Food to make a big dent on a thought
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Human Rights Reader 83
HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE GROWING 'GAP'
1. Respecting and fulfilling human rights (HR) has a cost indeed
-- maybe even in terms of economic growth foregone. But solidar-
ity, fairness and justice are also values that count -- perhaps
more than growth-- when wealth is relentlessly concentrating in
fewer and fewer hands: Disparities in global income are simply
worsening.
2. As part of these inequalities, in the 21st century, it is a
fact that, in rich countries, it has become cheaper to buy an
extra year of life; buying an extra year of life in poor coun-
tries has also become somewhat cheaper: But by far and increas-
ingly more unaffordable.
3. The inequalities we refer to arise from the rich being made
better-off at a faster pace than the poor. (Unbelievably, many
of the rich see this as "not-a-bad-thing" since this windfall
bonanza comes really "at no-one's expense." (??) Worldwide, we
are told that the "average-global-citizen" (does such an animal
exist?) has become wealthier --but this is of little comfort for
the 2 ½-3 billion poor people living in developing countries.
4. In 2001, more than half the low income countries (population
800 million) had per capita income growths of less than 2%;
nearly one third of them (225 million) had negative growths.
This, at a time when OECD countries subsidized their agriculture
at a level of U$850 million a day, or U$360 billion in 2003
alone. (This equals six times their overseas development assis-
tance and is costing the world's poor countries about U$24 bil-
lion a year in lost export income - not to talk about the ex-
penses of U$200 billion in Iraq).
5. Inequalities are of such a magnitude that reallocating a
relatively small part of the income of the 10% richest group
(e.g., through progressive taxation, property taxes, luxury
goods taxation, a Tobin-type tax, land reform) can potentially
make a big dent in the income of the poorest 20%.
If this is not a human (people's) rights issue, I would not know
what is...
So, what am I (you) to do as a HR activist?
Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn
--
Mostly taken from Finance and Development (the IMF journal)
40:3, Sept 2003.