A Fairer World

The Problem

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

- words from the American Declaration of Independence, 1776.

This was written while slavery was widespread in the US. Clearly, slaves didn't count as 'men'. In fact, in the 1857 Dred Scott case, the US Supreme Court found that blacks were not and never could be US citizens, and that the US Constitution and civil rights were not applicable to them. Even women didn't have the same rights as men - for instance they couldn't vote and were excluded from government, academia and many other roles in society. And, as recent events show, those 'created equal' do not include those without citizenship papers.

So, by 'men' it actually meant 'male members of the white Caucasian race that have US citizenship'. No one else was created equal or endowed with unalienable rights.

Slavery was abolished in 1865 after the Confederate states lost the civil war. But segregation continued until the 1960s. Facilities and services such as healthcare, education, housing, employment, and public transport were segregated with those facilities provided for blacks rarely matching those provided for whites in quality. Most white people found this quite justifiable on the basis that blacks were, after all, not really human in the way they were: they were descendants of Canaan and cursed to be the lowest of slaves in the eyes of God because Canaan's father, Ham, had stumbled across Noah when he had passed out naked after drinking too much. [Genesis 9:20-27]

But the US shouldn't be singled out. In Australia, Aboriginal people were shot as vermin in the early colonial days, and it was only after a referendum in 1967 that they were recognised as Australian citizens. During the apartheid era, South Africa was even worse than the US or Australia and Nazi Germany worse still. And Nazi Germany isn't the only country to have engaged in deliberate genocide in recent times.

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There are still individuals who maintain racist views, but a more common belief nowadays is that all humans are equal and should have equal rights to health care, education, employment etc. In most countries, this is also the view of the state and the law.

It would be nice to think that, by 'all humans' it meant all humans, everywhere. But it doesn't. People's rights are very different depending on where they were born. A person born in Belgium has very different rights and opportunities from someone born in Chad. Most Chadians have access to only very limited healthcare, education, housing, employment, and public transport. A Belgian has the right to the best education, healthcare etc. A Belgian also has the right to live and work anywhere in Belgium . . . or France . . . or anywhere in the EU in fact. Someone from Chad doesn't have the right even to enter those countries without seeking special permission.

This is segregation similar to, but more extreme than, that in the US segregation era, except that it is based on place of birth rather than skin colour, and people have no more control over or responsibility for their place of birth than they do over their skin colour.

Is this compatible with our concept of equal rights? After all, most of us still consider that all people are 'created' equal and that no one should be more deserving at birth than anyone else.

The high value we place on equal rights and the vastly different rights of people born in different countries is a glaring contradiction in modern world affairs. The culture of justifying intra-national segregation has gradually given way to one of striving for intra-national equality. But what about inter-national segregation?

Each year, millions of people enter countries not their own as illegal immigrants. They leave their home and often their family and everything they've grown up with to move to a new country where they know no one and often don't even speak the language. On top of that, they often risk their lives getting there, especially if they travel part of the way in a people smuggler's boat.

As illegal immigrants, they have no education credentials and can expect only a meagre living. But despite all the negatives, they expect their new life to be better than their old one.

If people in the US, Europe and Australia, relatively speaking, have such easy lives handed to them on a plate, how do we justify letting people in other countries live in such poverty and danger?

The reasons tend to be not so much philosophical as pragmatic.

Opening Borders - A Solution that Probably Wouldn't Work

Giving everyone equal rights of residence in any country might, on first thoughts, solve the problem. But this might in actuality give rise to one or both of the following scenarios.

Scenario 1: There would be mass migrations from third-world countries to first-world countries. First-world countries would be flooded with people without work. Many of these would not speak the language of the host country, would have no educational credentials, no work experience that would fit them into any available job and little knowledge of the culture of the host country. The increased demand for social security would greatly reduce the funds available for other government services like health, education, policing etc. Many of the original inhabitants of the country would become unemployed, further exacerbating the demands on the social security system and eventually making it unaffordable in its present form. Many locals and immigrants would be forced into poverty, and many would resort to crime just to survive. Because of reduced policing, people would have to defend themselves in whatever way they could, and gang warfare would become the norm. Gangs would grow and amalgamate to remain competitive, and countries would eventually be run by competing warlords. Much of the existing housing and infrastructure would be destroyed in the fighting. Housing would become totally inadequate for the newly ballooned population and people with houses would have to rely on the warlords to defend their homes by force or give them up and join the multitudes of the homeless. In places with cold winters, once all the trees had been cut down for firewood and the wildlife caught and eaten, millions would freeze or starve to death. It wouldn't take long for life in the first-world countries to become far worse than in the third-world countries people had come from. As a result, nobody would be better off, and millions would be worse off.

