The letter says: “We know that high inequality undermines all our social and environmental goals. It corrodes our politics, destroys trust, hamstrings our collective economic prosperity and weakens multilateralism. We also know that without a sharp reduction in inequality, the twin goals of ending poverty and preventing climate breakdown will be in clear conflict.”
I don’t quite see how a reduction in global poverty would hurt poor people though.
In economic terms inequality actually hurts everyone. Recessions last longer, there is more stagnation, more unrest, and interestingly there are effects like worse health outcomes even for the rich in a highly unequal society.
Because in the long term, their interest is to give up as little as possible to maintain the status quo. They’re not actually interested in the harm that economic inequality causes to poor people, only in walking back from the harm a mass unrest event would potentially cause them.
Well, Thomas Piketty is one of the signatories, so…
The thing is though that there has been a massive shift in the last decade from the old “Establishment” having power, to the phenomenon of Disaster Capitalism.
Disaster capitalists thrive on things like mass unrest. They will do everything in their power to continue down this track. And right now they have the upper hand.
Yeah, I’m not an accelerationist, but it seems to me like there’s no way out. We’ve squeezed our way into a very tight spot where we can’t back up but going forward would have a huge cost in human life.
I guess instead of going backwards we need to swerve to the side somehow.
We could attempt a more complicated maneuver as I have seen described once in a magazine in the library: a somersault.
If we’re needlessly overthinking, I must point out that by rejecting a call to reduce global inequality because you suspect it doesn’t go far enough…you’re siding with / helping the people who DON’T want to reduce global inequality.
That’s a fair criticism. I don’t really have a better answer to the situation at hand. I think it’s just important to keep in mind that this is why were in this situation to begin with.
I don’t think it’s needlessly overthinking as you put it to ask that people work toward sustainable long term changes that can not only alleviate current problems but improve conditions and systems resiliency and fairness long term. The unfortunate truth is that going part of the way also helps the people who don’t want to reduce global inequality. If people are satisfied with a world in which the equilibrium is reached between poverty that is so destructive and impossible to tolerate that global unrest increases as predicted, and a poverty only slightly more tolerable, that is not, in my humble opinion, anything to strive for. It would in fact be the least optimal result, since it maximizes suffering and precludes change.