
We live in a world community, and economic contact has partly contributed to that. Its also the case that economic opportunity opened up by economic contact has helped to a great extent to reduce poverty in many parts of the world.
There are some people who say that theyre concerned only with poverty but not inequality. But I dont think that is a sustainable thought. A lot of poverty is, in fact, inequality because of the connection between income and capabilityhaving adequate resources to take part in the life of the community.
If the government is vulnerable to public opinion, then famines are a dreadfully bad thing to have. You cant win many elections after a famine, and you dont like being criticized by newspapers, opposition parties in parliament, and so on. Democracy gives the government an immediate political incentive to act.