Abstract

If world poverty is truly a global problem that engages the responsibility of all property owners worldwide, good governance at the domestic level is also required not only for reasons of efficiency, but also for reasons of justice. Though taxpayers and political leaders of rich countries must feel themselves under a duty of justice with regard to world poverty, no measures against poverty that are to be not merely effective, but also just, can ignore the requirements of good governance. The ‘pact of civilization’ binds all human beings, but the obligations it imposes should not displace those that arise from the domestic social compact.