Income inequality and the next government

A year ago, I wrote a column about income inequality with a warning from Pope Francis that this was the root cause of social ills. Oxfam, an international NGO, also said: “An explosion in extreme wealth and income is exacerbating the world’s ability to tackle poverty.”

In another Oxfam report, the $240 billion net income in 2012 of the richest 100 billionaires would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty worldwide four times over. The richest 80 billionaires in the world will have the same wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people – half of the world’s population. Each adult in the top 1% of the world will have an average wealth of $2.7 million. More than one billion people worldwide will live on less than $1.25 a day.

We are increasingly confronted by violence and terrorism all over the world. It is said that poverty is the biggest cause of violence. But why is it that even the richest countries in the world are now facing increasing violence even in cities like Paris, Chicago and Brussels. In the United States, the richest country in the world, gun violence and school shootings have reached almost epidemic levels.

Pope Francis has warned us that it is the “economy of exclusion” and the “idolatry of money” that is causing this widening gap between the rich and the poor. In his Apostolic Exhortations, he asked: “Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality.”

The rich have become callous to the suffering of the poor. The Pope wrote: “Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime, all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle, they fail to move us.”

All over the world, the mantra to solve violence is through more violence. Even in the Philippines, there is a rising belief that the only way to lessen crime is to simply start shooting down suspected criminals. Human rights and the rule of law are considered as obstacles to reducing crime. The rich are not willing to address the root causes. This is the same message that led to a Marcos dictatorship and the collapse of the Philippine economy which turned the country from the second richest in Asia to the “sick man of Asia.”

Pope Francis said: “ Today in many places we hear a call for greater security. But until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples are reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence....When a society – whether local, national, or global – is willing to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programs or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquillity... To all this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The thirst for power and possessions know no limits.

Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot and never will be able to resolve. It serves to offer false hopes to those clamoring for heightened security, even nowadays we know that weapons and violence, rather than providing solutions, create new and more serious conflicts. Some simply content themselves with blaming the poor and poorer countries themselves for their troubles, indulge in unwarranted generalizations.”

Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International said: “Concentration of resources in the hands of the top 1% depresses economic activity and makes life harder for everyone else – particularly those at the bottom of the ladder. In a world where even basic resources such as land and water are increasingly scarce, we cannot afford to concentrate assets in the hands of a few and leave the many to struggle over what is left... From tax havens to weak employment laws, the richest benefit from a global economic system which is rigged in their favor.”

It is estimated that tax havens, used by the rich for money laundering and tax evasion, hold as much as $32 trillion or a third of global wealth. This staggering amount could yield an additional $189 billion in additional tax revenues.

Income inequality also results in political inequality. This is the biggest obstacle for a more equal society. Present day politics – whether democratic or totalitarian – has become controlled by the very rich. In China, the “princelings” and the billionaires control the Communist Party. In the United States, the ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars has become a yardstick as to the viability of presidential candidates. The most important step to restore political equality is to check the power of money in politics.

The next President of the Philippines must continue the policies that have led to this country having one of the fastest economic growth rate in Asia while adhering to a democracy based on the rule of law.  The next government must also set a vision of a society where “no one is left behind.”

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The Aquino Legacy: An Enduring Narrative is a collection of essays and stories on Ninoy, Cory and the Aquino family who have played such a pivotal and dramatic role in shaping Philippine history. As mentioned in President Noy Aquino’s foreword, the book “serves as a reliable source of information for Filipinos belonging to the millennial generation who may not be aware of how dire conditions were at the time and how we have, since then, moved forward as a people.”

“The Aquino Legacy,” published by Imprint Publishing, is now available at Fully Booked stores.

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