Economics

التعافي والمساواة

Jul 26, 2012 Isabel Ortiz and Matthew Cummins

نيويورك ــ كانت الأزمة الاقتصادية العالمية سبباً في تفاقم أزمة إنسانية قائمة بالفعل. فقبل عام 2008، كان التفاوت بين الناس منتشراً على نطاق واسع: حياة مترفة للبعض، في حين كان نصف أطفال العالم يعيشون على أقل من دولارين يوميا، ويعانون من سوء التغذية والقدرة المحدودة على الوصول إلى الصحة والتعليم ومياه الشرب والسكن الملائم. ومع تكشف الأزمة، واجه العديد الملايين من البشر ظروفاً معيشية متدهورة.

اليوم، وفي حين يتركز الانتباه العالمي على المشاكل التي تبتلي أوروبا، تستمر الأزمة الاقتصادية في فرض عواقب اجتماعية مدمرة في مختلف أنحاء العالم. في كتاب جديد صادر عن قسم السياسات والممارسة في منظمة اليونيسيف بعنوان "التعافي للجميع: إعادة النظر في السياسات الاجتماعية الاقتصادية في التعامل مع الأطفال والأسر الفقيرة"، يُظهِر تحليل لأحدث البيانات الدولية أن الغذاء الذي أصبحت تكاليفه غير محتملة، والبطالة المتفشية، وتضاؤل الدعم الاجتماعي، كل هذا يهدد قسم كبير من سكان العالم.

فبادئ ذي بدء، بعد بلوغ أسعار الغذاء الدولية ذروتين رئيسيتين أثناء الفترة 2007-2008، ثم الفترة 2010-2011، يدفع الناس في ما يقرب من ستين دولة نامية نحو 80% زيادة في المتوسط للحصول على المواد الغذائية المحلية في عام 2012، مقارنة بحالهم قبل الأزمة. ونتيجة لهذا فإن توفير الأمن الغذائي للأسر الفقيرة بات مهددا، مع اضطرار هذه الأسر إلى الحد من تغذية أفرادها كيفاً وكما.

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Isabel Ortiz

Writing for PS since 2008
7 Commentaries

Isabel Ortiz, Director of the Global Social Justice Program at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University, is a former director of the International Labor Organization and UNICEF, and a former senior official at the United Nations and the Asian Development Bank.

Matthew Cummins

Writing for PS since 2012
4 Commentaries

Matthew Cummins is an economist who has worked at the United Nations Development Programme, UNICEF, and the World Bank.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 9 Comments on this article

Zsolt Hermann Jul 30, 2012

We are in a very unique situation today.
Although everything the article details is true, the very system that produced the inequalities is collapsing creating a very interesting scenario.
If we do not change course within the short time we still have before a total, inevitable collapse, since this constant quantitative growth, exploitative system is unsustainable and started self consuming, not only the poor or developing countries will have very difficult situations but even the richest countries.
The crisis is non-selective, it is like a vast tsunami washing away everything in its way.
And since the perception of poverty, loss is relative, those who have the most at present will feel their loss most severely, completely devastating them.
If I am poor today, an economic collapse will effect me, but I am already poor, thus I will survive as before.
But if I have everything, the greatest luxuries possible and lose everything, then I might face such a devastated state that I cannot continue, and cannot survive, or only do so in a very miserable manner.
Thus those people who still have the means and power would have any wisdom, they would explore all the opportunities of how to prevent the collapse by changing themselves and the system before it is too late.
The question of course if they have the wisdom, although all the information is around us, we just need to use it.
- Gary Marshall Jul 31, 2012
  
  Hello Zsolt,
  
  Thanks for supplying the world with a bunch of inscrutable garbage.
  
  When you have something of value to offer, why not speak then.
  
  The poor do not survive catastrophe by their own means and resources; for they have none.
  
  They survive by taking from others; the ones that do have. What do you think modern economic theory is based upon?
  
  GM
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Procyon Mukherjee Jul 28, 2012

A great article that back-drafts a grim future as the unwinding of economic reforms assume the role of austerity more than the role of creating conditions of employment generation.

The case is better demonstrated by the rally of one single item against the fall of all the rest of the indicators, the stocks of the world’s leading companies, that is backed by a performance which does not necessarily preclude employment generation as a criterion (in fact most of the innovations are directed towards less on the contrary); the investors cheer the quarterly gains, while precious little is added to the stock of jobs that could turn the economy around.

This leads me to the conclusion that as individuals we have moved to the narrow confines of selfishness that draws us away from the collective, apparently as good for one leads to the worse for the other, as that seems the way we have designed the incentives of our times.

