence. Even though a declaration or a commitment often does not change reality immediately and substantially, it can be referred to when yet another dissident is put behind bars. If a state violates a treaty, it will have some difficulty explaining why it has done so, why its actions contradict its words, why the situation supposedly warrants exceptional measures deviating from a self-imposed rule, and why these “exceptional” measures are a part of everyday life for many citizens.

Cultural Rights (11): Genocide

 

Genocide is the deliberate, systematic and violent destruction of a group (an ethnic, racial, religious, national or political group). This destruction can take many forms:

• the outright murder of (the majority of) the members of the group
• inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about destruction
• measures intended to prevent births
• systematic rape as a means of terror and a means to “dilute” the identity of the group
• forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
• destroying the (cultural) identity of the group (forceful assimilation; imposition of a language, religion etc.)

“Systematic” is important here. Short-term outburst or pogrom type actions will probably not amount to genocide.

The “intent to destroy” is also crucial when labeling actions or campaigns as genocidal. The destruction, however, doesn’t have to be physical (i.e. large-scale murder). As is obvious from the list above, cultural destruction or destruction of the groups’ separate identity is also genocide.

Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide states that genocide is

“any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group…”

The “in part” bit has led to some confusion. When is the part of the group that is being destroyed big enough to warrant the label of genocide? There is still some discussion about absolute numbers of victims, percentages of the total population of the group, degree of killing in the territory controlled by the killers etc.

Of all the generally recognized genocides that have taken place throughout human history, the most infamous ones occured in the 20th century (the Holocaust, Rwanda, Armenia, Cambodia, Stalin’s forced famines, Mao’s Great Leap Forward etc.).

Before a genocide is actually carried out, the perpetrators usually take a number of “preparatory” steps:

• dehumanization of a group (vermin, insects or diseases…)
• promotion of narratives of “us and them“
• hate propaganda, polarization
• criminalization of a group (group has to be eliminated “in order that we may live”; them or us)
• identification of victims (“yellow star”)
• concentration of victims (ghettos)
• mobilization of large numbers of perpetrators
• state support and logistical organization (arms, transport, training of militias etc.)

The causes of genocide are often hard to pin down. They include:

• long-lasting tensions
• imbalances in political power
• imbalances in wealth or economic power
• scarcity
• religious incompatibilities
• indoctrination and propaganda
• civil war
• ideals of cultural purity and autonomy
• ethnological constructs (e.g. the creation of “hutuness” in Rwanda) which get a life of their own
• colonial heritage
• outside indifference
• etc.

Economic Human Rights (8): Poverty

Poverty is a violation of human rights. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration states:

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

And we all know the devastating effects of poverty on other human rights.

Economic Human Rights (5): Rights or Aspirations?

Is it justified to use the word “rights” in the context of economic rights such as the right not to suffer extreme poverty? Are these rights comparable to classical freedom rights or are they an example of the way in which superficial reasoning destroys the meaning of words? Are they rights or are they mere aspirations or desires masquerading as rights?

The claim that the expression economic rights is an oxymoron is based on the following reasoning. Rights have to be enforceable. There is no right without a remedy. If a right is violated, then it must be possible to redress the situation in a court of justice. It has to be possible to find somebody who is responsible for the violation and who can stop the violation. If nobody can be forced to respect a right because nobody has the power and duty to respect it, then it is useless and wrong to speak about a right. Take for example the “right” to have a climate in which the sun always shines and in which the temperature is constantly between 25 and 27 degrees Celsius. This can be a desire but it can never be a right because it is not enforceable. There is no remedy if it is violated; there is no way to redress the violation. A court of justice cannot decide that the government should take action to realize this “right”. Nobody is responsible for a violation and nobody can stop a violation. Nobody can be forced to respect the “right” because nobody has the power to respect it, and hence there is no right.

It is not uncommon to hear the same kind of reasoning in the case of economic rights, although in international law these rights enjoy a similar level of protection as classical freedom rights or civil rights. What we do in the case of a violation of classical rights – ask a judge to force the violator, for example the government, to respect our rights – is often impossible in the case of economic rights. If there is no work, then a judge cannot force the government to give us work. If there is no money, then a government cannot have the duty and responsibility to provide social security and thereby eliminate poverty. Ought implies can. The rule that we should not impose a duty on someone who is unable to fulfill it, does not pose any problems in the case of freedom rights. If the government violates our right to free speech, then a judge can force the government to protect our right because this protection only requires that the government stop its actions.

