In a world defined by rising great-power rivalry, declining solidarity, and shrinking aid budgets, the Yale philosopher Thomas Pogge joins Dan Banik to discuss whether global justice and human rights still matter or whether power politics has won. From the erosion of soft power to bold proposals like the Ecological Impact Fund, this conversation explores how values, innovation, and institutional reform could reshape a fractured international order.
In an era of intensifying great-power rivalry, shrinking foreign aid budgets, and declining faith in multilateralism, what role is left for global justice? In this wide-ranging conversation, the Yale philosopher Thomas Pogge joins Dan Banik in Oslo to examine whether morality still has a place in international politics or whether power has fully displaced principle.
The episode explores the growing shift from soft power to hard power, the erosion of solidarity in global development, and the strategic competition between the United States, China, and Europe. Pogge reflects on why philosophers have become increasingly marginal in public life and argues that today’s global crises (from climate change to persistent poverty) cannot be solved by technocratic fixes alone. They require moral clarity, institutional imagination, and renewed commitment to shared values.
The discussion also turns to the rise of the Global South and the need for stronger collective bargaining institutions, particularly within the African continent. Pogge outlines the Ecological Impact Fund — a bold new mechanism designed to reward green innovation based on real ecological impact in the Global South — and explains how rethinking intellectual property rules could accelerate climate and pollution solutions where they are needed most.
[Dan Banik]
Thomas, it’s a real pleasure to have you here in my studio in Oslo. Welcome.
[Thomas Pogge]
Thank you.
[Dan Banik]
The last time we spoke was in New Delhi two years ago, and we were talking about something you were working on then, the Health Impact Fund. Today we’ll discuss something else.
You’re a philosopher, a first-rate philosopher, and world-famous. Looking at the world today, with polycrises and a lot of doom and gloom, we hear the economic perspective, we hear political scientists. What role do you think philosophy has right now? What should philosophers be highlighting more? Put differently, what debates are happening within philosophy in the turmoil of the world we live in?
[Thomas Pogge]
First of all, what is happening within philosophy may not be the most interesting thing, or what makes philosophy most needed. A lot of philosophers are doing work that isn’t all that important, partly because they have despaired of doing something meaningful that would actually help the world.
But that doesn’t mean philosophy isn’t urgently needed. Precisely because there are so many problems, we cannot rely only on engineers and economists. We need values, we need direction, and we need a social science–based understanding of why these problems persist.
That is where many proposed solutions fall short. They are technical solutions. They may temporarily help, but they don’t grasp the larger picture of why we keep ending up in these problems again and again.
As I see it, the big task of this century is to move from a world based on an equilibrium of power and control, competing interests, essentially a competition to the death among states and other actors, corporations for example, toward a world that is still rules-based but grounded in firm moral foundations.
[Dan Banik]
So why aren’t philosophers tackling these issues? Why aren’t they addressing these major crises, in your view?
Because philosophy seems to offer toolkits for analytical thinking, for putting morality at the forefront, and for training young minds to think differently about solidarity and moral obligations. If we think about climate change or world poverty, issues you’ve worked on, why is this not attracting more attention? And if it isn’t, why not?
[Thomas Pogge]
It isn’t attracting much attention, and it is puzzling. But at least in the philosophy world I know best, the Anglophone world, philosophers perceive themselves as largely irrelevant and sidelined.
Think of continental Europe. Leading philosophers are not exactly household names, but they are widely known. In Germany, many people can say a few words about what Habermas is about. In France, similarly, leading intellectuals are well known.
In the United States, I would ask: is John Rawls known? No. You might encounter the name as an undergraduate, but not in a way that sticks so that later, as an adult, you still remember who he was.
So part of it is demoralization. Philosophers, of course, think of themselves as important within the academy. But many are more comfortable being big fish in the small pond of the university than taking their ideas into public life, policy, and broader debates. If you think about the brightest and most famous U.S. philosophers, they play virtually no role in public life.
[Dan Banik]
Is that because they don’t strive for political influence?
[Thomas Pogge]
They don’t strive for political influence because they assume they won’t get it.
[Dan Banik]
Even if they aligned themselves with something like the MAGA movement, or anything with a lot of traction? I’m thinking about Robert Nozick and John Rawls. They were important for the libertarian movement. You don’t see that happening today.
[Thomas Pogge]
They were not that important.
[Dan Banik]
No?
[Thomas Pogge]
No. Even at their peak, they were not really that important. Compare someone like Ayn Rand and Robert Nozick. Broadly similar kinds of ideas. But Rand got enormous attention relative to Nozick. And Nozick, even at his heyday, was known by very few people outside academia.
