Lifeboat ethics was first brought forward by Garrett Hardin in his essay Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor. He used the metaphor of the earth as a “lifeboat” in trying to persuade the rich nations to stop helping the poor nations. However, Hardin’s view of lifeboat ethics can’t be persuasive and won’t make any sense in the long run.

“Since the boat has an unused excess capacity of 10 more passengers, we could admit just 10 more to it.” Garrett Hardin argued. It seems true and the capacity limit does exist, but why are the poor nations poor and swimming in the ocean outside each lifeboat? Why can’t they get into the boat? Why can’t the rich nations and the poor nations hold together and make a larger steamship with enough capacity for all passengers?

One thing that should be cleared up is that the rich nations are responsible for the poor swimming in the ocean without any lifeboat. To a great extent, the poverty of the poor countries is engendered by the rich countries. In history, many countries became poorer because of the rich country’s invading. And now, under the camouflage of “Green Revolution”, some rich countries have begun to transfer their pollutive industries into other poor countries and make profits, thus burden those relatively poor countries. Therefore the so-called lifeboat is owned by the rich countries at the expenses of the poverty of the poor countries, and the poor nations have no choice but swim in the ocean outside each lifeboat and just envy those people in the lifeboat.

Another fact is that the rich countries are largely consuming the world resources, which is unfair to the poor countries. Take America for example: With only about 5% of the world's population, Americans have consumed more than 25% of the world resources. To make it clearer, this data can be equally expressed as the consumption of natural resources of each American newborn baby equals to that of 30 babies in China or 40 babies in India. This is a really serious problem. If we calculate the population according to the consumption of resources, America is the most populated country in the world. Accordingly they are in fact the lavish consumers with plenty of additional room and supplies but unwilling to share or unaware of sharing them with other people. Apparently they are wasting the overabundant resources. Accordingly, if the rich nations and the poor nations would hold together and help each other, they would make a larger ship with enough capacity for all of them.

“The rate of reproduction in the poor nations was extremely higher than that in the rich countries and the sharing can lead to the tragedy of the commons,” Garrett Hardin argued again. Is his argument sensible? Why can’t the rich nations and the poor nations solve the serious population problem together? How can the sharing lead to the tragedy of the commons?

Obviously Hardin’s view is a passive reflection of the fact. It is true that the poor nations have large population and the reproduction rate is almost four times as high as the rich nations’, but it is unnecessary that the poor nations will always have many more babies than the rich. The reproduction rate can be controlled. As the philosophy of dialectical materialism states, we should change our view towards things that are changing. It can be perceived that the reproduction rate is decreasing in many relatively poor countries. Take China for example: China has taken the population policy of family planning for many years and the policy does work out.

In fact, the population growth rate is connected with many factors such as the economy, the social position and education level of women. The poor nations can control population if economy is developed, if women are educated and if birth control is legal and encouraged. And all of these need the rich nations to cooperate with the poor nations to solve it together.

The sharing can not lead to the tragedy of the commons. What the rich nations need to do is just to have a little faith in the poor nations and to have more patience. The poor nations know how the tragedy of the commons happens and of course don’t want it to happen because they are also the victims of the tragedy. The poor nations need the rich nations’ help to change the current problems and these problems can’t be solved overnight. Therefore, the rich nations need to be optimistic and hold the poor nations’ hands to solve any problems and join together to make a better place for both the rich nations and the poor nations to live.

Therefore, the rich nations and the poor nations are in the same boat. They need to hold together and share the world resources to make a large “steamship” and then coexist peacefully to make their boat much more capable for a long-distance sailing. However, if the rich nations adopt the lifeboat ethics and drop out the poor nations, the great income gap between rich countries and poor countries may lead to world instability, which will eventually have a great adverse effect on the rich nations themselves.