Hayward, Tim. "Thomas Pogge's Global Resources Dividend: a critique and an alternative". Journal of Moral Philosophy, Vol.2, No.3 (2005): 317-332.

Hayward, Tim. "Thomas Pogge's Global Resources Dividend: a critique and an alternative". Journal of Moral Philosophy, Vol.2, No.3 (2005): 317-332.

• Thomas Pogge suggests, as a means of realizing his beliefs in favour of a global redistribution of resource wealth, the introduction of a global resources dividend, a tax applied to all resources sold which could then be distributed among the global poor. Dr. Pogge does not hold that this is the best step towards equality, only that it is feasible and would help (317-318).
• The author asserts that, if implemented, the global resource dividend would not help the global poor and might even contribute to greater impoverishment. Furthermore, the proposal may create perverse incentives which penalize conservation and encourage bad environmental practices (317, 319).
• The global resources dividend would target the initial extraction and sale of resources, meaning that poor resource-rich nations would be penalized, while wealth resource-poor nations would not have to contribute to the dividend. Although the global poor would still benefit, the costs would not be evenly or justly distributed (319).
• While Dr. Pogge acknowledges that this is the case, he argues that the costs would still be passed on to the rich countries in the form of higher commodity prices. This, however, would resulted in increased prices for manufactured goods which would still disproportionately affect poor countries (319).
• In the case of the application of the global resources dividend on certain agricultural commodities like cotton, although Dr. Pogge has never recommended this, would actually harm the poor as they would disproportionately pay the tax and also suffer the increased goods prices resulting from it (320).
• The actual application of the global resources dividend tax also raises technical problems, namely regarding who pays and how payment is calculated. Even in the case of oil, where usage can be measured through emissions, and extraction is carefully monitored, there is a question about payment. Should the dividend be paid by the extractor, or by the processer, or by the consumer (320-321).
• The initial proposal of Dr. Pogge, that the tax be applied to the extractor raises significant issues. The extractive power derives the least economic benefit from the natural resources, which is most fully exploited by those using these resources, who are overwhelmingly from wealthy countries. Taxing extractors leaves those who benefit most from natural resource extraction untaxed (321).
• Dr. Pogge claims that a global resource dividend targeted at specific resources responsible for environmental degredation would promote environmentalism. However, the actual taxes he discusses are minimal and likely would not modify commodity prices or consumption patterns by any significant amount (321).
• When resources are consumed they are not destroyed, but instead are transformed into wealth and pollutants. The wealth of many wealthy countries can therefore be considered the by-product of their past consumption of resources. The use of resources therefore creates positive effects and negative effects, right now only the negative environmental effects are shared with the rest of the world. A more proportionate system that accounted for these dual consequences of resource use would calculate resources based on pollution or 'ecological space' (322-323).
• The use ecological space conceives of the present as an ongoing colonization of nature by humanity and assumes that the Lockean provision of labour equally possession applies as long as enough is left for others. In the global context, this alots a portion of unspoiled nature which person is allowed to spoil: their ecological space (325).
• A country's ecological space, as measured by pollutants, accurately captures the actual benefits it derives from natural resources and its command over global systems of resource use. Systems which focus on territorial control over natural resources fail to account for the fact that this does not necessarily translate into actual control or benefit (324).
• Taxing a country's per capita usage of ecological space and giving the proceeds of this tax to the global poor would result in a system for decreasing poverty which destributes the costs of the tax much more fairly and encourages conservation of resources in a way that other measures do not (325-326).
• Dr. Pogge is correct in asserting that the current existence of extreme poverty is a result of economic systems constructed by wealthy and powerful nations in the past. His global resource dividend, however, would only correct the past effects of these unfair systems, they would still leave in place an uneven distribution of natural resources through trade that ultimately further disadvantages poor countries and people by robbing them of the resources needed for development (326).
• Distributing maximum amounts of ecological space to countries, on the other hand, would both provide the funds to correct past inequalities and make sure that the global poor are guaranteed equal access to necessary natural resources when they reach the stage of industrial consumption (326).
• The ecological space model is superior to the global resource dividend because it accounts for all natural resources rather than arbitrarily selected ones, it imposes justly allocated penalties at each stage of use of a resource rather than a single arbitrary stage, it promotes environmental conservation, and it falls disproportionately on the rich (331).