3071-The political economy of new slavery

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its critique are relevant to the concerns of development ethics, both in
regard to the goal of poverty reduction, but also in regard to the general
policies of development, especially in poorer countries.
The range of questions relevant to development ethics
A central focus of development ethics has been an ethical critique of
the two key goals: poverty reduction and development itself. A better
understanding of just what makes poverty an evil will give us a more
sophisticated understanding of what kinds of measures will really reduce
poverty. If, for instance, poverty is evil because of the undermining
of autonomy as well as or as much as lack of food or health, then
measures that really empower the poor are more deeply satisfactory than
measures that merely provide food or medicine (O’Neill, 1989). Likewise
measures which reduce or remove economic slavery as a particularly
acute form of disempowerment or undermining of autonomy will be
given a good rationale for being included in poverty reduction strategies.
A better understanding of what the processes of development
are really about in terms of an adequate characterization of the criteria
of flourishing and progress will lead to more sophisticated models
of development than economic growth or even growth with equity
(Sen, 1999). Thus, we have the great debate between neo-Aristotelians,
Kantians, human rights thinkers and welfarists (Aman, 1991).
Development ethics has also attended, though less vigorously, to other
questions. For example, if environmental values matter too, how can
we integrate these with development values into a coherent ethical
package? How important is the ‘process’ value of participation, not
only as effective means to other goals but as a development goal itself?
If corruption is an impediment to development – as the fair distribution
of increasing benefits or more basically as economic growth itself – how
can we best understand it and the values which can effectively limit
it and counter its corrosive effects? What is the ethical basis of aid,
whether it is given by individuals or by governments? Looking more
generally at the economic relations between countries, what are the
ethical guidelines for these? Is economic liberty adequate? If not, what
principles of social justice should inform the market or the ways states
co-operate with one another?
That these and many other ethical questions are relevant to development
ethics and ought to be accorded more attention is one of the
points I want to stress in this chapter. Even if we took the primary
rationale of development ethics to be the goal of poverty reduction –
a narrowness of subject matter I would personally resist – any ethical