Elizabeth Kahn
University of York
[email protected]
Complicity in Global Economic Injustice
Elizabeth Kahn
August 2011(Draft)
Complicity is a complex concept. It implies culpability for assisting, supporting or failing to prevent
crimes committed by others. In this paper I will reject the idea that citizens of affluent countries are
guilty of complicity in the perpetuation of an unjust global institutional order. I will discuss why this
assessment means that Thomas Pogge’s analysis of duties to alleviate global injustice must be
rejected. I will then discuss what this assessment means for Iris Young’s analysis of such duties.
Finally I will briefly sketch the outlines of an alternative account of my own which builds on Young
and Pogge’s work but avoids implying accusations of complicity or entailing that agents can be
blamed for what they cannot avoid. I share with Pogge and Young a desire to create an account
which satisfies the intuition that playing a part in maintaining an institutional order grounds a duty
to take action to remove injustice from that order. However I believe it is vital that such an account
avoids entailing an accusation of complicity.
Thomas Pogge
Thomas Pogge proposes that currently an unjust global institutional order is imposed by affluent
states. He suggests that citizens of affluent countries are complicit in the imposition of the unjust
global institutional order (Pogge, 2006, p.5). He argues that citizens of these countries are
'collaborating in'(29), 'contributing to'(28), 'facilitating'(29), 'supporting' (29)or upholding'(19) 'the
imposition of a human rights violating institutional order'(Pogge, 2010:19,28,29). He also argues
that citizens have some responsibility for the actions of their governments because they live under
democratic political regimes and therefore if they worked together they could prevent their
governments from continuing with the offending policies (Pogge, 2010, p.7). These are clear
accusation of complicity in the imposition of structural injustice.
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Pogge goes on to recommend that citizens of affluent states compensate for their contribution to
imposing an unjust global institutional order. He argues they are only blameworthy if they make
‘uncompensated contributions’ to the imposition of an unjust global institutional order. Pogge does
not find agents blameworthy who work towards alleviating this injustice through reform or donate
to poverty alleviating charities. However, it is the connection between agents and the harmful act of
imposition which makes them liable for compensation. If agents were not at fault for assisting in the
imposition of an unjust global institutional order, compensation for this assistance could not be
demanded. We do not usually demand compensation from agents unless they have been at fault.
Pogge does not argue that this is a species of strict liability. He argues that he is describing a
negative duty to refrain from harming others. Therefore Pogge’s demand for compensation must be
based on an accusation of complicity in harm.
In this paper I will assume that Pogge is right that the current global institutional order is unjust. I
will also assume that he is correct that this order is imposed by the governments of affluent and
powerful states. What I wish to question is whether it is fair to hold the citizens of affluent nations
blameworthy as complicit in this imposition.
Complicity and Moral Responsibility
In moral analysis agents can only be blamed or praised for acts and omissions for which they are
morally responsible. There are certain criteria which must be fulfilled for an agent to be found
morally responsible for a certain act or omission. If an agent can be held morally responsible for an
act, omission, consequence or state of affairs then they may be liable for compensation or
punishment as appropriate.
To accuse an agent of complicity is to blame them for either assisting in a wrong or failing to prevent
a wrong. It is blaming an agent for an association with a crime in which they are not the principle
actor. For an agent to be judged blameworthy for assisting in the imposition of institutional injustice
it must be the case that the agent is morally responsible for their assistance. Similarly for an agent
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to be fairly blamed for failing to prevent the imposition of injustice it must be the case that they are
morally responsible for that omission.
I will now consider in turn whether citizens of affluent states can be found morally responsible for
either their assistance in imposing injustice or their failure to prevent their government’s imposition
of injustice.
