Live Free and Starve or The Singer Solution??

In Chitra Divakaruni's article "Live Free and Starve" she argues the point that we must stop abusive child labor in other third world countries. However, her approach is not to simply create a law to ban child labor. She uses her past experiences of living in another country to make the argument that if America stops the child labor, the children will have no shelter or food, and could starve to death. Divakaruni says that the children would rather work and have food than be free and die of starvation, hence the name of her article. She writes, "A bill like the one we've just passed is of no use unless it goes hand in hand with programs that will offer a new life to these newly released children." I agree with Divakaruni's opinion in this article, and I believe that we need to help these children once they've been released, not just get them out of the abusive workplaces.

In a somewhat contrasting view, Peter Singer writes in his article "The Singer Solution to World Poverty" that as wealthy as we are compared to many countries, we need to donate a large chunk of our money to help poverty in third world countries. He writes, "An American household with an income of $50,000 spends around $30,000 annually on necessities, according to the Conference Board, a nonprofit economic research organization. Therefore, for a household bringing in $50,000 a year, donations to help the world's poor should be as close as possible to $20,000." He uses this sort of, 'call-to-action' speak through much of the article, and uses a story to get our attention. He tells of Bob, a man who let a small child get killed on his watch when he could have helped, and tells us that if we don't donate money, we are the same as Bob; we let children die without doing anything. While I agree that we need to be generous and give to organizations that are trying to help, I disagree with much of his thoughts. He forgets that there are millions dying of cancer each year, and that there are thousands of other organizations that are doing great things to help other people. Singer questions America's generosity, and tells us that we should give more, even though many of us give to local charities to help the armed forces, or donate money to cancer research funds. As a Type 1 Diabetic, I know what it feels like to ask for money to help with research. When you are the one in need, and there is a fund to try and help you or others you love, you don't think about starving kids in other countries. We are selfish beings, there is no denying it, but that doesn't mean we don't try to help other people. This bias and flaw in his article is what keeps me from siding with Singer.