This criticism of economic rights is based on an exaggerated distinction between forbearance and active protection. It is true that freedom rights often require forbearance and economic rights active involvement and commitment. But things can also be the other way around. All human rights depend on judicial and police institutions that in turn depend on the protection of the state. Even a right such as free speech needs the active involvement of the judiciary and hence the state in order to be protected. If our right to free speech is violated, then we may need the help of a judge and perhaps even the police in order to force the violator to stop his actions. And for some states, it can be just as difficult to fulfill their duty to provide efficient judiciaries and police forces as it is to fulfill their duty to provide work and social security.

If freedom rights need as much active involvement as forbearance, then the same is true for certain economic rights. The right to food in an amount sufficient for survival is often better served by government forbearance than by government action. Look for example at the Great Leap Forward and its disastrous consequences for the people of China. All human rights need actions as well as forbearance. According to the circumstances, a right can be more or less positive or negative. The right to food in Mao’s China was relatively negative and directed against state intervention. In many inner cities, it is relatively positive and directed at the passivity of the state. All human rights require both intervention and abstention. And it is, therefore, unfair to dismiss economic rights on the grounds that they impose duties on the government that are different from the duties imposed by “real” rights.

Human Rights and International Law (1): Boycotting the China Olympics Because of Human Rights Violations in China and Sudan/Darfur

Some time ago, there was a story in the press about Steven Spielberg canceling his decision to work for the China Olympics. As a consequence, the discussion about a possible boycott (comparable to the boycott of the USSR Olympics after the invasion of Afghanistan) got some more publicity. Here are some general words about sanctions for the sake of human rights.

Boycotts, embargoes and other international sanctions (economic sanctions for example or a ban on foreign direct investments or bank loans) are peaceful means, used by the international community, to convince a country to stop violating human rights or to stop assisting a third country that is violating rights.

A disadvantage of sanctions is that they are most effective against relatively weak states. They can only work when they are directed against countries that are vulnerable to outside pressure (that, for example, depend on imports of products which are not, or not sufficiently, produced at home) and when a critical mass of countries, especially large countries, join in. Moreover, sanctions are not very popular in the countries imposing them. They often hurt that country’s economy. Its businesses can no longer export to or invest in the target countries, and jobs may be lost.

Sanctions are allowed in international law when

“they are taken in consequence of a breach of international rules imposing duties erga omnes, hence conferring on any State a right to claim respect for the rules”. Antonio Cassese

These rules are, for example, human rights. However, even if every state is allowed to impose sanctions in these cases, it is better that the international community as a whole imposes the sanctions, and not only for efficiency reasons. Collective measures allow us to dismiss the charge of partiality and self-interest. They will also emphasise the symbolic value of the sanctions.

Sanctions have often been successful, for example in the Philippines and in Nicaragua, as well as in Argentina and Uruguay under the Carter administration. Sanctions can be successful when the aim is to weaken the industrial, technological and military powers of a state. Purely symbolic sanctions, such as a boycott of the Olympic Games, are probably less useful. Cultural sanctions are even worse, because they are harmful. They cut off the flow of information. It becomes very difficult to monitor rights violations, the opposition cannot contact the outside world and new ideas cannot take root. Perhaps even the rulers will start to see that other systems can be successful if they are allowed to communicate with the outside world.

It is advisable to impose selective sanctions rather than all-out embargoes that harm the population indiscriminately. Sometimes, it can be enough to stop arms deliveries or oil exports. Not all kinds of sanctions necessarily harm the civilian population.

It can never be the purpose to punish an entire population collectively. All-out embargoes are not only unjust, they are also counterproductive. They do not harm those who are supposed to be harmed, namely the rulers. On the contrary, they reinforce the rulers. The population will identify, not always without reason, the “foreigners” as those responsible for their predicament, a predicament which may be even worse than the one which caused the sanctions. They will rally behind their rulers because the sentiment of “we against the world” will spill over in virulent nationalism. Popular dissatisfaction will be directed to the outside world and away from the rulers. Sanctions are least effective in countries ruled by people who are insensitive to their population’s hardship, or, in other words, in countries where they are most needed.