Scenario 2: People from countries with very different cultures might overwhelm the populations of some first-world countries and use the opportunity to impose their culture on the population. For instance, Norway and Sweden might be subjected to Sharia law or might even be run by an ISIS-style militia.

Increasing Aid - A Solution that Might Work

All in all, suddenly abandoning borders and immigration controls would likely make things worse for almost everyone and so is not really a viable solution to the problem. A more viable solution to the inequality problem might be for first-world countries to greatly increase aid to third-world countries in order to try to make living standards more comparable.

During the colonial era, vast amounts of wealth were extracted from the colonies to boost the economies and infrastructure of the colonial powers. In fact, a significant part of the present affluence of western countries results from this appropriation of resources in past times. It might seem fair to pay some of that back. With a modest reduction in the standard of living in first-world countries, we could make a relatively large improvement to the lot of people in third-world countries. Such action would in turn reduce the level of illegal migration.

A problem, however, would be that of population. Most of the world's poorer countries are predominantly Christian or Muslim. Adherents of both religions believe that the world will soon come to an end in the day of judgment. Thus it doesn't need to be looked after. In fact, disasters will speed the arrival of that day and so destroying the Earth is almost a good thing. To them, over-population is not a problem.

Also, people of both religions see the afterlife as mattering far more than this life. Only people of their faith will have a pleasant afterlife; everyone else will suffer in hell. Therefore, the larger the proportion of the world's population that has their religion the better. It's hard to proselytise and convert, but much easier to out-populate. Dominantly Christian and Muslim third-world countries tend to have very high birth rates. The average couple in Niger has between 7 and 8 children and the median age of the population is 15.

In this context, increased resources in third-world countries tend to be soaked up by increased population rather than an improved standard of living. And, along with that, an increase in the proportion of the world which is religious and an increase in the proportion of the world which is poor.

Managing Population

Making greatly increased aid available to poorer countries, but having it tied to population management, could conceivably provide an incentive for population constraint while increasing their living standards.

Initial aid could be targeted at making birth control measures free and easily accessible for all people. Along with this, there would need to be an education program so that everyone is aware of the possibilities and, as far as possible, develops a positive attitude towards them.

Incentives for small families would increase the likelihood that the measures will be taken up by the majority of people. Women over 18 with no children could be provided with a regular financial payment; those with one or two children receive a lesser amount; those with more than two miss out. Women who undergo non-reversible sterilisation could be further compensated.

The money paid as incentives would provide for small families the possibility of a better lifestyle. And spending the money would boost the economy and provide more and better-paid jobs.

As countries manage to reduce the rate of population growth, other benefits would be provided. These would be aimed at providing better health care services and enhanced educational opportunities. For those that manage to stabilise their population, contributions could be made to housing and infrastructure development as well. It should be possible to raise living standards even in the poorest countries to something comparable to those in developed countries within a generation or less.

One problem might be that the governments of some countries may not be willing to cooperate with such efforts on the part of developed nations. But there would undoubtedly be countries that would be willing, and a start could be made with these. The more reticent countries may come on board later if it turns out that there are benefits.

Of course another problem is where the money comes from.

Where Does the Money Come From?

Tax?

Increasing income tax rates in developed countries would provide money that could be directed to foreign aid.

However, even developed nations have significant numbers of people at the lower end of the income spectrum who struggle financially as it is. Demanding more of them would compound their problems.

But there are a lot of people at the higher end of the income spectrum who would not be struggling even if their tax rate was increased significantly. A family on $50 000 a year would be seriously affected by a cut to $45 000. But a family on $600 000 a year could deal with a cut to $400 000 without nearly the same grief. In general a person earning $600 000 a year isn't doing 12 times as much work as someone earning $50 000 a year. In most developed countries, even people earning millions pay less than half their income in tax.

A tax system in which no tax is payable on any income up to what is considered a just-get-by level and then higher tax rates above that might be fairer to the population of the developed country as well as possibly providing an excess which can be devoted to developing countries.