Assistance in the imposition of Global Injustice and Moral Responsibility
Guilt as an accomplice in a crime only follows when an agent intentionally aids in the immoral act or
project. In all cases of aiding and abetting an agent must intend to assist or encourage the criminal
act. To be an accomplice under British or American law one must knowingly assist rather than
simply be negligent (Katz et al., 1999, pp.240-59). The motivation for this is that it is asking too
much of agents to insist that they are constantly vigilant in case they un-knowingly aiding a criminal
in their otherwise permissible actions. What is required is that the primary actor is guilty of causing
the harm and that the secondary agent knowingly and voluntarily aided, abetted or assisted in that
crime. If agent P sells agent R a gun knowing that it is likely to be planning a robbery, agent P is not
guilty of aiding and abetting in the robbery unless they intend to assist in that crime. The majority of
citizens of affluent countries do not intend to assist in the imposition of an unjust global institutional
order.
Christopher Kutz suggests that what can make an agent guilty of complicity is intent to participate in
a collective project which results in harm suffering or other wrong (Kutz, 2000, p.102). In cases
where intent is absent Kutz suggests there can be a ‘quasi participatory relationship’. Iris Young
rejects this way of finding agents complicit because agents do not intend to be part of a collective
project (Young, 2011, pp.101-03). In such circumstances it is wrong to assign complicity because we
cannot deem agents morally responsible for their contribution to the morally impermissible project.
Citizens of affluent states often intend to participate in the collective project of maintaining and
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facilitating their government. However, very few intend to participate in the project of imposing and
unjust global economic order which benefits affluent elites. It is therefore unclear whether citizens
can be found complicit on the basis that they intend to participate in an impermissible collective
project. However there are other factors about citizens contributions to the imposition of injustice
that give us solid grounds to reject an assessment of complicity.
When an agent is coerced or constrained in to taking an action we do not usually hold them morally
responsible for that action. If it is the case that affluent citizens are coerced in to assisting their
governments in the imposition of an unjust institutional order then it is likely that they cannot be
blamed for doing so. Examples of assistance in the imposition include the paying of taxes and
obedience to law, both of which are coercively enforced. When an agent could have avoided being
in a situation where they are coerced and constrained in to performing or assisting in immoral acts
we sometimes hold them morally responsible. In the case of assistance in the imposition of an
unjust global institutional order it is extremely difficult for citizens of affluent countries to avoid
being in a position where they are coerced in to assistance. Their only option is to emigrate out of
the country. However, doing so is incredibly costly and arduous. Furthermore, there are very few
countries whose governments do not help impose the current global economic order. Many
countries lack the power to have significant influence. However, they often are minor partners in
enforcing the current order. Furthermore, not many countries accept immigrants who are not
refugees. Given these circumstances it would be unreasonable to blame citizens of affluent states
for remaining in states that coerce them in to assisting in the imposition of the current global
economic order.
It seems that the concept of complicity is inappropriate for considering the situation of citizens of
affluent countries contributing to the imposition of global economic injustice. In such cases
assistance or association in imposition is not a culpable offence because such assistance is neither
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intentional nor voluntary. Therefore, contra Pogge, agents cannot be held liable for compensation
on the basis that they assist in the imposition of global injustice.
Moral Responsibility and Omitting to Prevent the Imposition of Global
Injustice
Neither is it legitimate to find citizens of affluent states blameworthy on the basis that if they
worked together they could have prevented their governments’ aggressive economic policy. Citizens
of affluent states cannot be held morally responsible for omitting to prevent their countries
imposition of an unjust global economic order. Thomas Pogge argues that because a majority of
citizens could mobilise to effectively alter their state foreign policy, citizens of a democratic state can
be held responsible for that policy. Yet he admits that any individual citizen is powerless to alter
foreign policy given that other citizens are reluctant to support such efforts (Pogge, 2010, p.7).
Pogge argues that in such circumstances it would be absurd to find no citizens responsible for their
governments policy. He argues that citizens are only powerless if they do not work together. Pogge
is suggesting that because a majority of citizens acting together (in an affluent democratic state)
could alter the foreign policy of their government citizens within these countries share responsibility
for their government’s foreign policy.
