In Defense of Openness

Why Global Freedom Is the Humane Solution to Global Poverty

Bibliographic Data

ID19984397
AuthorsBas Van Der Vossen (0000-0002-1036-6087), Jason Brennan (0000-0001-5636-782X)
Year2018
Pages240
Publication date2018-08-22
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueIn Defense of Openness (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/oso/9780190462956.001.0001
OpenAlexW2888439986
Open LibraryOL27847010M
ISBN9780190462956
LanguageEN
Citations received17

The humane and workable solution to global poverty is freedom. We can help the poor—and help ourselves at the same time—by tearing down our walls and trade barriers. Both justice and good economic sense require that we open borders, free up international trade, and respect the economic liberties of people around the world. What global justice requires is an open world. Most books on global justice see the world’s poor as little more than mouths to be fed. Their authors see justice as a zero-sum game: some must lose so that others may win. They rely on controversial moral intuitions and outdated or mistaken economic beliefs about economic growth. Van der Vossen and Brennan present global justice as a positive-sum game: the methods that can best help the world’s poor also help everyone else. Using mainstream development economics and common-sense moral intuitions, they argue that instead of treating the world’s poor as helpless victims who must be rescued by the rich, we should remove the coercive limits that keep people poor in the first place. We should offer people the freedom to work, produce, trade, and migrate, in ways that help better themselves and others who are willing to cooperate with them. In Defense of Openness offers a new approach to global justice: we don’t need to “save” the poor. The poor will save themselves, if only we would get out of their way and let them

Economic Justice · Economics · Global justice · Law and economics · Mainstream · Openness to experience · Political economy · Political science · Poverty · Sociology · Income, Poverty, and Inequality · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Free trade · Liberty

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