[Dan Banik]
So it’s mostly within academia. What about Peter Singer? He became notorious. I’ve had him on the show.
[Thomas Pogge]
Notorious is probably the right word. But again, he has more name recognition in Central Europe than he does in the U.S. He’s not really a household name in the United States.
[Dan Banik]
But on animal rights issues, and effective altruism, he had influence.
[Thomas Pogge]
The animal rights movement is a fringe movement. Effective altruism is, what, 1,200 pledges or something like that. It’s not a mass movement. So intellectuals in the American world play a very minor role.
[Dan Banik]
So if you were to make the case today, Thomas, for why my listeners should prioritize philosophical perspectives as an angle to understand global issues, what would you say?
[Thomas Pogge]
The fundamental problems we need to solve are problems that require thinking about values and reaching some kind of agreement about values.
It’s a notorious fact that we have value disagreement, pluralism. That’s a good thing. We don’t all have the same religion. We don’t all have the same ideas about family life, education, health care, and so on.
But we can agree to disagree, and beyond that, we can recognize each other’s sincerity. Even if you don’t share my values, you have values and stand for something. We can explore one another’s commitments, learn to trust each other, and cooperate to the extent that our shared values permit.
That kind of agreement matters for two reasons. First, it allows us to achieve things together that would otherwise remain elusive. Second, it enables cooperation on a basis of trust.
Because the underlying problem behind so many issues, from poverty to ecology, is that we see one another as engaged in a no-holds-barred competition. China and the United States are the paradigmatic poles of that competition, but others fit into it as well. The game is framed as a brutal fight to the finish over power.
In that framing, you deploy power to increase power and ultimately disable your opponents. Morality becomes a mere means, a tool to increase power.
[Dan Banik]
It seems to me that solidarity, the impulse to show support in the face of injustice, is in decline. Maybe we were always selfish, but 10 or 15 years ago there was a more optimistic mood. We talked about the Paris Agreement, the 2030 Agenda, the idea that we were all in the same boat with the Sustainable Development Goals.
Maybe it wasn’t perfect solidarity, but there was more willingness to share. Now we see declining foreign aid, more trade wars, and a stronger sense that we have to look out for ourselves. That kind of solidarity seems to have gone down the drain.
Can we bring it back? Or do you disagree that solidarity is on its way out?
[Thomas Pogge]
I agree it’s on its way out. I also agree with your earlier suggestion that it may not have been deep solidarity to begin with.
One way to describe the trend is a shift away from concern with soft power and toward hard power, especially military power. Standard international affairs doctrine speaks of three sources of power: military, economic, and soft power. Right now we’re seeing more weight given to military power, with soft power sidelined and seen as less important.
That shift is very much in the interest of the United States, because the United States has a comparative advantage in military power.
[Dan Banik]
What about economic power? Is China focusing on that?
[Thomas Pogge]
China has a strong interest in keeping the world relatively peaceful and making competition mainly economic, because it has a comparative advantage there. Interestingly, Europe shares that advantage.
So the world is divided, in a rough sense, between China and Europe on one side, along with other countries that are economically stronger than militarily, and on the other side countries that are militarily stronger than economically and have an interest in keeping the world in a state of tension, hostility, and belligerence. Not necessarily war, but close to war.
It’s easier to create crises than to avert them. If the countries more interested in belligerence push the world in that direction, there is automatically less room to invest in soft power. Soft power matters less in that environment. And solidarity, or “solidarity,” goes by the wayside.
[Dan Banik]
I’ve had Joe Nye on the show, the father of the concept of soft power. It’s still puzzling to me that the United States has voluntarily given up so much influence, with the dismantling of USAID and withdrawing from international organizations, not supporting the UN, and so on.
In this context, with U.S. withdrawal and Europeans not being as generous as before, we’ve seen a rise of the Global South, particularly in 2025, and renewed attention to South–South cooperation. We discussed this in Delhi. It’s been going on for decades, but it seems more visible now.
It may not fully replace the void created by U.S. withdrawal, but it may resemble solidarity. There is a sense of “we’re in the same boat.” You can learn from me. I may not have much money, but I can share expertise, technology, experience.
That’s at least the official Chinese narrative: we solved hunger, we can help with infrastructure, malaria, and you don’t have to follow the Western blueprint.
Do you think South–South cooperation offers lessons for this multipolar world?