The problem with this is that we cannot find individual citizens morally responsible for omitting to
alter their government’s foreign policy. This is because they lack the power to alter their
government’s policy. Perhaps we can find citizens collectively responsible for omitting to alter their
government’s policy. However, shared responsibility rather than collective responsibility implies
that each citizen gets a share of the blame. Collective responsibility implies that blame is present at
the level of the collective but says nothing about whether individuals can be blamed (May, 1992). It
may be legitimate to judge any individual citizen on the basis of whether they have taken any action
aimed at founding a collective to work towards a change in foreign policy. However, it cannot be
legitimate to blame any individual citizen on the basis that the citizenry omitted to alter their
government’s foreign policy. To do so is to blame an individual for what is beyond their control. It is
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to find them morally responsible for omitting to do something that is beyond their abilities. It
violates the rule that ‘ought implies can’. This is a rule that establishes that to have an obligation to
do x an agent must be able to do x. It is unjustifiable to praise or blame an agent for what is beyond
their control.
Pogge refuses to concede to this argument because it would absurdly absolve all citizens of
responsibility as no individual citizen has the power to alter their government’s policy. He claims
that such an assessment is absurd. However, there are other ways of making demands of citizens
and appraising their actions and omissions which avoid blaming them for what they cannot fairly be
held morally responsible for. The solution to this problem is to look beyond complicity and shared
responsibility for a solution to this problem.
Considered as individuals, citizens of democratic states lack the ability to alter their government’s
foreign policy. Therefore, an individual citizen cannot be blamed for omitting to prevent the
imposition of the current global institutional order. It is deeply problematic to find individual
citizens morally responsible for their government when such individuals cannot control the actions
of their government. Agents can be blamed for not attempting to alter their government’s policy but
not for failing to alter it. Individual citizens cannot be held liable for compensation on the basis that
the majority of people do not oppose their government’s foreign policy.
Therefore, I conclude that agents cannot be blamed for complicity because their ability to prevent
the imposition of injustice is severely limited. What agents can be held responsible for is working
towards the reform of the order that they are a part of.
The Rejection of Complicity and Pogge’s Account
It is unfair to declare citizens of affluent nations complicit in the exploitative trade relations their
governments impose. This is to hold citizens morally blameworthy for what they cannot avoid
doing. Pogge realising this finds blameworthy only those citizens who make ‘uncompensated
contributions to the imposition of an unjust global institutional order’. Pogge is right that citizens
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are blameworthy if they fail to take action when they are part of an unjust institutional order.
However, claiming they owe compensation implies that they are morally responsible for contributing
towards a harm or morally responsible for failing to prevent harm. When reallyccitizens are
blameworthy not because they contribute to harm but because they do not fulfil their political
obligation to engage with the institutional orders which they are part of. It is not that they are
blameworthy for being part of a group which harms others. It is that they shirk the political
responsibilities that come with participation in an institutional order. Conceiving of the obligation to
take action to alter the injustice as compensation is wrongheaded. Compensation is only demanded
from those who are morally blameworthy for contributing to harm or otherwise liable for that harm.
This is not the case with individual citizens of affluent countries because they cannot avoid
contributing to that harm. Instead it would be better to conceive of this obligation to take action to
alter the institutional order as a political obligation deriving from their participation in the
institutional order.
Iris Young
In her final book ‘Responsibility for Justice’ Iris Young argues for a notion of shared forward-looking
responsibility to remove structural injustice. The concept of structural injustice that Young outlines
describes how various human institutions (both formal and informal), along with past actions that
have permanently altered the physical environment, serve to create a social structure which places
agents in positions (Young, 2011, pp.52-64). When that structure places agents in positions where
they are vulnerable to domination and deprivation structural injustice can be identified (Young,
2011, p.64). Young outlines a way of identifying agents charged with duties to alleviate structural
injustice on the basis of their social connection to that injustice. Young argues that participating in
institutional processes that produce structural injustice is the basis on which an agent can be
identified as sharing in responsibility for remedying injustice (Young, 2011, p.205). However Young
makes explicit that agents are not blameworthy for the connection to injustice which makes them
eligible for responsibility. Hence Young argues for a conception of responsibility that shares more
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with a role based notion of responsibility rather than classic causal responsibility (Young, 2011,
pp.104-06).
