{"id":32097,"date":"2016-01-25T06:27:53","date_gmt":"2016-01-25T06:27:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=32097"},"modified":"2016-01-25T06:27:55","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T06:27:55","slug":"reasons-to-be-cheerful-in-the-fight-against-inequality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2016\/01\/25\/reasons-to-be-cheerful-in-the-fight-against-inequality\/","title":{"rendered":"Reasons to be cheerful in the fight against inequality"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have always enjoyed the occasions when I have worked with\u00a0Ben Phillips who is now Director of Policy, Research, Advocacy and Campaigns at \u00a0ActionAid International and also with Oxfam, Save the Children and others in the past. He deserves his role: his thinking is rooted in my opinion. In that case I was pleased to note a new blog from him<\/a> on the Global Dashboard website. He begins by saying:<\/p>\n

My job is to challenge\u00a0the causes of poverty.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I like the confidence of that statement. I think I have the same job, done in a different way. Perhaps it's why we are kindred spirits.<\/p>\n

He adds:<\/p>\n

That means that I spend a lot of time highlighting the gross injustices that I have witnessed people face.\u00a0This can hamper my ability to be fun at parties. \u201cWhat have you been up to?\u201d a fellow party guest will ask, and I\u2019ll reply \u201cI\u2019ve just come back from spending time with people living next to an open cast mine that has destroyed their health and ruined their land.\u201d And they\u2019ll say \u201cGreat music, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I recognise that: you trying talking about tax justice at parties. I have developed other lines of conversation.<\/p>\n

Ben explores another dilemma:<\/p>\n

No one wants to be told that everything is going wrong. It\u2019s just so damn depressing. I remember in our early courtship asking my now wife, who grew up in a village in South India, \u201chow come\u00a0everyone in the most popular Indian movies is so rich and sparkly?\u201d She replied with the characteristic frankness born of experience: \u201cBecause we see desperate poverty every day, because we have lived it, no one wants to see any more of it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And adds:<\/p>\n

Civil society folks tend to respond to this conundrum in two ways. One group\u2019s approach is to fib a little, to say that this or that global deal which just passed will transform the lives of billions. \u201cThat\u2019s not true,\u201d say the second group to the first, \u201chow can you say it if it\u2019s not true?\u201d \u201cYou have to give people hope,\u201d say the first group. \u201cNo,\u201d say the second group, \u201cthe truth will set the people free, even if at first it pisses them off.\u201d If it\u2019s a choice between prozac and depression, it\u2019s a crappy choice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I know the conundrum. Google was a win this weekend. And a massive new problem, all at the same time. Ban addresses this; I will let him speak:<\/p>\n

But what if we can [say] both? What if we can tell the truth and still give hope? What if there are some hopeful truths?<\/p>\n

I think there might be several hope-giving truths in the fight against inequality. Here are three:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The argument that inequality is now excessive and is socially, politically and economically corrosive \u2014 once dismissed as Soviet romanticism \u2014 is now accepted by, amongst others, the IMF, the OECD and the World Bank, as well as most economists<\/a>. Those defending current levels of inequality intellectually are a sorry rump reminiscent of the Afrikaner \u201cBittereinders\u201d or the Japanese soldier found still fighting World War II in a Philippines jungle decades after it was over<\/a>. Intellectually, we\u2019ve won. Even the word feminism is now mainstream.<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. The argument we could get political leaders to agree to reduce inequality \u2014 once dismissed as the height of unrealism by the insider advocacy crowd \u2014 has been proved right in the clearest most irrefutable way possible: every single world leader has signed up to \u201creduce inequality within and between countries\u201d as part of the new UN Sustainable Development Goals<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  3. The idea that diverse groups civil society would be willing to get behind a shared platform on\u00a0inequality, indeed that they would be willing to get behind a shared platform on\u00a0anything \u2014 until recently\u00a0dismissed as wishful thinking in an era of big egos and big logos where everyone has their own cause and their own brand \u2014 has also\u00a0been proved right, as when in the past few days social movements, feminist activists, environmentalists, human rights defenders, NGOs, and faith-based organisations all spoke out for a common vision to fight inequality.\u00a0<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    There\u2019s no straight road to success in the fight against inequality. It will be amongst the hardest fights that civil society have ever taken on. It\u2019s a big agenda that connects\u00a0women\u2019s rights, work, public services and tax, land, and climate change. It\u2019s dependent on building up people\u2019s power. And it takes on big vested interests. The backlash will get fiercer\u00a0\u2014 but as feminist theory\u00a0highlights, a backlash is an indicator of progress.<\/p>\n

    Back in 2013 I wrote, in\u00a0a post for this site, \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s getting clearer and clearer we\u2019re in an inequality crisis \u2014 so why am I optimistic?<\/a>\u00a0Since then the crisis has got worse, and yet I am more optimistic. This isn\u2019t just because I\u2019m keen to be a bit more fun at parties. It\u2019s because some very important milestones have been passed.<\/p>\n

    Of course, of course, governments are not doing nearly enough, and many are flagrantly breaking their pledge; and of course, of course, civil society still needs to do much more to work together and to build power from below; and of course, of course, the intellectual argument about inequality still needs to be reiterated; but my point is not to deny that there is a mountain to climb, it\u2019s to celebrate that we\u2019ve taken the first steps on the journey.<\/p>\n

    At the UN meetings last year I had to suppress the\u00a0cynical\u00a0laughter I felt inside when an official called for \u201cevidence-based excitement\u201d. But on reflection I think he had a point. \u00a0As Arundhati Roy puts it, \u201cAnother world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.\u201d<\/p>\n

    A really, really exciting, transformational, proposition is gaining traction. Step by step, vital preconditions for success are being realised. I never thought\u00a0that we\u2019d make so much progress so fast. We\u2019ve got further along the road than I had ever dared imagine.\u00a0We really do have reasons to be cheerful.\u00a0I can be fun at parties, too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    And as Ben points out, to help achieve this goal on inequality a new alliance has been formed:<\/p>\n

    \"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

    Unions, NGOs, environmentalists and civil society working together? That has to be good news.\u00a0I warmly welcome this.<\/p>\n

    And good luck with it at parties Ben.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I have always enjoyed the occasions when I have worked with\u00a0Ben Phillips who is now Director of Policy, Research, Advocacy and Campaigns at \u00a0ActionAid International
     Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,35,147,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-development","category-economics","category-inequality","category-tax-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}