And even if large-scale hardship caused by sanctions can persuade some rulers to step down or reform, it does not seem right to use or abuse the population in this way. Using people or punishing innocent people is perhaps the most serious violation of human rights.

If sanctions are imposed, then it is important to estimate the possibility of success. One should try to evaluate their efficiency beforehand. The imposition of sanctions and the choice of the kind of sanctions should be decided on the basis of, among other things:

• the fact that less far-reaching measures have been tried and have failed
• an evaluation of the type of adversary and the sorts of pressure he is unable to resist
• the “collateral damage” that is likely to result from the imposition of sanctions
• an evaluation of the stamina of those imposing the sanctions, their willingness to go ahead, and the number of countries that are willing to go ahead
• an evaluation of the possible negative consequences for those imposing the sanctions and of the effect of these consequences on their stamina
• an evaluation of the possibility to evade the sanctions
• the possibility and the willingness to enforce the sanctions by way of a blockade, for example.

What is Democracy? (7): Democracy and Human Rights

At first sight, there are some persistent facts “facts” that seem to contradict the statement (see my previous post in this series) that democracy and human rights are necessarily linked to each other.

Democracies can apparently exist without respecting human rights (or all human rights), and human rights (or certain human rights) can apparently be respected by non-democratic regimes.

An example of the former is of course the ancient Greek “polis” where human rights indeed did not exist, although the “polis” did guarantee a kind of freedom of speech, not for humanity as such but for a tiny minority of privileged citizens. It is clear however that the “polis” was not a democracy as we understand it today. It was an oligarchy in which the large majority of the people was excluded from politics. And although the word “democracy” was invented in the “polis”, it is difficult to maintain that the people ruled the “polis”. Inside the oligarchic group decisions were made democratically on the basis of freedom of expression and equality, but freedom and equality never became human rights, to wit rights belonging to human beings in general, including those human beings excluded from politics.

Today only those states, in which the participants in the political decision making process are the same people as those who are subject to the political decisions, can be called democratic. In the Greek “polis”, self-government was only a reality for a small minority; the decisions of this minority governed the actions of the large majority of women, foreigners and slaves.

Some present-day states such as the Islamic republic of Iran regularly hold reasonably fair elections but hardly respect human rights. The question is, of course, what these elections are worth without the free expression of opinions, without free and open discussions among citizens regarding the record of the government and the most appropriate government policies, without free flows of information concerning the work of the government, without the freedom to associate and to form opposition movements etc.

Even in those countries in which people can vote for existing opposition movements (for example Malaysia and Singapore), there is never a change of government because human rights are not respected and opposition movements are systematically sabotaged (they suffer from unjustified lawsuits, they do not have equal access to the media etc.). Of course, the absence of a change of power does not prove that there is no democracy. The people can always decide the same thing. The problem is that the people cannot decide without human rights. A decision which is not based on free and open discussion and free flows of information is no decision at all.

Hong Kong before the takeover by China and the last minute democratic reforms of the British government was considered to be a non-democratic state which respected a great number of human rights. In this case, the question is what are these human rights worth if they cannot be applied to or can have no consequence for the workings of the government. If you express an opinion you expect some consequences resulting from this expression. Otherwise it would be better not to express the opinion at all. What is the use of being able to express opinions on the workings of the government if this expression is entirely without consequences?

Respect for human rights will most probably lead to democratization. People who have freedom of expression will start to claim the right to vote. They will have opinions on the workings of the government and they will want to see these opinions implemented. Conversely, the presence of a democratic form of government will lead to the institutionalization of human rights. If the people can vote and therefore express themselves on things as important as the government, what is the use of prohibiting the expression of other kinds of opinions?

The transition of a rights regime to a democracy and vice versa is of course not as easy as all this seems to imply. A non-democratic government, even though it is kind enough to grant its people a few rights narrowly defined, will cling to power and will have the means to do so. It will resist demands for more democracy. The opposite seems to be easier. Democracies are more inclined to grant rights. Granting rights is also easier than changing the form of government, at least at first sight. Creating the institutions necessary for the enforcement of rights can also be an awesome task.

One can only maintain that there are democracies which do not respect human rights or that there non-democratic regimes which respect human rights, if one adopts some kind of reduced definition of either democracy or rights. An ideal democracy cannot exist without rights, and vice versa.

