Wealth Redistribution and Wholesale Political Reform
23rd February 2011 - Published by Share The World's
Resources
In a dramatic series of events since late 2010, a new and intensified phase of public protest has erupted across both wealthy and poor regions of the world. Right across Europe, harsh programs of financial austerity have led to escalating protests and mass public campaigns; in the Middle East and North Africa, a revolutionary wave of civil unrest is gripping the international media; and less reported are countless smaller anti-government demonstrations taking place across diverse continents. As commentators struggle to keep up with the rapid unfolding of these events, it is worthwhile to reflect on the basic connections between these varied struggles, and to pose a simple question: are we witnessing the birth of a truly international public voice calling for wealth redistribution and wholesale political reform?
The pan-European protests were sparked by government plans to cut public spending, slash welfare benefits and freeze pay in response to economic recession and the debt crisis. With European Union finance ministers agreeing rules that would punish countries that fail to bring their debts under control, a new austerity drive swept across the 16-nation eurozone as governments struggled to trim their huge budget deficits. Both the German and UK coalition governments approved their biggest austerity plans since World War II; Italy and Spain joined Europe's austerity club with massive cuts to public services; France announced its controversial plans to cut spending and raise its retirement and pension ages; while the most debt-stricken countries in the EU - Portugal, Greece and the Irish Republic - committed to draconian austerity packages to please international investors, not to mention the ongoing budget cuts in various other EU countries such as Hungary, Latvia, Romania and the Netherlands.
What's most striking about the public outcry
that followed is not only the vast scale of civic protests,
but the sense that a majority of European people believe
that government austerity measures are unnecessary and
deeply unjust. On 29th September 2010, the European Trades
Union Confederation (ETUC) organised coordinated
demonstrations in European cities, with hundreds of
thousands of union members across the region amassing under
the banner 'No to Austerity'. Countless new campaign groups
and social movements have also highlighted the distorted
priorities of governments who cut public spending as opposed
to targeting the excesses of big corporations, bankers and
international investors. This included the voices of leading
economists
Out of the scores of anti-cuts groups still
springing up at a local and national level across Europe,
one that has captured the public imagination more than most
is UK Uncut. In late October 2010, a group of London-based
young activists thought up an ingenious way of highlighting
an alternative to the British governments harsh austerity
measures. Rather than simply protesting against public
spending cuts, they focused upon the tax-avoidance
strategies of rich individuals and big corporations. In a
series of direct action protests organised spontaneously
through the internet, the informal group has mobilised local
protests and temporarily closed down more than a hundred
stores in towns and cities across the country. The message
of an alternative to austerity measures was brilliantly
straight-forward: if the government clamped down on
corporate tax avoidance, it would greatly reduce the need
for public spending cuts. As the fastest-growing protest
movement in the UK, its focus is now shifting
No to Austerity and Ideology
Common to all the
protests in Europe is a recognition of the pro-market
ideology that is driving government policies to the
detriment of the public good. Since the world stock market
crash of 2008, it is increasingly evident that a number of
governments are using the economic crisis as an excuse to
re-shape the economy in the interests of business. In the
UK, for example, George Monbiot recently wrote an article in
the Guardian
Meanwhile,
Greece's 110 bn euro rescue package was agreed on the back
of a huge austerity drive, civil service and pension cuts,
the easing of restrictions on private-sector layoffs, and a
large privatisation and structural adjustment programme that
is geared more to saving European banks
As many analysts are now pointing out,
these savage austerity packages being unleashed across
Europe mirror the fate that many developing nations have
faced for decades. Scores of indebted countries in Africa,
Latin America and Asia have long endured the savage IMF
structural adjustment programmes that Ireland, Greece and
other EU countries are now suffering. A recent briefing
A similar logic was applied to Asian countries following the financial crisis in 1998; foreign private lenders were bailed out, government spending was severely cut back, public companies were further privatised, yet the economy still continued to decline. According to JDC, a common theme is that the public face the costs, not private lenders. And not only is private debt paid for by the public, but the cut-backs in public spending by no means guarantees a reduction in national debt. In effect, ordinary people are forced to pay for the reckless behaviour and mistakes of the financial sector - a reality that is now shared and understood by citizens in both the Global North and South.
Growing gap between rich and poor
A major difference
for people in the South is that there is often no guaranteed
state provisions or social safety nets that exist for them
in the first place. Even in those developing countries still
experiencing economic prosperity, most notably in the
globalisation "success stories" of India and China, rapid
GDP growth is being matched by deepening inequalities and
social insecurity. As we know from the World Bank's global
poverty statistics, at least 80 percent
This
definite growth in inequality and the lack of economic
opportunity and social security that underpins it has long
been a recurring theme across the world. A recent UNCTAD
report revealed
This is the context in which we can better understand the
sudden eruption of civil unrest across North Africa and the
Middle East. Whilst much of the mainstream media focussed on
the repression of public freedoms, corruption and a lack of
democracy as the main cause of popular insurrection, common
underlying factors also include the growing levels of
inequality, ongoing hikes in the price of basic food and
energy, and poor access to housing and welfare services.
Whilst Mubarak left office in Egypt with a reported
The pan-Arab protests clearly have much in common with those reacting to austerity across Europe, as well as the millions who have mobilised in support of debt cancellation and an end to 'economic adjustment' in the South. In every country, the widespread outcomes of debt, austerity, poverty and inequality are the product of political choices - the consequences of a disastrous neoliberal approach to managing a nation and its finances. What we may be witnessing in the popular responses to these hardships is an emerging global consensus in favour of a fundamental reordering of government priorities. In the space of barely a few months, the rapid growth of anti-austerity demonstrations across Europe and massive anti-government protests all over the Middle East indicate the potential for public opinion to take on an international dimension. Given the determination of policymakers across the globe to continue with business as usual, the strengthening of a world public opinion in favour of a more equitable distribution of resources may constitute the first step toward meaningful reforms.
As this increasingly global call for justice unfolds across several continents, an underlying demand being voiced by protesters in different countries is the urgent need for redistribution. Calls for an end to austerity measures, more progressive taxation and the cancellation of debt in the developing world all reflect the need to redistribute wealth and political power downward. An implicit understanding common to all these demands is that governments are better able to secure basic human needs for their citizens through the provision of more effective welfare and social services. The question that remains is whether the need for redistribution can be recognised at the international level where the unequal distribution of power and resources manifests in extreme differences in living standards between the richest and poorest nations. If the case for international sharing captures the public imagination as quickly as the calls for distributive justice in individual countries, the elimination of global poverty could finally become a realistic possibility.
ENDS