There are hundreds of millions of people in the world living on less than $2/day (PPP-adjusted). It’s hard to wrap your head around that figure – could anyone survive on $2/day in the US? Surely $2 must go a lot further in the poorest countries in the world? But no – PPP-adjusted means living on what you could buy for $2 in the US. Hundreds of millions of people are living on less than a twentieth of US minimum wage.
Income inequality is a hot political topic these days, but global income inequality is not. It should be. Living on $2/day makes it hard to get enough to eat, hard to send your children to school. It is easy to get sick and die of a disease that doesn’t exist, or would easily be treated in the US. And because the income disparities are higher, questions of justice are even more forceful than domestically. Can it be just that I have so much, and they have so little? That where you are born determines so much about the course of your life?
How much less are the lives of the poor worth than our own? The question is shocking, but the answer is worse. GiveWell estimates they can save a life for a few thousand dollars; the US government is willing to spend a few *million* dollars to save an (American) life. So the world’s current answer is “1000x less” – a far cry from “all men are created equal”.
We can ask the same question on a personal scale. Almost all of us could spend a few thousand less a year, and save a life by giving it to the world’s poorest instead (and perhaps a few thousand more after that). Few do. Does that mean we value our own comfort more than the lives of others? Is that compatible with believing that everyone’s life has equal worth and value?
It’s tempting to immediately start poking holes in this logic. But instead, I want to hold here with the cognitive dissonance for a little while. There’s a tension between what is morally obvious and what almost all of us do – take some time to consider that, without judgment or rationalization. Take some time to practice the virtue of hypocrisy, of believing in something you don’t always live up to. As a wise man reminded us: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself; (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”.
An aside: the “virtue” of hypocrisy? Yes. It is right that we should not live up to our aspirations; if we do, we’ve set our sights too low. When our actions don’t match our beliefs, there are two roads to consistency: changing our actions, or changing our beliefs. But imposing self-consistency by lowering our ambitions is worse than doing nothing. A vision of how we could be better is the first step towards self-improvement. But hypocrisy is a private virtue; let others judge you by your actions, not your intentions.
I haven’t resolved this tension for myself, so I won’t try to tell you how to do it. But I do think it’s worth taking seriously. I’ve moved both my actions and beliefs closer to the middle. I give a lot more to people in global poverty. But I also think people have a right to spend a lot of their money on themselves (a shift from my previous more utilitarian view).
For more, I recommend this book on the same topic: https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/the-book/
Bit Wise, Pound Foolish 