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Peter Singer: The Life You Can Save

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Berkeley Arts and Letters

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Despite Economic Crisis, Your Money Can Save a Child

02 min 36 sec

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"Most of us in this country are wealthy enough...that we could save a child's life," says philosopher Peter Singer.

How? By ceasing to spend money on extravagances like bottled water and lattes.
How Much of the U.S. Budget Goes to Foreign Aid?

01 min 26 sec

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A study shows most Americans think the U.S. government gives too much, between 10-20% of the annual US budget, to foreign aid and should only be giving 5-10%. The truth is, says philosopher Peter Singer, the U.S. allots less than 1% of the budget for foreign aid.
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01 hr 10 min 18 sec

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There are 4 comments on this program

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Previous FORAtv comments:

Jim Batterson

Posted: 04.13.09, 01:20 AM

Gemma, Singer makes a specific, implementable proposal and a strong ethical argument as to why we should give money to make the extreme poverty of the most poor less miserable. And you counter that you have a different solution, which is to do away with money, and if the world is not going to do that, then, well, you are going to do nothing? Can't you do better than that? Even if I agreed with you about doing away with money, really, does it seem like something likely to happen any time soon? Proposing an impossible-to-implement alternative solution is not a refutation.

gemma

Posted: 03.07.09, 02:57 AM

I agree, i think there will always be inequality within the economic system of society today. However, if the world was to exist without money, humans would simply make things to make others happy and power in this sense would work through self criticism. Therefore in this type of world, generally for the poor, humans would notice how it is unfair that some have more opportunity etc than others. We would then decide what to do collectively as a society and act on that. I have no doubt that the living standards of a poor place would increase slightly by giving or donating tiny amounts of money, however i belive you are missing an important point also. If we are to take this belief on board,. we are accepting the fact that there are inequalities to start with in the first place. There are reasons why there is poverty and poor countires etc, and i believe the reason to be because the higher your status, the more money you are rewarded and therefore the more power you have. An example of this would quite simply be the Western world. We can relate to charities here, as i believe the reason a charity existed was to help those individuals less 'well off'. Havent we questioned why these charities still exist today?Why there is still poverty today?Why there is children in need programmes etc?The reason is because in a capitalistic system controlling and structuring todays world, inequalities and unequal power relations are the result. Therefore, giving money to charities, or giving money to poorer areas of the world will not work. A world without money is the answer.

Mason Macklem

Posted: 03.07.09, 01:51 AM

gemma: I think you are dramatically missing the point of what Mr. Singer is talking about. Will there always be inequality? One could argue that that will be true, that there will always be an economic structure where more powerful nations build their economic growth on the backs of the exploitation of cheap labour in poorer nations. But there is a distinction between focussing on the existence of rich and poor, and focussing on the level of poverty in which the poor live. Mr. Singer mentions the statistic of 1 billion people living on less than a dollar-per-day in local purchasing power. If the living standards of these people were raised to 2 dollars-per-day, they would still be by all objective measures on the 'poor' side of the rich-vs-poor divide, so it wouldn't change your comment about there always being rich and poor individuals -- but that increase would likely make an enormous distinction in their day-to-day lives.

gemma

Posted: 03.06.09, 12:19 AM

When the world economically is based on inequalities and unequal power, it results in individuals being at polar opposites of rich and poor. Therefore, to give money towards saving a child will not solve the problem. With the economic system in place today, there will always be extremely rich and extremely poor people. Have you ever questioned why we have to use money to save people's lives?Shouldn't we (as intelligent human beings) beable to be humane and want to simply save people's lives? Im sure, if the world was to be a world without money, ALL children would be saved.