The
crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the
new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid
symptoms appear. (Antonio Gramsci)
by
Jayati Ghosh
Part
7 - Social and Economic Rights
Social
policy – the public responsibility for meeting social and economic
rights of citizens – contributes positively to both growth and
development. This means especially the provision of universal good
quality care services, funded by the state, with care workers
properly recognised, remunerated and provided with decent working
conditions.
This also
helps to reduce gender and other social inequalities generated by the
imposition of unpaid care work, and has strong multiplier effects
that allow for more employment increases over time and generate a
‘bubbling up’ of economic activity.
There must
be conscious attempts to reduce economic inequalities, both between
and within countries. We have clearly crossed the limits of what is
‘acceptable’ inequality in most societies, and policies will have
to reverse this trend. Globally and nationally, we must reduce
inequalities in income and wealth, and most significantly in the
consumption of natural resources.
This is even
more complicated than might be imagined because unsustainable
patterns of production and consumption are deeply entrenched in
richer countries and are aspired to in developing countries. But many
millions of citizens of the developing world still have poor or
inadequate access to the most basic conditions of decent life, such
as electricity, transport and communication links, sanitation,
health, nutrition and education.
Ensuring
universal provision across the global South will inevitably require
greater per capita use of natural resources and more carbon-emitting
production.
Both
sustainability and equity therefore require a reduction of the
excessive resource use of the rich, especially in developed countries
but also among the elites in the developing world. This means that
redistributive fiscal and other economic policies must be especially
oriented towards reducing inequalities of resource consumption,
globally and nationally.
Within
countries, for example, essential social and developmental
expenditure can be financed by taxes that penalise resource-wasteful
expenditure.
Source,
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