[Thomas Pogge]
It certainly offers lessons. It also offers an opportunity to put international relations, at least among those countries, on a different footing. Not a footing of pure competition, where you are maximizing your own power and economic position, but one that includes genuine solidarity.
That is an important task for the Global South, because for decades, even centuries, the name of the game has been divide and conquer, then rule through competition.
[Dan Banik]
The British were very good at that.
[Thomas Pogge]
Very good at that. And even today, corporations do something similar. They say they’re willing to invest and build a large factory, but whether they choose Bangladesh or Vietnam or Indonesia depends on what is offered. Where are labor conditions most favorable? Where are wages lowest? Where are taxes lowest?
So countries are played off against each other. These states often have small tax bases, severe resource constraints, and huge development needs. The temptation is to bend over backwards to attract capital.
The same happens with resource exploitation. Many countries are resource-rich, and corporations create competition: mine your cobalt here or there, depending on the conditions. Free electricity, tax exemptions for ten years, and so on.
This is often aggravated by personal bribery. Corporations bribe officials in developing countries, offer special favors, and so on. The result is countries being placed at odds with each other.
A real contribution of South–South collaboration would be institutions and solidarity mechanisms that bind countries together and create something like collective bargaining.
[Dan Banik]
That’s interesting, because one criticism is that much of South–South cooperation isn’t codified or institutionalized. People ask what BRICS Plus really means. There are concerns that the bigger players are promoting their own interests, India, China, Brazil, South Africa.
I’ve argued that it can’t just be summit diplomacy. You need something in between. Smaller countries feel they bear the costs and don’t get a good deal. The bigger actors benefit more.
We’ve discussed bargaining power on the show, especially in relation to China. African countries often negotiate bilaterally instead of as a bloc. The African Union often fails to demonstrate its strength, which affects agency.
[Thomas Pogge]
That’s exactly right. We struggled together, you and many others, in 2022 to get the African Union admitted to the G20. That succeeded, and the hope was that the AU would rise to the challenge. Not just occupy the seat, but speak with one voice for all 55 countries.
That hasn’t happened yet. But perhaps G20 membership will push the AU to become more capable of forming common positions and speaking as a group.
You can also build institutions sector by sector. One idea would be a clearinghouse, an auction house for natural resources. Africa is notoriously rich in resources, but too often they are given away in sweetheart deals to multinational corporations that pay no taxes and effectively take resources for free. They create some jobs, but mostly low-level employment.
If there were a clearinghouse where exports went through a transparent auction process, you would get better value and undermine bribery and kickbacks. Right now, too often the arrangement is: corporations get a sweetheart deal, and officials receive private payments under the table.
[Dan Banik]
It sounds like a good idea. But the obvious challenge is that the big actors already benefiting would be least willing to participate.
[Thomas Pogge]
Sure. But if this becomes the system for selling resources, then corporations either go through the process or they don’t get the resources.
[Dan Banik]
And it should be the AU taking the initiative.
[Thomas Pogge]
It could be under AU auspices, or it could be an independent agency. You may not get all 55 countries on board, especially where corruption is endemic and elites benefit from the current system.
But you could start with willing countries rather than waiting for everyone. Over time, populations in non-member states might ask why other countries are getting good value for their resources while they are not. That pressure could expand participation.
[Dan Banik]
Thomas, something that worries many low-income governments this year is the lack of aid and declining flows of financing, not only for development but also for climate. There’s pressure to do what donors want, but there isn’t enough money.
We’ve had the G20 summit and COP in Brazil. Critical reports suggest petro-states dominate the discourse, and many ask why these big meetings happen at all.
Two years ago you discussed the Health Impact Fund on this show. I know you’ve also been working on an additional proposal called the Ecological Impact Fund.
[Thomas Pogge]
The Ecological Impact Fund would be a new permanent institution in the global architecture. It would pay a fixed, pre-announced amount each year to innovators who are willing to give their green innovations away for free in the Global South.
In the Global North, things remain the same. But in the South, innovators could earn impact rewards based on ecological impact measured along two dimensions.
First, improvements in health, with air pollution as a paradigm case. More than 8 million people die from air pollution every year. If your innovation reduces air pollution, that would be rewarded.
Second, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, measured as COâ‚‚-equivalent reductions.
Innovations would participate in annual reward payouts for a total of five years after market introduction. After those five years, the innovation would remain available for reproduction royalty-free.
To participate, innovators would give up intellectual property rights in the Global South and be compensated through impact rewards.
[Dan Banik]
So what’s the attraction? Why would innovators join? They would make money at some point, but not in the first five years.
