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Politics as Usual: What Lies Behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric

Politics as Usual: What Lies Behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric
Politics as usual cover.jpg
Author Thomas Winfried Menko Pogge
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre Philosophy
Publisher Polity, 2010
Media type Print
Pages 224 pages
ISBN
Preceded by World Poverty and Human Rights
Followed by Are We Violating the Human Rights of the World’s Poor?

Politics as Usual is a 2010 book by Thomas Pogge. The book is a discussion on issues of global significance and their relationship to poverty. Politics as Usual is based on previously compiled essays. Pogge's book present an alternate view than the one where "Education, health-care, technology, and political participation are becoming ever more universal, empowering human beings everywhere to enjoy security, economic sufficiency, equal citizenship, and a life in dignity." according to Crop. He presents one where Poverty and oppression persist on a massive scale, one where the affluent states and international organizations knowingly contribute and even benefit from these evils.

Thomas Pogge covers a number of political and philosophical topics including Negative Duties, In World Poverty and Human Rights Pogge had argued that Western states are complicit and in Politics as Usual he expands and analyses different aspect of Global poverty.The book notes that the bottom half of the worlds population has seen it's wealth shrink to 1.1 percent with global household income shrinking to 3 percent, during the same period that the top ten percent have seen their shares rise to 85.1 and 71.1 percent respectively. This is due to the affluent countries having power to formulate policies and the poorest countries must take the blunt of the global repercussions of these policies according to Pogge. This can change due to people in the affluent countries becoming aware of their effect on worldwide poverty and pressuring their politicians to take action, or at least to "do no harm". He further contends that organizations such as the World Trade Organization have a deeper moral obligation than individuals or governments because they are moral agents of the global poor.

Pogge addresses Islamist terror attacks in New York, London, and Madrid. The attackers may have justified their attacks seeking a greater good but the attacks of innocents failed the greater good test even among the attackers standards. He expands to state that the terrorists were wrong to attack in the name of religion and that the governments are also at fault for the war on terror because they inflict harm upon the innocents without considering the moral implications.


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