Morality and Politics of Justice Op-Ed - The Equality Fund
In Ethiopia, ten-year old Amaretch is doubled over under a hefty bundle of firewood. She is heading home to deliver her load of kindling, which will be sold so her family can eat tonight. In Addis Abba, Ethiopia, Amaretch is one of many children who labor to pay for food. In an interview with BBC News, Amaretch said she would “prefer to be able to just go to school and not have to worry about getting money,” a privilege many children across the world take for granted every day.
To promote international equality, affluent individuals must give charity-based humanitarian aid to improve living standards throughout the world.
On July 4th, 1776, fifty-six newly liberated individuals signed the Declaration of Independence. With this Declaration, fifty-six people agreed, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Yet, in 1948, as the United Nations constructed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the world still struggled to constitute these rights worldwide. And still, more than sixty years later, inequality still exists prominently in our world.
There’s a drastic difference between the lifestyle of citizens of first-world countries and third-world countries. Despite miraculous technological and medical advances, between one and three million people still die of malaria every year (Flintoff). William Easterly, a professor at New York University, argues “Money meant for the most desperate people in the world is simply not reaching them: $600 billion in aid to Africa over the past 45 years, and over that time period there's basically been zero rise in living standards." How can we let diseases that can be prevented by a twelve-cent pill kill millions of people every year while we sit in our warm houses texting on our iPhones and worrying about our weight? How can we say international equality exists if we know someone is dying of a preventable disease right now?
Every day Amaretch stumbles countless miles to earn her meager pay check. In 2009, about 1.22 billion people were living on less than one dollar and twenty-five cents a day, a significant improvement from the 1.91 billion people living in absolute poverty in 1991 (Statistics). A dollar and twenty-five cents can buy a pack of M&Ms or an apple in the United States, yet billions of people live a smaller amount of money every day. Simply by being born in Ethiopia, Amaretch’s potential has been limited, her unalienable rights violated. Birthplace should not affect probability of success.
Would you willfully switch lives with Amaretch? According to John Rawls’ Theory of Justice as Equality, this should be a no-brainer question. Rawls’ Theory of Justice says equality is the most important factor of justice. The Veil of Ignorance is a method used to determine the morality of a situation or law. The judging party should not base the morality of a situation on race, gender, age, location, wealth, etc., but approach it blindly.
The separation created by opportunity in developing government is creating dramatic inequality. The following quote from the World Bank, an organization that works for a poverty-free world, describes the divisions they’ve seen around the world:
In some developing countries, we continue to see a wide gap – or in some cases – widening gap between rich and poor, and between those who can and cannot access opportunities. It means that access to good schools, healthcare, electricity, safe water, and other critical services remains elusive for many people who live in growing economies. Other challenges… threaten to undermine the progress made in recent years (Poverty).
Don’t let our work go to waste. We can still make a difference. We can and must give. The uneven division of prosperity throughout the world has left an urgent need for redistribution of wealth and materials. The most effective way of helping those in need is through charity-based humanitarian aid.
Charity-based aid is donations that are dispersed by organizations to groups or people in need. Although charity-based aid doesn’t address the problematic economies and governments of struggling countries, it helps improve life for those unable to help themselves. Without materials or connections, millions of helpless people suffer under their dysfunctional governments. Thousands, even millions, of people are stranded with no one to ask for help and nowhere to escape.
Companies work everyday to create healthy and productive communities around the world. Charity-based humanitarian aid helps our entire world strive to establish equality throughout the world. They can’t do it alone. They need donors. Take your luck, your prosperity, and spread it. In The Singer Solution To World Poverty, David Singer suggests that for one month you should make an effort by donating all the money not spent on necessities (Singer). Don’t go out to dinner, or to the movies, or clothes shopping, and instead, give the money you save to charity.
There is beauty in simplicity. A donation as small as twelve cents can deliver a life-saving malaria pill to an innocent dying child (Flintoff). Fight against poverty by giving because you can. What will you give to save?
To promote international equality, affluent individuals must give charity-based humanitarian aid to improve living standards throughout the world.
On July 4th, 1776, fifty-six newly liberated individuals signed the Declaration of Independence. With this Declaration, fifty-six people agreed, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Yet, in 1948, as the United Nations constructed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the world still struggled to constitute these rights worldwide. And still, more than sixty years later, inequality still exists prominently in our world.
There’s a drastic difference between the lifestyle of citizens of first-world countries and third-world countries. Despite miraculous technological and medical advances, between one and three million people still die of malaria every year (Flintoff). William Easterly, a professor at New York University, argues “Money meant for the most desperate people in the world is simply not reaching them: $600 billion in aid to Africa over the past 45 years, and over that time period there's basically been zero rise in living standards." How can we let diseases that can be prevented by a twelve-cent pill kill millions of people every year while we sit in our warm houses texting on our iPhones and worrying about our weight? How can we say international equality exists if we know someone is dying of a preventable disease right now?
Every day Amaretch stumbles countless miles to earn her meager pay check. In 2009, about 1.22 billion people were living on less than one dollar and twenty-five cents a day, a significant improvement from the 1.91 billion people living in absolute poverty in 1991 (Statistics). A dollar and twenty-five cents can buy a pack of M&Ms or an apple in the United States, yet billions of people live a smaller amount of money every day. Simply by being born in Ethiopia, Amaretch’s potential has been limited, her unalienable rights violated. Birthplace should not affect probability of success.
Would you willfully switch lives with Amaretch? According to John Rawls’ Theory of Justice as Equality, this should be a no-brainer question. Rawls’ Theory of Justice says equality is the most important factor of justice. The Veil of Ignorance is a method used to determine the morality of a situation or law. The judging party should not base the morality of a situation on race, gender, age, location, wealth, etc., but approach it blindly.
The separation created by opportunity in developing government is creating dramatic inequality. The following quote from the World Bank, an organization that works for a poverty-free world, describes the divisions they’ve seen around the world:
In some developing countries, we continue to see a wide gap – or in some cases – widening gap between rich and poor, and between those who can and cannot access opportunities. It means that access to good schools, healthcare, electricity, safe water, and other critical services remains elusive for many people who live in growing economies. Other challenges… threaten to undermine the progress made in recent years (Poverty).
Don’t let our work go to waste. We can still make a difference. We can and must give. The uneven division of prosperity throughout the world has left an urgent need for redistribution of wealth and materials. The most effective way of helping those in need is through charity-based humanitarian aid.
Charity-based aid is donations that are dispersed by organizations to groups or people in need. Although charity-based aid doesn’t address the problematic economies and governments of struggling countries, it helps improve life for those unable to help themselves. Without materials or connections, millions of helpless people suffer under their dysfunctional governments. Thousands, even millions, of people are stranded with no one to ask for help and nowhere to escape.
Companies work everyday to create healthy and productive communities around the world. Charity-based humanitarian aid helps our entire world strive to establish equality throughout the world. They can’t do it alone. They need donors. Take your luck, your prosperity, and spread it. In The Singer Solution To World Poverty, David Singer suggests that for one month you should make an effort by donating all the money not spent on necessities (Singer). Don’t go out to dinner, or to the movies, or clothes shopping, and instead, give the money you save to charity.
There is beauty in simplicity. A donation as small as twelve cents can deliver a life-saving malaria pill to an innocent dying child (Flintoff). Fight against poverty by giving because you can. What will you give to save?