[P2P-F] Fwd: Food for a pauper's thought

Sat Jan 2 10:24:16 CET 2016

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From: Claudio Schuftan <cschuftan at phmovement.org>
Date: Sun, Dec 6, 2015 at 11:29 AM
Subject: Food for a pauper's thought
To: michel at p2pfoundation.net

Food for a pauper’s thought Human Rights Reader 375 INEQUALITIES, POLITICAL
CAPTURE AND THE EXERCISE OF CIVIL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTU

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Food for a pauper’s thought

Human Rights Reader 375

*INEQUALITIES, POLITICAL CAPTURE AND THE EXERCISE OF CIVIL, POLITICAL,
ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS ARE CLOSELY CONNECTED.*

1. *Consider the following list of iron laws about poverty and equality as
highlighted by Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and
Human Rights:*

• Poverty and wealth are often discussed as if they have very little to do
with one another.
• Poverty is directly related to extreme inequality, especially, but not
only, in relation to wealth and income distribution within countries.
• Therefore, if the human rights (HR) framework would not address extreme
inequality as one of the drivers of extreme poverty and as one of the
reasons why over one quarter of humanity cannot properly enjoy HR, it would
be doomed to fail.
• Those in the upper income quintile or decile derive their income from
wealth instead of from labor.
• Social inequalities and economic inequalities may, and often do, interact
with, and reinforce, one another, for instance when individuals with higher
incomes or their family members have more political power or access to
better education than those with lower incomes.
• Perfect economic equality is not achievable and arguably not desirable,
and there is no reason to object to a certain degree of economic inequality
if it reflects differences in effort and talent.
• The problem in many societies is that poor people start the ‘race of
life’ at a disadvantage and will meet many more hurdles on their way than
others.
• Starting life at an economic disadvantage makes it much more likely that
one also ends life at an economic disadvantage.
• The ideal of equal opportunity is increasingly a myth in many countries
and the decline in opportunity has gone hand in hand with growing
inequality (quoting Joseph Stiglitz).
• Laws, regulations and institutions influence and are influenced by the
distribution of economic and other forms of power.
• Economic inequalities are not only the result of market forces, but
equally of political forces responsible for laws, regulations and
institutions.
• The major problem in both developing and developed countries thus is the
capture of the political process by powerful groups, and the exclusion of
others, leading to laws, regulations and institutions that favor the
powerful.
• The existence of a democracy and the right to participate in the
political process do not guarantee equal opportunity and more equal
outcomes.
• Extreme concentration of income is incompatible with real democracy.
• The neoliberal paradigm in the early 1980s created an extremely negative
environment for unions with the abandonment of full-employment policies.
Since that time, labor laws across the world have become much less union
friendly, and unionizing new establishments has become harder.
• The wage differentials between skilled and unskilled workers were reduced
when unions were active. Not only does de-unionization affect wage
inequality, but wage inequality also affects unionization.
• Levels of economic inequality in many countries would be lower today if
there was no discrimination.
• Economic inequalities, especially when extreme, can also be closely
linked to social unrest and conflict.
• It is clear that the most impoverished suffer the most extreme effects of
inequality for a variety of reasons. In part, this is because their
influence and capacity to exercise their rights is diminished relatively,
even if not absolutely, as others become wealthier and gain greater
political and economic power.
• Inequality undermines human dignity. Moreover, ultimately, extreme
inequality is an assault on democracy.
• The deeply expressed concerns about the consequences of inequality are
not in fact bringing the sort of structural changes that would be required
in the policies of government institutions. For the most part, the response
seems to involve the tweaking of traditional policies rather than any
change in the fundamental priorities underlying the work of official
institutions.
• Income distribution should become an economic, social and HR indicator
used by international financial institutions and other international
organizations.

2. I know this is a lot to digest, but the key truisms about poverty are
indeed in this long list.

3. *The agenda Alston proposes is:*

• Reject extreme inequality by formally and openly recognizing the fact
that there are limits to the degrees of inequality.
• Commit to reduce extreme inequality by states formally committing
themselves to policies explicitly designed to reduce, if not eliminate,
extreme inequality
• Make economic, social and cultural rights central by states taking the
concept of these rights seriously and giving them the needed prominence and
priority equal to that of civil and political rights.
• Ensure social protection floors by the State meeting its most basic
obligations in relation to the economic, social and cultural rights of its
citizens and of others.
• Implement fiscal policies that reduce inequality by adopting and
enforcing progressive taxation policies that are instrumental to achieving
that aim.
• Revitalize the equality norm by the right to equality being given greater
prominence so that it is able to add substantively to the jurisprudence of
international HR bodies in ways that it has thus far not.
• Put the questions of resources and their redistribution back into the HR
equation by public interest HR civil society organizations overcoming their
deep reluctance to bring issues such as resources, national budgets and the
need for redistributive policies into their actions and advocacy.

4. If you have followed these Readers for some time, you will know that the
action agenda that these CSOs have been advancing are more radical and more
bottom-centered than the ones suggested by Alston.

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan at phmovement.org

*Postscript/Marginalia*
-Some top down ideas must begin at the bottom; then rise like the sun. (J.
Koenig)
-Both justice and injustice share one thing: the need of authority and
sometimes force to be applied. (Albino Gomez) The problem with this line of
argument is that it presumes that we have to live with the consequences of
tyranny; that there are no circumstances when we must do what is right, not
as a strategy, but simply because it is ... right. (Y. Varoufakis)
-The globalized economy has no other purpose than to serve the private
interest of a very few. Greed that has so much been behind the world’s
material, technical and scientific ‘progress’ is pushing us into a cloudy
abyss, towards an era without history. It is thus a must to reach a
planetary consensus on the needed solidarity towards the oppressed, to
mobilize the big economies to create useful goods without frivolousness,
goods that will uplift the poorest groups in the world. (President Mujica
of Uruguay)
-Given the above, optimism these days (in our convoluted world) can only be
the result of a lack of information. (A. Gomez)
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