Introduction

In a speech given in Nairobi in 1973 the then President of the World Bank, Robert S. McNamara, made a strong distinction between absolute and relative poverty. He said:

By now the distinction between relative and absolute poverty, as used by McNamara, is commonplace. Moreover many people seem to believe, as McNamara does, that absolute poverty is very serious, a violation of human dignity even, while relative poverty is not. I do not think that this position is correct. Consequently, this chapter preserves the first part of McNamara's major thesis, and takes issue with the second part. First I defend the claim that absolute poverty is degrading and therefore constitutes a violation of human dignity; I do this by connecting dignity with a certain understanding of self-respect that rests on the ability to take care of oneself in basic matters of life as well as the ability to see and present oneself as a reputable member of society.

Then I take issue with McNamara's implicit claim that relative poverty does not constitute a violation of human dignity, arguing that not only absolute, but also what McNamara and many others call relative poverty is degrading and a threat to human dignity. The difference is rather that absolute poverty threatens dignity in a more fundamental way: absolute poverty threatens the ability to take care of oneself in basic matters of life. Relative poverty threatens the ability to present and see oneself as a reputable member of one's society.