A sample tax scale might be

where each tax rate applies to that part of the income within the given range. So, someone earning $310 000 would pay 25% of $30 000 plus 45% of $40 000 plus 60% of $80 000 and so on, giving a total of $151 500, and leaving $158 500 after tax. There is still plenty of incentive there to try to earn more than $50 000 a year.

It should be said that for individuals to make money and pay tax, they have to have jobs. Taxing companies more would thus be counter-productive. The suggested changes apply to personal income tax only.

Such a change would go some way to providing funds to help developing countries, but, because the number of people at the upper end of the tax scale is a lot lower than the number at the lower end, the total increase in tax revenue would be quite small. More money would be needed.

Inheritance

Despite the overall affluence of developed countries, there is quite a range in the wealthiness of individuals in those countries.

Rich people tend to bring up their children with everything they need including the best education and the best understanding of their opportunities in life. These children then get the best paid jobs or run the most successful businesses, live in big houses in good neighbourhoods and have all the experiences they wish for like overseas travel.

Meanwhile, poorer people live in poorer neighbourhoods. Their children go to schools that host many students who don't value education and who tend to be disruptive to the learning of others. Their peers as well as their parents have little in the way of aspiration to a better life (except maybe by winning the lottery), and so they grow up with little knowledge of, let alone aspirations to, anything better. They end up with low-paid jobs and by middle age are often still living in low-quality rented accommodation, doing not much more than surviving financially.

When these children reach the age of about 60, their parents die - the parents of both the rich kids and the poor kids. And the wealth is passed down to the younger generation. The rich kids, who are themselves already well established financially with a good home in a good area and with plenty of money to provide for themselves now and through retirement, receive an inheritance, often of many hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to add to their wealth. The poor kids, who are often still living in rented accommodation and struggling to get by, relying on just the state pension for their retirement, get next to nothing from their parents because their parents had next to nothing. This is part of the cause of the growing wealth inequality in the world today.

There is an unfairness in the way that people born to rich parents and the way people born to poor parents are brought up. And it is through no fault of their own. Then, when the older generation die and bequeath their wealth to society, this unfairness is compounded: all the wealth goes to the rich kids. People who don't need the money get it all; people who have next to nothing and really do need the money get nothing. In the eyes of anyone but the rich kids, this would have to seem wrong.

Jesus once said, 'To those who have, more will be given; to those who have not, even what they have will be taken away.' [Matthew 13:12] So maybe this is a Christian thing. But then Jesus also told rich people to sell what they owned and to give to the poor. [Matthew 19:21] However, the vast majority of people who call themselves Christians choose to ignore that: their Christianity is just an excuse to hold certain repressive attitudes; they don't let it impact their own worldly life and privilege.

In the past, many countries had death duties as part of their taxation system. So if someone inherited wealth, maybe half of it would go to the state to be used for the benefit of those who don't inherit. But death duties have mostly been abolished.

Today, it might seem more equitable to use all of the wealth of deceased estates to benefit the community at large rather than the already privileged children of the dead people. When people die and no longer need their wealth, it would go to the state rather than to their descendants.

This would free up a lot more money than changes to the income tax system. This money might be used in part for the benefit of the country in which the deceased lived. But it could also provide significant resources for the proposed aid to developing countries.

It should be noted that there are legal ways around death duties and inheritance taxes. For instance, parents can donate (or sell for a nominal price) real estate to their children or grandchildren, then live on it rent free.

Property title

To avoid this, it might be necessary to change the system of real estate tenure. Instead of buying real estate with a perpetual freehold title, it could be that all real estate is bought on a lease basis, the lease lasting until the last person on the lease title had died. The lease would be from the government and the cost would depend on both the value of the estate and the expected time for which it would be used. For instance a couple in their 70s would pay less for the same property than a couple in their 30s. People selling a house would similarly be compensated more if they are 30 than if they are 90, because they would be giving up far more tenure time.

The price for a house would be a market price multiplied by a life-expectancy factor. The market prices would still be determined by market forces in that when the government sells bequeathed property, the price is determined by what people are willing to pay for it. Major improvements to real estate, like the building of an extension or granny flat could be authorised and funded by the government, the resident paying just the increment in value over the expected remaining duration of the tenure.

Of course, short-term leases would also be available for people who are not planning to stay in the property long-term. This would be basically the same as renting.

