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Go to this website for valuable information http://www.worldometers.info/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. It is frightening to see how fast the numbers change. The most industrialized societies with free-market economies and educated populations significantly reduce starvation and poverty. 1. Do the most industrialized societies (such as the United States) have a moral obligation or responsibility to help alleviate the problem of starvation and poverty in the least industrialized societies? 2. If so, what should the U.S. be doing to reduce the problems of starvation and poverty in the world? On the one hand, the US may offer more humanitarian aid than any other industrialized nation to the less industrialized countries where disease, poverty, and starvation is rampant. But, we also sell weapons to some of those countries. Those weapons sometimes find their way into the hands of militants who perpetuate the country’s poverty. Why does the US do this? Because the sale of arms/weapons is very very lucrative. So we sell guns to a militant faction, and send humanitarian aid to the poor people in the same country, never being sure the aid gets to the people who need it. There are often two sides to our “humanitarian” aid to less industrialized countries. Remember the 2004 Tsunami, the 2005 Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the 2012 Hurricane Sandy in the US northeast. Two questions to consider in thinking about this: (1) does it make sense to rebuild cities that experience these natural events after such devastation, continuing to overpopulate dangerous areas? (2) does our government (you and me, as taxpayers) have a moral obligation to help our own citizens before those in other countries? SO: 3. Since the US has to borrow money from China to pay for humanitarian aid – does it make sense that we send it to other countries? Regardless of your own position on this issue, try to convince me that we should. You will have to work very very hard to convince me that this makes sense. Give it your best shot.

Explanation / Answer

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily.

(Answer)

“On the one hand, the US may offer more humanitarian aid than any other industrialized nation to the less industrialized countries where disease, poverty, and starvation is rampant.”

In this statement above, you have said that the US “may” offer more aid than any other country. The use of the word “may” implies that you are not entirely sure whether or not the US offers more humanitarian help than any other country.

Contrarily, you have said, “But, we also sell weapons to some of those countries” with surety. There are official records in the US national income that weapons are sold by the US to the same countries it helps. Furthermore, these weapons make their way to the hands of the militants who are responsible for causing humanitarian issues that the US ends up helping with. By that logic, it becomes a matter of social responsibility for the US to level a dent that they have caused in the first place.

If the US government has exhibited poor skills in town planning and development in calamity-prone areas, it does not become a matter of charity but rather a matter of “prevention is better than cure.” One wouldn’t have to spend too much money for a cure if the disease was prevented in the first place.

However, it is true that the US has deficits of its own and needs the money themselves. Let us assume the US is a self-sufficient home in a good neighbourhood. The only flaw is an ugly front garden. The US has been saving up to beautify the front garden. But, one day, the plumbing in the house develops a fault. The water closet has begun to stink because of the overflow from the porcelain throne. Does the US use that money to fix the front garden or does it attend to other more pressing matters? Upon fixing the plumbing, does the US the water closet once it’s fixed or does the US stop using the loo because it happened to malfunction once before.

To illustrate further, a neighbouring house has issues with the electric transmission. It so happens that the US sometimes goes over to that neighbour's home to use their computer. So if the US wants those privileges to continue, it is appropriate to offer help in place of help.

It may seem like an odd allegory, but this is basically the scale model of the situation described in the case study, minus the bureaucracy and complexities of the economy.

It is not possible to convince every individual to adopt social responsibility. Perhaps this is why it is called social responsibility and not mandatory responsibility. But it is so that most nations that have an established legislation and government also have a pledge, preamble and other moral codes that must be followed. Such moral codes usually highlight the countries responsibilities. The greatest of all such documents is the US declaration of independence. It is probably the first and greatest resolute document that highlights the responsibility of the privileged towards the underprivileged. “But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.” Is the best to understand the position of the US on social responsibility. Helping the US comes first, but helping another nation that may help you someday in the future is a matter of economic, social and politilcal interest.

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