RESPONSE TO WORLD POVERTY AND HUMAN RIGHTS Should We Stop Thinking about Poverty in Terms of Helping the Poor?

I t would be rather unusual for someone to argue publicly that the world's rich have no obligations at all with respect to the global poor. Many, however, claim that the obligations of the affluent countries are both fairly weak and minimal. This claim is typically arrived at via two premises: one is normative, the other factual. The normative premise asserts that while we are under a strict obligation not to harm others, the obligation to benefit people who we have not harmed is rather weak (and is, for instance, best left to private charitable efforts rather than government action or institutional reform). The factual premise is that the affiuent are not, individually or collectively, harming the world's poor by causing their poverty (p. 12).̂ Following Thomas Pogge, I will sometimes refer to this view simply as "libertarianism."