Reading Response - Poverty. "Live Free and Starve" vs. "The Singer Solution to World Poverty"

In "Live Free and Starve", the author, Chitra Divakaruni, questions the effectiveness of a bill passed in the U.S. that no longer permits the import of goods from factories where forced or indentured child labor is used. She brings to the reader's attention that by taking working children out of factories, we are taking them away from food, clothing, and shelter. She said that "It is easy for us in America to make the error of evaluating situations in the rest of the world as though they were happening in this country and propose solutions that make excellent sense - in the context of our society." This is an opinion that I agree with. However, when she says,"A bill like the one we've just passed is of no use unless it goes hand in hand with programs that will offer a new life to these newly released children," the author seems to suggest that America needs to either not get involved, or also provide programs to help the children. She makes it sound like America was doing something wrong passing that bill, while we were just trying to help those children. There may be a bias due to the fact that I live in America and feel that America should help those in need. I agree that the bill that was passed may do harm, but I think we need to try to help them. Also, American readers may have bias because we all have freedom and are assuming that everyone else wants it too, while some people in other countries want to be able to eat and to have a home, no matter what the cost.

In "The Singer Solution to World Poverty", the author, Peter Singer, goes to great efforts to make the reader feel very, very guilty. His opinion is very different from that of the other article. The article is basically about how instead of buying or doing things we don't need, we should donate all of our extra money to overseas aid agencies to help those in need. I agree that we should donate money, and help those in need, but this article is a bit extreme. Everyone donating all of their extra money is just not realistic. The author writes, "I can see no escape from the conclusion that each one of us with wealth surplus to his or her essential needs should be giving most of it to help people suffering from poverty so dire as to be life-threatening." He also writes, "If we don't do it, then we should at least know that we are failing to live a morally decent life." It is human nature to buy and want things that we don't need. We never stop wanting things, and Singer is saying we should, which is not realistic. Again, I agree that we should donate money, but donating everything we have other than what we need for necessity is not going to happen. Even the smallest amount of money we donate will help; we don't have to donate everything we have, like Singer suggests. There is a reader bias because most likely the reader has nice things and does not want to give up having nice things, therefore will disagree with Singer's strong opinion that we should donate everything, though they may agree on moral standards that we should donate some amount of money.