Not all bequeathments are of real estate, though. Money, business assets and other possessions can be bequeathed. It would be necessary to monitor the ownership of these other assets. This would not be difficult as government agencies presently monitor assets for people who receive means-tested government benefits.

Some may worry about government control of home ownership and the like, but even now, titles offices are part of the government and governments could, if they wished, declare someone's home to be state property. However, even if they did have any desire to do this, public pressure and the courts would probably ensure that such a decision be disallowed. The same public pressure and the same courts would prevent similar abuse in the new system.

These changes to income tax and inheritance would go a long way to financing the required foreign aid. A couple of other changes could also contribute, though gaining social acceptance for these might be more difficult. They involve capital punishment and killing babies.

Capital Punishment

Which is more morally acceptable: killing someone or letting two people die unnecessarily through inaction?

Ivan Milat

Ivan Milat was born near Sydney, Australia in 1944, one of 14 children. The 10 boys in the family spent a lot of time handling knives and firearms and were well known to the police. Ivan liked to attack animals with machetes, and this led to a stint in residential school at age 13. By 17, he was in juvenile detention for theft and at 19 was involved in a shop break-in. In 1964 he was sentenced to 18 months for breaking and entering. A month after being released he received two years hard labour for driving a stolen car. Then in 1967 he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for theft.

Ivan Milat                  

In 1971 he abducted two 18-year-old female hitchhikers with a knife. He raped one before they managed to escape. While awaiting trial, he was involved in a string of robberies with some of his brothers, then disappeared.

In 1977 Milat unsuccessfully attempted to rape and murder two more female hitchhikers.

Between 1989 and 1992, several backpackers disappeared after hitch-hiking from Sydney. In 1992 and 1993, their bodies were discovered in the Belanglo Forest west of Sydney. Joanne Walters had been stabbed fifteen times in the chest, neck, and back. Her travelling companion, Caroline Clarke had been shot 10 times in the head. James Gibson and Deborah Evarist were the next two. A large knife had been used to cut through Gibson's spine, paralysing him. Evarist had been savagely beaten, her skull and jaw fractured. Simone Schmidl was stabbed 8 times. Anja Habschied was decapitated, though her head was never found; her partner Gabor Neugebauer had been shot six times in the head.

Milat was arrested in May 1994 and charged with the murders. He was also suspected of other similar murders elsewhere in Australia. Various knives and firearms were found in his house and in the homes of his mother and some of his brothers. Belongings of some of the victims were also found.

In July 1996, after an 18-week trial, he was found guilty of seven back-packer murders and sentenced to several life terms without parole.

Milat spent from 1996 to 2019 in various high-security jails before dying of oesophageal cancer.

Keeping a prisoner in maximum security presently costs the state about $400 per day. Over the 23 years of Milat's incarceration, this would come to some 3.4 million dollars in today's terms.

The Anti-Malaria Foundation (AMF) reduces the incidence of malaria in third-world countries by distributing mosquito nets and other measures. The cost of operations in the African country of Guinea is estimated to be US$4500 per life saved. (https://www.givewell.org/how-much-does-it-cost-to-save-a-life) There are insufficient funds to cover everyone. For every $4500 available, an extra death from malaria can be avoided.

The AU$3.4 million cost of Ivan Milat's stay in prison comes to about US$2.3 million. Dividing this by $4500, we get a little over 500. Thus, had Ivan Milat been executed and the money spent on him donated to the AMF, 500 lives could have been saved.

Milat's 23 years in jail would have been worth very little to him and nothing to anyone else. Yet this life was considered to be worth more than those of 500 Guineans, most of whom would have been quite good people who never murdered anyone. It would see that letting 500 good people die is preferable to taking one life.

Some might say that Australia needs to look after its own first. But still, saying that the life of one Australian serial killer is worth more than the lives of 500 good Guineans is racism in the extreme.

Acid Attacks

Acid attacks are common in Southern Asia. An acid attack consists of throwing a corrosive liquid (usually concentrated sulphuric or nitric acid into the face of the victim. The effects of the acid are detailed in the following extract from the Wikipedia article on acid attacks.