Procyon Mukherjee
- Gary Marshall Jul 31, 2012
  
  And how have free spending governments in Europe and elsewhere vanquished the problems facing modern economies, Procyon?
  
  Hasn't it been that reflexive, socialist, and costly pander to the collective by the always wasteful government that has caused such high unemployment, high taxes, exorbitant charges and deficient basic public goods?
  
  It wasn't selfishness that created wondrous and inexpensive home computers, cell phones, networks, huge reservoirs of information, fuel efficient vehicles, air, rail, and motor vehicles, abundant food and energy products.
  
  All of it was based upon the desire to succeed and grow, to prove oneself by offering something of value.
  
  How does the success of Steve Jobs and his mini-computer take away from so many others? Didn't his customers have a choice in purchasing his product?
  
  Do we have a choice in funding corrupt and squandering government?
  
  Now what government in this world, the real world, can make such a claim, can say that they provided worthy goods for the costs involved?
  
  You should really step back from utter ignorance and examine your senseless beliefs.
  
  Is that too selfish of me? Does such a demand so greatly harm the benign collective?
  
  GM
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Gary Marshall Jul 26, 2012

I would think the lack of education, good drinking water, and housing has something to do with corrupt governments the world over taking the money of others and lucratively diverting it to their own selfish pursuits. Its sort of like what happens to all that money given to these poor countries for special development projects. It often ends up in the Swiss bank accounts of the countries leaders.

Unicef has certainly funded a hell of a lot of corrupt doings in the third world. In fact, the UN is full of it.

What the author describes is a symptom of a problem. Not the problem itself.

The provision of public goods is under attack from the very people who provide them. Not content with an honest wage, they demand ever increasing amounts of a community's income, putting large cities in jeopardy. Just look at California. Lots of money for high speed railways to nowhere, but no money for the streets that everyone uses.

When governments shed their corrupt and squandering practices, there will be plenty of money for all sorts of valued public goods. And there will be far more economic growth.

To solve a problem, one should not connive at its source while pointing at its symptoms. Those that cannot face facts are little better than contemptible cowards.

GM
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Horace Finkelstein Jul 26, 2012

The fundamental driver of poverty, and a major contributor to inequality, is chronic under-education. This book accurately highlights the immediate need to address the deteriorating living conditions of the poor, but does not focus on the core driver necessary to create the "virtuous cycle that promotes development and prosperity for all people." Chronic under-education keeps poor people poor. A child certainly needs food and shelter before anything else, but neglecting their innate capacity for intellectual development not only conscripts them into poverty for the remainder of their lives, but it deprives the world of their forgone achievements.
- Horace Finkelstein Jul 26, 2012
  
  "A child certainly needs food and shelter before anything else...". The South African press article offers a glimpse of the cycle of poverty - children born to poor and under-educated parents generally do not receive the educational support from them necessary to break the cycle of poverty. This is particularly true in terms of early childhood education (birth through age 5) when 90% of brain development takes place. This raises two key points: 1. A child who learns to read well by 5 years old, and can count to 50 and do simple arithmetic, and has learned to solve various puzzles, WILL have a much greater chance of breaking the cycle of poverty DESPITE terrible living conditions. and 2. While better educated parents provide this early childhood development to their children, the state needs to step up and fill this void for poor children whose conscription into poverty begins at age 6.
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- Paulo Sérgio Jul 26, 2012
  
  You cannot divorce nourishment and shelter from the equation. Nourishment, Shelter and Education is the Holy Trinity at the very core of a productive future.
  
  An article in the South African press captures this quite well. This follows Human Opportunity Index studies in the country and a recent scandal concerning the non-delivery of primary school texts seven months into the year. Here is the url: http://mg.co.za/article/2012-07-25-nickolaus-bauer-verwoerd-still-stalks-us-all
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A. T. Jul 26, 2012

Unfortunately the cycle is self-reinforcing. It is not only bad policies that increase (entrenched) inequality, but (entrenched) inequality that produces bad policies – if decision-makers are also those with disproportionate wealth and power, then during hard times their focus will always be on minimising their own short-term pain. Such is human nature – when your own well-being is decreasing, it becomes harder to empathise with the travails of (distant) others. Forfeiting a portion of a wealth raise comes much more naturally than voluntarily choosing to reduce one's relative well-being at a time when its absolute amount is also being reduced.

In practice, this seems like a difficult circle to square. I certainly cannot see mere appeals to one's better angels ever working. Perhaps a focus on the entrenchment part of "entrenched inequality", rather than the inequality part would be easier to sneak through. After all, most people, regardless of position, tend to be loth to openly oppose equality of opportunity, and it is inequality of opportunity that is responsible for entrenched inequality of outcomes.
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