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Hum Rights Rev (2011) 12:405407
DOI 10.1007/s12142-011-0193-z
BOOK REVIEW
Thomas Pogge. World Poverty and Human Rights.
Polity Press, 2009
Jared Phillips
Published online: 29 January 2011# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Thomas Pogges second edition of World Poverty and Human Rights still remains a call to realign the Wests gaze, pushing us to remember our own stated moral aims as we uphold the institutions and policies currently in effect and establish new ones. By doing so, he draws the reader away from traditional views of poverty relief or human rights, arguing that this simply is not enough. Pogge states that because we are part of a global world, we implicitly take part in the global institutions that inflict poverty and rights violations upon millions. Pogge calls us to change the way we think about these problems and to adhere to our own standards of morality by affording everyone equal access to opportunities and institutions.
Pogges most stinging critique of the West comes with his assertion of its continual reluctance to see thiswhen it is brought to our attention, we understand, and shake our heads, but we rarely dwell upon the awful reality it implies. The elements within each system in place favors not those striving to exit poverty but those who have attained wealth. Pogge cashes this out in terms of a kind of access that those at the bottom of the ladder lack. Traditionally, we think of access to something (economic, education, freedom, etc.)...