• The skull is partly destroyed/deformed and hair lost.
• Ear cartilage is usually partly or totally destroyed; deafness may occur.
• Eyelids may be burned off or deformed, leaving the eyes extremely dry and prone to blindness. Acid directly in the eye also damages sight, sometimes causing blindness in both eyes.
• The nose can become shrunken and deformed; the nostrils may close off completely due to destroyed cartilage.
• The mouth becomes shrunken and narrow, and it may lose its full range of motion. Sometimes, the lips may be partly or totally destroyed, exposing the teeth. Eating and speaking can become difficult.
• Scars can run down from the chin to the neck area, shrinking the chin and extremely limiting the range of motion in the neck.
• Inhalation of acid vapours usually creates respiratory problems, exacerbating restricted airway pathways in acid patients.

Apart from the pain and horror of the attack, the months in hospital and the permanent, often grotesque disfigurement that follows, in many cases the victim is left with little hope of marriage or gaining decent employment, a situation which can make life very difficult.

Most acid attacks are committed against young women in revenge for refusal of sexual advances or proposals of marriage.

In Bangla Desh the number of acid attacks rose steadily until 2002. In that year the Acid Survivors Foundation reported 494 cases. Also, that year the death penalty was introduced for perpetrators. By 2020 the number of reported attacks had fallen to 21, while in other countries, numbers continued to rise. Only 14 people were sentenced to death for acid attacks between 2002 and 2020. But clearly, the existence of the death penalty has acted as an effective deterrent and has saved the livelihoods of hundreds of people per year.

Many people will maintain that the death penalty is inhumane and should not be used under any circumstances. But, again, is it better to allow a few hundred acid attacks each year or to execute less than one perpetrator per year?

People are products of their genetics and their experience. It can be said that a criminal is as much a victim of circumstances as their victim. So punishment should not be for revenge and should be applied humanely. But deterrence is important.

Map Showing the Status of Capital Punishment in Different Countries

Do We Have the Right to Take a Life?

The most common objection to capital punishment is that no human has the right to take the life of another human. (Though there is generally no problem with wilfully letting other humans die.) If there is no god, then it is humans who decide what rights humans have and we are quite able to give ourselves that right. After all, we give ourselves the right to kill enemy combatants in war and we deny ourselves the right to discriminate on the basis of sex.

But what if there is a god? Some object to capital punishment on biblical grounds because of the commandment 'Thou shalt not commit murder'. But not all cases of killing another human are murder. God ordered the Israelites to kill thousands of people for misdemeanours like cursing one's parents, divination, worshipping other gods, working on the sabbath, male homosexual acts etc., as well as just for being Canaanites and being in possession of the land the Israelites wanted. God obviously has no qualms about us killing people for misdemeanours, some much more minor than serial killings or acid attacks.

Replacing long prison sentences for heinous crimes with the death penalty would free up significant money which is presently spent on those prisoners. Taking a global view rather than a local one, the lives lost to the death penalty would pale into insignificance compared to the lives lost in third-world countries by not doing things like providing mosquito nets. It is not clear why sentencing an innocent African to die through inaction is better than sentencing a mass murderer to die in a western country.

Killing Babies

In western society, we have a strong taboo against taking a life. If a baby is born and is capable of staying alive without medical support, then it has to be allowed to live and it has to be brought up. It might be so profoundly mentally handicapped, that it will never do anything productive, and it will get less pleasure out of life than an average dog does. Furthermore, it will require 24-hour care for the whole of its life. This might come from its parents (who then can do little else with their lives), or alternatively, the child is passed over to state care, where it is assigned full-time carers. If it outlives its parents' ability to look after it, it will go into state care anyway.

But it still has to be allowed to have that life. Not allowing it to do so is murder and is punished accordingly.

As mentioned above, the money spent on keeping Ivan Milat in jail could have saved the lives of 500 people in Guinea. In the same way, the money spent of keeping a profoundly disabled person alive could save the lives of maybe a hundred or more Guineans. The obvious question is 'Is the life of one fundamentally disabled person in a western country worth more than the lives of a hundred able-bodied Guineans?' Again, answering yes would show an extreme form of racism.

The suggestion here is that if a baby is disabled to the extent that it will not be able to enjoy a fulfilling independent existence, and if the parents prefer not to look after it, but instead would prefer to have another go at having a normal healthy child (or to have no further children), then it should be legal to have the child humanely euthanised, provided this is done before the age where children develop an understanding of life and death, say by the age of 2.

