Anytime I put gas in my car, buy something made with parts, minerals, or labor from overseas, or otherwise participate in the global economic system, I’m part of it. And as a part of it, I’m therefore responsible in some way for the other people in the system. This is the cornerstone of the school of global justice in moral philosophy. For the first time, Pogge gave legitimacy to something I’d felt in my heart but had never been able to rationalize in my head: that I had a moral duty to help people who were far away from me physically, yet victimized by a system in which I was complicit.
