All of us who watch television are used to charity appeals urging us to give our £3 per month to help mitigate in part against the impact of poverty, hunger, and disease on those members of the human race who are most helpless. We are shown some truly shocking images of the most vulnerable people on our planet, and their unequal struggle just trying to cling to life.
I'm sure that many of us contribute what we can, and every life saved or enhanced is a small victory for humanity. At £3 per month though, plus the annual "give-athons", it will only ever be a series of small victories however many of us make the effort.
Surely so much better for those at the very top of the global economy to take a moment for reflection at how lucky they are to have been dealt such a good hand for their "one chance". To consider that the accumulation of more capital than they will ever have any purpose for is merely a vain and pompous exercise of power over everyone else, and is probably a pathological illness.
If the richest 100 individuals in the world (total aggregate worth $2.029 trillion), each gave 3% of their wealth (thereby raising in excess of $60 billion), Oxfam calculate that extreme poverty worldwide could be brought to an end "at a stroke", and those 100 richest individuals would each still have 97% of their wealth intact.
What a game changer!
Could that ever happen?
Sadly, as much as I agree with progressive taxation, this will not happen. Simple wealth distribution will not solve the problem, and may do only to make it worse. Capitalism fundamentally requires a low-paid and poverty-ridden group of workers to function. Unless this group is literally on the bread line, production cannot continue at the current rate. Sadly, this amounts to little more than slavery. Many in the west of blind to such inequality, but this is simply because we live in a society that has long since outsourced most of it's production.
ReplyDeleteCapitalism and equality are fundamentally incompatible. During the miners strikes in the 1970s and 1980s in the UK, Many trade unions attempted to force up wages through collective strike action. As much as I favour their efforts and ambitions, it was not going to work. Thatcher's policies did eventually return the system to a stable equilibrium, regardless of how terrible that equilibrium may have been for the lowest in society. If the unions had got their way, it may well have lead to further losses on productivity, higher unemployment and a stagnated economy.
That's not to say that inequality is a fundamental fact of society. It means only society cannot be equal while Capitalism exist. We must make reforms that restructure how the economy functions at the lowest level. Private property must be abolished, and productive capital must be handed over to collective / cooperative organisations. Better economic planning must become commonplace rather than relying solely on the inefficient and blunt mechanics that are market forces. Production must be carefully planned to meet the essential needs of all individuals, with any shortfalls in production being corrected in advance. This means better inter-industry communication channels and international organisations that provide methods of abstracting and organising production to satisfy needs.
If society produces too much, then we have a surplus in commodities. This is both not good from an ecological point of view, and also means that more labour has been expended in society than is necessary to meet international living standards that must be agreed on. The key is to minimise average labour hours while maintaining a decent quality of life for all individuals.
Reforms like these are radical. They will only come through direct action internationally. By placing huge external pressure on governments to reform policy. But these changes can be made, and need to be made. It's simply a matter of people getting out and campaigning.
I hope that Syriza's victory and Podemos's likely one will be the spark that starts the fire of international reform.