The Limits to Global Redistribution: Thinking Like an Egalitarian Labour Movement

Should global egalitarians based in a given country seek to redistribute all wealth equally amongst the world's people, recognising no priority for fellow citizens? This philosophical question is directly relevant to a pressing practical one: what is the appropriate stance for egalitarians to adopt in controversies around foreign aid and free trade? This paper explores how such matters might look to a labour movement situated in a better-off country but committed to global equality. There are several reasons offered why the latter would not seek an immediately equal share-out of its country's wealth among all the world's individuals. Yet the same considerations that support limiting global obligations also point to various limits to the limits, and imply redistributive generosity on the part of richer societies. A still more radical global redistribution becomes possible only with world economic governance, for which egalitarians should strive.