LIBERAL COSMOPOLITANISM AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE Katherine Erbeznik A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2008 Committee: Steven Wall, Advisor Rachel A. Vannatta Graduate Faculty Representative Fred D. Miller, Jr. Ellen Frankel Paul Jeffrey Moriarty ii ABSTRACT Steven Wall, Advisor The goal of this dissertation is to answer two questions: Is global poverty unjust, such that coercive remedies may be imposed to alleviate it? And if so, does it justify global redistribution as a remedy? This dissertation takes up the same task initiated by Thomas Pogge in his 2002 book, World Poverty and Human Rights, in that the theory of justice from which these questions are answered assigns priority to negative duties of non-interference, rather than positive duties of assistance. More specifically, the theory of cosmopolitan justice underlying this evaluation is that of natural rights liberalism in the tradition of John Locke and Robert Nozick. According to this theory, global poverty could be unjust only if it was the result of violating individual rights. The first half of the dissertation explores the ways in which Pogge claims poverty is the result of rights violations – that such poverty is the result of a tainted global history and that the current distribution of global resources violates the right to fair shares, – ultimately denying that these ground the injustice of poverty. Instead, I argue that global poverty is unjust because a distribution of resources that contains severe poverty violates the minimal access proviso, a constraint on property rights that takes the deprivation of others to limit the property rights of some. The second half of the dissertation, then, addresses the sorts of remedies that are justified given this injustice. Specifically, I explore why global redistribution is not the appropriate remedy for the deprivation faced by the global poor. Instead, I argue that the remedy should affect the underlying causes of such poverty and, hence, recommend institutional reforms, such as the liberalization of trade and the movement of people across borders. iii For my parents Diane, James, and Ann, and my husband Nicolás, each of whom has helped me to become a better person. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to give a special thanks to my dissertation advisor Steven Wall for all of his guidance, helpful comments, and encouragement throughout the process. I would also like to thank Ellen Frankel Paul and Jeffrey Moriarty for the useful comments I received on the first draft of this work. Fred D. Miller deserves special thanks for including me in his dissertation seminar during which I received frequent feedback from both him and the other members at every stage of my writing; to these members, too, I offer my appreciation. Without the feedback and support of my committee I would not have been able to complete this project; the remaining faults and mistakes in the dissertation, however, remain my own. For proofreading the first draft of the dissertation, Adam White earns my appreciation. Loren Lomasky and Eric Mack have both been very generous in lending their time to answering my questions and engaging me in useful discussions on various occasions and through e-mail correspondence; for this I extend my gratitude. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge Nicolás Maloberti for all of his support, numerous discussions and arguments about all matters of this dissertation, and invaluable comments without which I would never have finished. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION..... ........................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER I. LIBERAL COSMOPOLITANISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS...................... 14 The Nature of Natural Rights Liberalism.................................................................. 19 Self-Ownership Rights.............................................................................................. 23 The Indeterminacy Objection........................................................................ 28 The Substantive Equality Objection.............................................................. 35 World-Ownership Rights .......................................................................................... 38 Three Principles of Justice ........................................................................................ 43 Conceptions of Harm ................................................................................................ 46 Is Receiving a Benefit a Way of Contributing to Harm?.............................. 46 Welfare Rights and Harm.............................................................................. 53 CHAPTER II. VIOLENT HISTORIES AND PRESENT INJUSTICE .............................. 58 Transgenerational Collective Responsibility ............................................................ 64 Beneficiaries of Historical Wrongs........................................................................... 85 Victims of Historic Wrongs ...................................................................................... 88 Are the Formal Colonies Victims of Neo-Colonialism?........................................... 99 CHAPTER III. RESOURCE OWNERSHIP AND THE LOCKEAN PROVISO............... 104 The Lockean Proviso................................................................................................. 107 The Left-Libertarian Proviso..................................................................................... 121 The Nozickean Proviso ............................................................................................. 134 The Argument from Autonomy ................................................................................ 138 vi The Justice of Original Acquisition .......................................................................... 142 CHAPTER IV. THE LIMITS OF PROPERTY RIGHTS AND THE MINIMAL ACCESS PROVISO ........................................................................................................... 144 Waterholes, Islands, and Cages................................................................................. 149 Conditions of the Minimal Access Proviso............................................................... 158 The Justification of the Proviso................................................................................. 164 The Limits on the Limit ............................................................................................ 171 Does the Failure to Satisfy the Minimal Access Proviso Render Global Poverty Unjust?......................................................................................................... 177 CHAPTER V. INSTITUTIONAL INJUSTICE .................................................................. 180 Why Some Countries Are Rich and Others Are Poor............................................... 182 Explanatory Nationalism versus Explanatory Globalism ......................................... 191 Global Institutional Injustices ................................................................................... 197 CHAPTER VI. GLOBAL REDISTRIBUTION AND FOREIGN AID.............................. 208 The Failure of Foreign Aid ....................................................................................... 210 Subsidizing Bad Governments...................................................................... 212 Impeding Export Diversification................................................................... 216 Impeding the Emergence of Democracy....................................................... 219 Would Welfare Transfers or Global Redistribution Suffer the Same Fate as Foreign Aid? ........................................................................................................... 222 The Appropriateness of Global Redistribution ......................................................... 227 CHAPTER VII. REAL REMEDIES.................................................................................... 230 Free Trade, Not Aid .................................................................................................. 231 vii Does Trade Benefit the Global Poor? ........................................................... 234 Objections: Increased Inequality and the Race to the Bottom ...................... 242 Free Movement of People ......................................................................................... 250 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 266 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................... 271 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1 The Correlation of Freedom and Wealth .................................................................. 190 2 The Effect of Aid on Growth .................................................................................... 211 3.1 Economic Freedom and Growth ............................................................................... 238 3.2 Trade Freedom and Economic Growth..................................................................... 238 4.1 Ratio of US 20th Percentile Mean Income to Region’s 20th Percentile..................... 245 4.2 Ratio of US 50th Percentile Mean Income to Region’s 50th Percentile..................... 245 5 China: Urban Air Pollution