Economic Human Rights (2): Hierarchy of Duty Bearers, Ctd.

There are no good reasons to discredit economic rights, such as the right to a decent standard of living or the right not to be poor. These rights must have the same standing as other types of rights, mainly because different types of rights are interdependent and economic rights are prerequisites for other types of rights. But, it is equally wrong to give priority to economic rights or to violate other types of rights in order to respect economic rights (for the same reason, that is, interdependence). The Chinese government often makes this mistake.

When people have a right not to be poor, who has a duty to help them? In western welfare states, one has the tendency to point to the state and to the so-called social safety net which these states have created (unemployment benefits, healthcare subsidies etc.). However, the state is not the only and not the first party responsible for the protection of economic rights. If we don’t accept this, and argue that the state is the first or perhaps even the only party responsible for the protection of the poor and their economic rights, then we are open to the criticism of the “big state”.

On the other hand, the opposite position is also wrong. The free market does not independently ensure respect for economic rights (although it helps). Active measures, based on duties imposed on specific duty bearers and emanating from economic rights, are also necessary.

The first and most important duty is one to yourself. People should be, when possible, self-supportive and able to help themselves. People don’t like to ask for help. We should try to create the circumstances in which people can satisfy their own basic needs and can be self-supportive and responsible for their own fate (or at least we should not destroy these circumstances). People value autonomy, control over their own lives and independence. They generally prefer not to depend on help.

As long as this is possible, economic rights are irrelevant and no specific duties come into play. Economic rights are necessary only when people fail to be self-supportive, either because of misfortune, genetic deficiencies, accidents, crime, institutional bias, racism, neo-colonialism etc.’a0In these cases, economic rights create different kind of duties for different persons and with different intensity (or priority or hierarchy):

• personal assistance or charity
• redistribution by the state
• development aid
• etc.

The hierarchy in this system of duties is the following. When economic rights become necessary, it is first in a face-to-face situation, for example within the family or between friends or members of a group (they are horizontal rights). This is based on the valid assumption that closeness means a greater ability to help. He or she who can do more, should do more. It would be wrong to ask a distant persons to invest a relatively greater effort to accomplish something, when a person closer by could accomplish the same with less effort. And closeness typically, but not always, means a greater ability to act. A mother can take better care of her children than someone else. A co-citizen of a state, because he or she pays taxes to the social safety net, is better placed to help the poor in his country, then an outsider would be.

And because these people can do more, they have a moral obligation to do more. Take the example of two people watching a third person drowning in a river. One of these witnesses is a good swimmer, the other less so. It is obvious who has the greater duty to assist. But both have.

But when this face-to-face assistance fails – and it regularly does, either because of a lack of morality, or because all the people in the face-to-face community suffer the same fate – then our duties arising from economic rights take on a larger geographical and ultimately also an international sphere, in which one person should help other and more distant persons (if one’s personal surplus is large enough to do so) (economic rights are still horizontal).

And when this fails as well, and only when this fails, can a state intervene (economic rights become vertical – although one could claim that they are still horizontal because the state, through its system of taxation, merely enforces philanthropy). When the state intervenes, it has to do so first and foremost for the benefit of its own citizens, again because it is closer and better able to help. It has a monopoly of power and force, and can collect taxes and redistribute wealth. But when a particular state isn’t self-supportive – as is the case for the majority of states – then international assistance is necessary.

Duty is a bottom-up affair. Accordingly, economic rights should not be viewed primarily as the business of a state; otherwise we will lose both the benefits of self-support (autonomy) and the community spirit which results from spontaneous mutual assistance. Allowing economic rights to be realized at the level of citizens’ relationships will strengthen the feeling of belonging. The fact that our economic rights are realized in part by our responsible fellow citizens, enhances community feelings and again supports the statement that human rights are not individualistic and do not only deal with the relationship between citizens and a state. Focusing too much on the duties of the state will create a mentality of passive reliance on government support and a mentality of dependence.

A word of caution: none of this implies chauvinism or nationalism. The nation, state or family in which one is born is arbitrary, and hence of no moral concern. All individuals everywhere have equal rights and equal moral claims to the goods necessary for subsistence. Thomas Pogge has insisted on this point. But people don’t have equal duties resulting from these rights. Our duties are stronger with regard to some people, namely those closer by and those we are better able to help. But ultimately, we have some duties to everyone.