This forward looking responsibility is ‘essentially shared’ in that individuals bear responsibility in the
awareness that others bear it with them (Young, 2011, p.110). It also so happens that this forward
looking shared responsibility, to transform structural processes to reduce and eliminate the injustice
they cause, can only be discharged by joining with others in collective action (Young, 2011, pp.11013).
Young’s account unlike Pogge’s explicitly denies that agents are guilty of complicity. Instead it looks
to assign responsibility to take action rather than responsibility for harm. Pogge’s account accuses
citizens of rich countries of being complicit in the imposition of an unjust global institutional order.
Young’s account argues that all those who participate in the social processes (operations of
institutions) that create an unjust social structure share a responsibility to work together to
eliminate injustice within that structure. Young’s account gives obligations to citizens of poor
nations and rich nations alike. Both accounts argue that obligations arise for those who are causally
connected to injustice. The key difference between the accounts is that Young’s account does not
base obligations to alleviate injustice on a duty to compensate for one’s complicity.
Iris Young and Complicity
It looks as though Young’s account has triumphed over Thomas Pogge’s because it avoids appealing
to a false notion of complicity. However, a closer examination reveals that Young’s account is not
immune from criticism. Her account is problematic because it must in fact lead to blame on the
basis of complicity. Martha Nussbaum has criticised Iris Young’s approach on the basis that agents
currently sharing a forward looking responsibility to alleviate injustice should as time passes become
agents guilty of failing to remove injustice (Nussbaum, 2009, p.142). Nussbaum argues that Young
should not insist that responsibility to reform unjust institutional orders must not entail
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blameworthiness if one fails to fulfil those responsibilities. Nussbaum argues that to do so does not
have the pragmatic benefits that Young claims (Nussbaum, 2009, pp.142-44).
It is very heterodox to insist that agents have a forward looking shared responsibility to reform
unjust institutional orders but that they are not blameworthy if they fail in this task. The practice of
asserting that an agent has a certain responsibility functions so as to make demands of agents which
they can be blamed for failing to fulfil. When we claim that parents, police men or managers have
role base responsibilities we are claiming that these roles entail certain obligations. These
obligations may include acting in a particular way or seeing that certain outcomes obtain (Young,
2011, p.104)1. If agents fail to fulfil these obligations they are at fault and liable for blame. What
would it mean to have a responsibility that one can never be blamed for failing to fulfil? Claiming
that someone has a certain responsibility to x is stating that they are morally obliged to x. This
entails that they are morally at fault and liable for blame if they fail to do so. This must mean that
agents who fail to eliminate injustice when they have a shared responsibility to do so are guilty of
failing to fulfil their shared responsibility.
Nussbaum suggests that Young’s account could admit that those who fail to fulfil their
responsibilities to reform structural injustice can be blamed. However such a move is deeply
problematic because it holds agents blameworthy for failing to prevent continuing injustice. This
looks very much like an accusation of complicity. It is a scenario in which individual agents can be
blamed for failing to prevent injustice. It is a case in which individual agents are liable for blame for
what it is not in the power to guarantee.
Young is right that all those who participate in structural processes are alike in having obligations to
work towards the removal of structural injustice. She is also right that these obligations will require
agents to work together. What is wrong with her account is that she argues for a responsibility
1
Young references Henry s Richardson “institutional divided moral responsibility” in Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D
Miller jr and Jeffrey pauls eds. Responsibility Cambridge university press 1999 218-249
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which is ‘essentially shared’ rather than for each agent having an individual responsibility to make
reasonable efforts to remove injustice. Young, by describing the responsibility as ‘essentially
shared’, implies that it is a responsibility that the group achieves or fails together. By appealing to a
responsibility to eliminate structural injustice Young also implies that anything short of justice
constitutes failure. This means that over time the group may share blame for failing to eliminate
injustice. Presumably this blame will distribute down in the same way responsibility does. This
means that agents will bear blame in the awareness that others bear it with them. Such sharing of
blame is not fair for the same reason that an accusation of complicity on the basis of failing to
prevent injustice is unfair. It holds individual agents blameworthy on the basis of outcomes it is not
in their power to guarantee.