[Thomas Pogge]
They would make money in the first five years, but through impact rewards rather than patent markups.
They would participate if they think they can make more money in the Global South through impact rewards than they would through patent privileges.
Why might that be? Because monopoly rents are hard to achieve in the Global South, where customers are poorer. For many innovations, if you price too high, you won’t have many customers.
But with impact rewards, you can earn more because the potential for ecological impact is large. That is exactly why we want the Ecological Impact Fund. The lowest-hanging fruit in combating climate change and pollution is often in the Global South. With the same money, you can achieve much more there than in the Global North.
[Dan Banik]
My first thought is that even if an innovator develops a technology, genuine impact requires political buy-in and social adoption.
Right now, New Delhi is facing unprecedented air pollution. Yesterday, for the first time, a cricket match in Lucknow was called off because of smog. That has never happened before.
So how would this work in practice? If I develop a technology that purifies air, I still rely on power holders to adopt it and make it happen.
[Thomas Pogge]
Yes, and the responsibility is on the innovator. That’s a merit of the proposal. It concentrates incentives in one place.
If you want to develop a technology, you shouldn’t start until you’ve thought through the path to impact, because you only get rewarded when impact is achieved. You need networks, or you build them. You need capital, investors if necessary, and a strategy to commercialize and scale the innovation.
The idea is not to fund prototypes or milestones that might lead nowhere, which is how a lot of money is wasted today. We put the reward at the end of the pipeline, where there is actual impact, improved health, and reduced emissions.
[Dan Banik]
And you’re now planning a pilot phase?
[Thomas Pogge]
Yes. We are putting together a research coalition of top researchers across disciplines and countries to design a blueprint for a pilot.
The pilot would be less ambitious. It might involve a single payout of around $200 million, targeting 2029 or so. We would select maybe eight or ten innovations and give them a two-year window to create as much impact as possible in the Global South, perhaps in a limited area. India would be a good place to test it.
Then, based on impact achieved in that two-year period, the $200 million would be divided among the participating innovations.
[Dan Banik]
I want to return to something you are widely known for, the concept of global justice.
In a world with so much egoism, self-interest, and declining solidarity, can we still talk about human rights? Human rights aren’t perfect, but they may be the closest thing we have to a global justice framework.
What is the future of human rights? Do you hear them discussed more, or are we moving back toward military power and economic statecraft, and away from the values we care about?
[Thomas Pogge]
Human rights are still the best basis we have, the best starting point for building the moral foundation for collaboration.
We will never have a single morality that everyone agrees on across the board. But we can hope for an overlapping consensus where we are serious about morality, where we talk about each other’s principles and values, and recognize sincerity even in disagreement.
Since the end of the Second World War, we have seen a depreciation of the currency. We still pay lip service to human rights, but the sincerity with which we pursue them has weakened. They have been abused as tools in power competition, as soft power instruments. That has harmed the human rights project.
Many people have become cynical about what human rights can achieve. But the moment after the Second World War was a remarkable opportunity to declare certain things sacred, outside ordinary political competition. Genocide, for example. Human rights, for example.
Things we believed were achieved once and for all by human civilization are again in question, treated in strategic terms.
[Dan Banik]
I want to end on an optimistic note. Give us some hope, especially for younger listeners. What should we do more of? How can we reclaim this space?
[Thomas Pogge]
I think the Ecological Impact Fund illustrates an answer.
What we need is something that goes beyond fighting rearguard actions, where we say USAID has cut its funding and now we have to patch holes and save what can be saved. That’s not inspiring. It’s depressing.
We should ask what a well-organized world would look like. In such a world, we would not hamper the distribution of green technologies by putting patents on them so that royalties must be paid and uptake is slowed, especially in poorer parts of the world. That’s a bad way to organize things.
Innovation must be rewarded, but in a way that supports uptake rather than impedes it.
So we should imagine a future world for 2100 with better institutions across the board. And then ask whether we can begin building one piece of that future architecture now, in a way that fits our current world but also improves it.
It’s like Theseus’s ship, repaired plank by plank. We remove an old plank and replace it with a new one. The Ecological Impact Fund is designed to be such a plank. It anticipates a better way of governing innovation, it fits into existing arrangements, and it makes the world better. That can inspire people by showing that we can do more than just fight defensive battles. We can take real steps forward, and demonstrate what a value-based multilateral world might look like.
[Dan Banik]
On that note, Thomas, it’s always a great pleasure to meet you and speak with you. Thank you very much for coming on the show again.
[Thomas Pogge]
Great pleasure to be here. Thanks, Dan.
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