Tuesday, July 12, 2011

On being smug and judgmental...

"You've probably already had this thought: You've worked hard to get where you are now, so haven't you earned a right to enjoy it? This seems both fair and reflective of our basic economic values. Yet when thinking about fairness, you might also consider that if you are a middle-class person in a developed country, you were fortunate to be born into social and economic circumstances that make it possible for you to live comfortably if you work hard and have the right abilities. In other places, you might have ended up poor, no matter how hard you worked."
Such is the state of most of the poor in Bais. They work exceedingly hard for so little return, in conditions that would kill me, that would be considered inhumane by Western standards.
"Warren Buffett, one of the world's richest people, acknowledged as much when he said: "If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru, you'll find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil".
" Prize-winning economist and social scientist Herbert Simon estimated that "social capital" is responsible for at least 90 percent of what people earn in wealthy societies. Simon was talking about living in a society with good institutions, such as an efficient banking system, a police force that will protect you from criminals, and courts to which you can turn to with reasonable hope of a just decision if someone breaches a contract with you. Infrastructure in the form of roads, communications, and a reliable power supply is also part of our social capital.
Without these, you will struggle to escape poverty, no matter how hard you work." 
Let's call those of us living in the West, lucky sperms.
 - text in italics are excerpts from Peter Singer's "The Life You Can Save",  Random House 2009.
 - text in bold are my own comments.

No comments:

Post a Comment