Philosophical views on the nature of a person and our obligations to them come into play here. There are two main views on the nature of a human. The first is the materialist view, that the person is a physical being with a brain, the activity of which causes that person's consciousness and experience of life. The second is the dualist view that a person is a conscious soul which will exist and remain conscious after the body had died, and thus that the body is just a temporary clothing which allows the soul to operate in this world. We will look at the question of the ethics of killing babies from both perspectives in turn.

The Materialist Perspective

From the materialist perspective, a baby is born as a lump of meat, very similar in genetics and structure to a new-born sheep or new-born baboon. It's consciousness, memories, knowledge, personality and identity develop gradually through interaction with the world. In that sense, not preserving its life is really no different from not preserving the life of a baby sheep. It makes no more difference to the baby than not conceiving it in the first place. Many would agree that a short life is better than no life, yet giving that baby no life by not conceiving it is considered quite ok, while giving it a short life isn't. Anyone who considers abortion acceptable should consider euthanasia at birth acceptable.

Societies have laws against murder because its members don't want to be constantly worried that their neighbours are going to kill them because they played their music too loud or whatever. We don't have those laws because we want as many people to be alive as possible - not nowadays anyway. Children under 2 don't worry about being murdered: in general, they have no concept of being murdered, especially if they are seriously intellectually handicapped. Thus, having the option of euthanising a seriously handicapped baby under 2 does not negate the purpose of the law against murder.

As well as not wanting to worry about being murdered, we don't want to worry that someone is going to deprive us of our loved ones. Thus it is not legal to kill someone else's child. But if the parents of a disabled child don't love having it enough to want to keep it, then no one is deprived of their loved one if it dies.

The Dualist Perspective

Most dualists in the western world are Christians, though the following may apply to other religions like Islam as well.

Christians believe that, after death, souls are judged on whether or not they believed in Jesus and, on the basis of that judgment, are assigned to either heaven or hell (perhaps with a spell of torture in purgatory first). The bible does not say what happens to children who die before they are capable of knowing about Jesus and so believing in him. However, the most commonly held view is that such children go to heaven. Sending them to hell would not be compatible with the idea of a loving God.

Thus, from a Christian perspective, killing a child before the age of 2 would ensure passage to heaven, whereas letting it live runs the risk of it growing up not believing and being condemned to spend eternity being tortured in hell. As the eternal afterlife is infinitely more important than this life, being killed really has to be the better option for all children. Certainly, from a Christian perspective, it is hard to make a case against the idea in the case of defective children who may be incapable of understanding religious ideas even as adults.

A general Point

Actually, probably one of the main reasons people would find the killing of infants immoral is that no one else seems to approve of it. To some extent, our morals are adopted from those of our community. This would explain why most people are happy to let Guineans die of malaria. However, views on infanticide haven't always been the same as they are today. In many societies from the stone age to modern times, up to 50% of new-borns have been killed or left to die by their parents. (See the Wikipedia article on Infanticide.) Often this has been because a new mouth to feed could well push the existing family over the line into starvation. Generally, there was little stigma attached to this, and little or no legal follow-up.

Conclusion

All in all, changes to income tax and to inheritance and real estate tenure laws would provide enough money for developed countries to significantly improve the lot of people in developing countries. (It doesn't take much to improve the lot of someone living on $5 a day.) These changes would reduce the lot of the wealthier residents of developed countries somewhat, but would not affect the less wealthy. (They could even improve things for them).

Changes to the stance on capital punishment and killing babies would further this cause, though these changes would be optional extras, as they would probably meet with more opposition, even from those who wanted to help the poor in developing nations.

Many would consider capital punishment and killing babies to be immoral. But are they any more immoral that letting millions of people in third world countries die from things that they wouldn't die from if they had medical care comparable to that in first-world countries? The people in third-world countries might be further away, but they are just as human and just as deserving of life, dignity and comfort. It seems immoral to deprive them of those things.

It would seem to be a moral duty for people in developed countries to take steps like the above to make life better for the less fortunate in developing countries. But, even apart from that, it might well be in the interests of those in the developed countries. If we don't manage to raise the living standards of less fortunate countries and control world population, eventually everyone will suffer. Illegal immigration will only get worse. And the incipient global climate disaster, which is being fuelled ultimately by overpopulation, will affect everyone.

David Ilsley (https://davidilsley.com/i-fairer-world.html)