In the book The life you can save by Peter Singer, Peter describes a few of the reasons why people don’t give more. I think understanding why people (countries) don’t give more is better than just asking the rich (countries) to give more. I have added a few quotes from other sources. Here are some of the reasons from the book.
1. The identifiable victim
“One group of people was told that a single child needed life-saving medical treatment that costs $300,000. A second group was told that eight children would die unless they were given treatment that could be provided for all of them at a total cost of $300,000. …those told about the single child gave more.” pg.PS.50
“The ‘identifiable victim effect’ leads more to ‘the rule of rescue’: we will spend far more to rescue an identifiable victim than we will to save a ‘statistical life’. Consider the case of Jessica McClure, who was eighteen months old in 1987 when she fell into a dry well in Midland, Texas. As rescuers worked for two and a half days to reach her, CNN broadcast images of the rescue to millions of viewers around the world. Donors sent in so much money that Jessica now has what has been reported to be a million-dollar trust fund. Elsewhere in the world, unnoticed by the media and not helped by the money donated to Jessica, about 67, 500 children died from avoidable poverty-related causes during those two and a half days, according to UNICEF. Yet is was obvious to everyone involved that Jessica must be rescued, no matter what the cost” pg 50
An individual in need tugs at our emotions. That’s our affective system at work. Mother Teresa expressed this when she said: ‘If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will’ pg PS.51
2. Parochialism
“Two hundred and fifty years ago, the philosopher and economist Adam Smith invited his readers to reflect on their attitudes to distant strangers by asking them to imagine that ‘the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitant, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake.’ He then asked his readers to consider ‘how a man of humanity in Europe’, who had no special connection with that part of the world, would receive the news. Whatever that person might say, Smith contends, ‘he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened.’
The tragic earthquake that struck China’s Sichuan province in 2008 showed only too clearly that Smith’s observation still holds. Though the earthquake killed 70,000 people, injured 350, 000, and made 5 million homeless, its impact on me was quite temporary. Reading about the deaths and seeing the devastation on television aroused my sympathy for the families of the victims, but I did not stop work, lose sleep, or even cease to enjoy the normal pleasures of life. No one I know did. Our intellect – our deliberative system – takes in the news of the disaster, but our emotions are rarely disturbed by tragedies that occur to strangers far away with whom we have no special connection. Even if we are moved to donate to emergency relief, hearing such terrible news does not change our lives in any fundamental way. At our best, we give far less to help foreigners than we give to those within our own country.” Pg.PS.53
– Tsunami, 220, 000 people killed, millions homeless, $1.54 billion given by Americans
– Hurricane Katrina, 1,600 people killed, and far fewer homeless, $6.5 billion given.
… our concern for the welfare of others tends to be limited to our kin, and to those with whom we are in cooperative relationships, and perhaps to members of our own small tribal group.
“The richest 1% of adults in the world own 40% of the planet’s wealth, according to the largest study yet of wealth distribution… Europe, the US and some Asia Pacific nations account for most of the extremely wealthy. More than a third live in the US. Japan accounts for 27% of the total, the UK for 6% and France for 5%.” (Guardian, UK)
In America: “THE RICHEST 1 (ONE) PERCENT OF AMERICANS possess more wealth than THE COMBINED WEALTH OF THE BOTTOM 90 (NINETY) PERCENT…” (AFGEN)
“Because the richest 1% prefer to associate almost exclusively with members of their own social and economic standing, few members of the bottom 90% of Americans have ever even met a millionaire let alone a billionaire.”
“…poor people are more generous than rich people…what’s more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of richer givers does.” (McClatchy)
3. Futility
“The proportion of lives saved often carries more weight than the number of lives saved… The implication is that people will give more support for saving 80 percent of 100 lives at risk than for saving 20 percent of 1000 lives at risk – in other words, for saving 80 lives rather than for saving 200 lives, even when the cost of saving each group is the same… Many of us engage in what Psychologists label ‘futility thinking’. We say that aid to the poor is ‘drops in the ocean’, implying that it is not worth giving, because no matter how much I do, the ocean of people in need will seem just as it was before.” Pg.PS.56
4. The diffusion of responsibility
“We are also much less likely to help someone if the responsibility for helping does not rest entirely on us.”pg.PS.56
5. The sense of fairness
“Nobody likes being the only one cleaning up while everyone else stands around. In the same way, our willingness to help the poor can be reduced if we think that we would be doing more than our fair share. The person considering giving a substantial portion of his or her disposable income can’t help but be aware that others, including others with a lot more disposable income, are not….So strong is our sense of fairness that, to prevent others getting more than their fair share, we are often willing to take less for ourselves.” Pg.PS.58
6. Money
“If you have ever read Karl Marx, you will not be surprised at the idea that the use of money undermines what is best and noblest in human relationships…Marx describes money as ‘the universal agent of separation’ because it transforms human characteristics and powers into something else. As an example, he suggests, a man may be ugly, but if he has money, he can buy for himself ‘the most beautiful of women’. Money alienates us, Marx thought, from our true human nature and from our fellow human beings.” Pg.PS.60
“Why does money make us less willing to seek or give help, and to be close to others? Vohs and her colleagues suggest that as societies began to use money, the need to rely on family and friends diminished, and people were able to become more self-sufficient. ‘In this way,’ they conclude, ‘,money enhanced individualism but diminished communal motivations, an effect that is still apparent in people’s responses today’” pg.PS.61
Conclusion
When you think about the attitude to distant strangers and where the vast amounts of the world’s wealth lie, it is hard to be optimistic about ending global poverty.
I strongly suggest you buy and read the book.