A few hundred years ago, perhaps 85 or even 90 percent of humanity lived below a standard of living that today only 40 or 45 percent fail to reach. But at that earlier time only part of this poverty could… — Thomas Pogge Copy Share Image
The bottom half of humanity is living in severe poverty; not all of them are malnourished or severely deprived now, but they are extremely vulnerable to even small upsets in their income or in the prices they face of basic… — Thomas Pogge Copy Share Image
I think that many citizens understand how our system works, or rather, fails to work, for structural reasons. But who has the capacity and the incentives to bring change? The banks and other corporations love the system because it allows them to buy legislation that serves their own interests even at the expense of the vast majority of citizens. Incumbent… — Thomas Pogge Copy Share
The massive corruption common in so many developing countries would be quite impossible if Western countries did not provide convenient opportunities to ship ill-gotten funds out of the country. It wouldn't make much sense for a ruler to store in his basement large quantities of stolen cash in his own country's currency. A corrupt ruler wants to be able to… — Thomas Pogge Copy Share
What we should do is require or at least permit innovators to license their green innovations free of charge in exchange for public payments… — Thomas Pogge Copy Share Image
You can get an ice-cold Coke for around fifty cents in most developing countries, not just in the major population centers, but at the… — Thomas Pogge Copy Share Image
I think one big improvement would be if we somehow made it cheaper and easier for developing countries to learn from the sad experience… — Thomas Pogge Copy Share Image
Purchasing power parities are not a reasonable method for comparing households across countries or currencies. The reason for this is simply that PPPs are sensitive to the prices of all the commodities, goods and services, that households are consuming worldwide, with each commodity weighted in the calculations according to its share in international household consumption expenditure. — Thomas Pogge Copy Share
The extremely low respect Congress enjoys among the population indicates that the citizens understand broadly what's going on. But the lack of a realistic… — Thomas Pogge Copy Share Image
One citizen, or a few, may be powerless if all the rest are determined to benefit from the imposition of unjust supranational rules. But… — Thomas Pogge Copy Share Image
Severe poverty is getting better by some measures, but it's also becoming ever more scandalous because it is now so easily avoidable. — Thomas Pogge Copy Share Image
To improve global health, it's not enough just to have a really good new product and to obtain marketing approval. You still need to… — Thomas Pogge Copy Share Image
We have the ability now to arrange global economic institutions so that poverty declines to a fraction of what it is now. — Thomas Pogge Copy Share Image
Dictatorial regimes often manage to keep themselves in power because they are recognized by foreigners as representing the state and its people, and therefore as entitled to sell the country's natural resources and to borrow money in its people's name. These privileges conferred by foreigners keep autocrats in power despite the fact that they were not elected and do not… — Thomas Pogge Copy Share