Like Pogge, Young is trying to construct an account that assigns duties to reform an unjust global
regime on the basis of connection to the continuance of that regime. Both theorists try to connect
agents to such duties without making accusations of complicity. However, both theorists utilise
moral duties that entail accusations of complicity. It is my contention that what is needed is a
different approach which links social connection to obligations to reform, but which avoids invoking
complicity.
Building on Young and Pogge’s accounts
I will now briefly offer my own account of the duties that fall on agents who participate in unjust
institutional orders. I will utilise a concept of political obligation to explain the intuition that agent’s
participation in an unjust global institutional order entails obligations. Pogge and Young both
encourage a campaigning response to injustice over unilateral attempts to compensate through
charitable donation. I also argue that in cases where any agent participates in and contributes to an
unjust institutional order what is morally required is political action which attempts to alter the
institutional order that reproduces this injustice.
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As discussed above, a participator in an unjust institutional order cannot be found guilty of
complicity even if they are a member of a democratic state which acts to impose unjust global
economic relations. However, such an agent’s relationship to the institutional order is pregnant with
political obligation. I propose that there is a general duty to politically engage with institutional
orders that one participates in.
Social institutions are simply collections of people engaged in a practice governed by a set of public
rules. Institutional normative analysis applies to the way social institutions considered together as
an institutional order affect the opportunities, powers and capabilities of persons (Pogge, 1989,
pp.14-18). Sharing an institutional order is grounds for taking an interest in the way that order
treats others because that order is constituted by the continued obedience of many agents to
various institutional practices and that order can have a pervasive effect on the lives of those who
share it.
The proposed political obligation requires agents to critically evaluate their institutional orders and
take political action to work towards the reform of any injustice within those orders. This duty is
one which all citizens can fulfil. Individual citizens can be commended if they fulfil it and are
blameworthy if the fail to fulfil it. This way of conceiving of the problem avoids blaming citizens for
what is beyond their control. Therefore, it is better than a notion of shared responsibility which can
find individual agents liable for blame even when they do all they can to remove injustice and yet
injustice remains because others do not join them in the campaign.
This small modification of Young’s account can allow us to identify the political obligations that come
with participation in an institutional order. If these obligations are fulfilled by a sufficient amount of
participators injustice can be eliminated over time. Each agent can be fairly judged not on the basis
of whether attempts to overcome injustice succeed but on the basis of whether they fulfil their
political obligation to identify injustice and work towards its eradication. Although such a duty will
require agents to seek to work with others it cannot be conceived of as a shared responsibility. It is
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an individual responsibility to do what can be reasonably expected to work towards eliminating
injustice in the institutions one shares with others. It requires agents to try to establish working
relationships with others in order to find collective solutions to structural injustice.
The demandingness of the proposed obligation will depend on what can be reasonably expected of
those who participate in the current global institutional order. Factors that will determine what can
be expected include how unjust the institutional order is and the position of the agent within the
order. The agent’s position will determine both the opportunities for and the costs of political
action. Those in positions of relative power within an institutional order have more opportunities to
alter the order and those in positions of relative weakness are more vulnerable to the costs that can
follow from political intervention. Citizens of affluent democratic states have ample opportunity to
engage politically with their government’s global economic policy without fear of reprisal. This
means that more can be reasonably expected of such individuals compares to those who toil in the
sweatshops of developing nations with less open systems of government.2 The demandingness of
an agent’s obligation to engage politically will depend on the seriousness of structural injustice.
What can be expected of an agent charged with an obligation to engage politically will depend on
the power the agent has to affect the institutional order (which will depend on the abilities of the
agent, the structural position of the agent, and the availability of others willing to collaborate in this
project) and the costs and risks associated with political engagement for the agent (which will
depend on the political system in which the agent lives and their position within that system).
2
Young argues that considerations of power, priviledge, interest and collective ability should be utilised in
assessing what can reasonably be expected of agents who share in forward looking responsibility (Young, 2011,
pp.142-47).
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University of York
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