[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are it behooves you. This Reader explores some of the intricate relationships between HR and inequality. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
–Often, the elements infusing some kind of equity measures have been add-ons to an inequitable growth process and are more in the nature of token gestures rather than serious efforts at change. (Seeta Prabhu)
Inequality today is not confined to income or wealth; it affects every domain of economic and social life (2026 World Inequality Report)
–Don’t be fooled 1: inequality is ultimately economically harmful to all. Welfare spending does not put the brakes on economic growth. (Johannes Rau)
–Don’t be fooled 2: Philanthropy’s growth is due to the fact that inequality began growing exponentially. (Adam Moe Feyerskov)
1. J‘accuse one more time: What is not needed to escape maldevelopment is the setting up of safety nets for those rendered poor since this represents buying-off the victims of otherwise impoverishing austerity policies that remain untouched. (Reginal H. Green) In this context, don’t be fooled 3: the SDGs have never looked upstream: They advocate fighting inequality at the bottom, not at the top. (Francine Mestrum) [Is this why they are failing…? You tell me].
When we present data not disaggregated by gender, we are concealing reality
2. All of the problems created by inequality –poor health, social strife, compromised life chances for young people and the elderly, as well as environmental degradation– have social and gender gradients, with those lower down the social ladder suffering more than those at the top. This being the case, tackling inequality, disparity and relative poverty are far better economic strategies for wellbeing (and justice) for people and planet than the pursuit of GDP growth at all costs (with simply no trickle down).
3. To reverse decades of rising income and wealth inequality, claim holders need to fight for a more inclusive and participatory public space where to, not only to dialogue, but to make demands as equals. We have simply waited long enough for such changes to be led from the top and they have simply not happened. Claim holders now need to be more actively involved in setting economic and social agendas perhaps through citizens’ assemblies and through engaging in participatory budgeting, as well as in the implementation and monitoring of human and planetary rights policies –or denouncing the lack thereof. (Kate Pickett)
In our struggle for equality, the recognition of human rights is essential, but it is only the beginning (Ramesh Jaura)
4. For the sake of human rights (HR), we have to acknowledge the way historical discrimination has driven unequal access to resources, to opportunities and to justice.* (WWF)
*: Don’t be fooled 4: Race is socially constructed, not nearly so much biologically determined.
5. Justice requires that HR be enforced and violations addressed. Action demands sustained commitment from governments, institutions and claim holders alike. Symbolic declarations alone cannot/will not dismantle structural inequalities! So, the path toward equality remains unfinished (R. Jaura) and inviting for your involvement.
And then there is debt…
It is extreme inequality that is fueling the global debt crisis stupid! (and vice-versa…) (Atif Mian)
6. Facts and questions:
- The share of income accruing to the top one percent has increased astronomically worldwide.
- Corporations are a tax-advantaged vehicle for those rendered rich to save (global corporate saving has risen more than significantly over the past few decades).
- Why did-not/do-not financial markets channel badly needed funds into productive investment? (Instead of embarking in the casino economy?).
- Is it regulatory and other supply-side constraints that inhibit productive investment? (No. It is just greed).
7. When international borrowing is channeled into unproductive people’s consumption (to avoid social unrest) rather than into investments, borrowing governments do not generate additional income that can repay the old and new debt. The result is a persistently rising debt. This is why today’s global fiscal fragility is the downstream result of an economic system’s failure to convert saving or loans into productive investments with the consequent choking of investments in social and environmental services.
We often frame inequality in moral terms, but the macro lesson is starker
8. When too much income pools at the top, demand at the bottom weakens, deficits accrue and dependence on borrowing and debt repayments weakens the society as a whole. The (naif) advice is to take some of the surplus from the wealthiest to invest productively so that businesses can invest and consumers at the bottom can consume (a bit of Keynes here). This is not ‘soaking the rich’; it is saving the rich (A. Mian) –if this is what we think, want, need, advise or oppose…pick your choice)
Bottom line
Ensuring institutional capacity for taxing wealth (CESR)
–If we are serious about taxing the wealthiest, policy design alone is not enough. We need to invest in the political, legal, administrative and data systems that make enforcement both possible and sustainable.
9. Public pressure is growing across nations in support of wealth taxes, minimum effective taxes on high-net-worth individuals and reforms to inheritance and capital taxation. One of the core challenges in this lies in institutional capacity and importantly in political constraints that limit states’ ability to adopt, enforce and sustain such measures in practice. Among other, constraints to keep in mind are: a) wealth held through offshore structures that fall outside domestic tax jurisdictions; b) complex ownership arrangements such as trusts that limit legal enforceability; and c) fragmented asset registries (portfolios) that make it difficult to identify and value assets.
10. Enforcement gaps are created and maintained by the elites through legal bottlenecks and political interference. This does not preclude effective action where and when institutional capacity and bottom-up pressures are strategically strengthened. Don’t be fooled 5: Public support is consistently broad while resistance is elite-driven and invariably well-resourced, …but not undefeatable. (CESR)
Moving from inequality of wealth to inequality of power (Maia Borchard)
—Shifting focus from disparity of wealth to disparity of power is the way to help redress economic inequality.
11. Only few contemporary historians and legal scholars have critiqued the claims that democracy was unsustainable outside of Capitalism or that social and economic rights were fundamentally ignored. They have instead argued that even when HR advocates take socioeconomic rights seriously, a focus on securing minimal standards of living eclipsed the underlying root problem of material inequality.
12. The embrace of the HRE (HR Economy) by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2023 marked a critical step toward a consciously anti-neoliberal, rights-based economic vision. Today, the HRE is perhaps the most well-established proposal for realizing economic justice and addressing inequality through HR. It rightly posits that the market cannot provide the essential elements of a dignified life for all. Therefore, guaranteeing social and economic rights requires the kinds of social programs made possible by stern economic redistribution.
13. Consequently, ‘rights-based tax and budget policies’, i.e., progressive taxation to fund public goods and services programs, is central to the HRE blueprint. A tax collection system that is unfair and fails to provide minimum revenues to provide food, healthcare and shelter to all, when enough resources exist to do so, must simply be proactively opposed.
14. In explicitly rejecting neoliberalism, the HRE re-legitimizes the HR framework sometimes rightly critiqued as minimalist or out of touch with the material realities of everyday claim holders. While some publications on HRE imply a correlation between ‘inequality of resources’ and ‘inequality of power’, their relationship often remains ambiguous. Put another way, when asking why resources are unevenly distributed in the capitalist political economy, claim holders must seriously analyze and ponder how economic power shapes political power. Whether or not the HRE manages to carry this out effectively may substantially shape our ability to claim rights as a legitimate discourse of justice in the future. (M. Borchard)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
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Posstscript/Not so Marginal
–“How long are we going to remain in this state of lethargy? How long are we going to be defenseless pawns on a continent that its liberator envisioned as something more dignified, something greater? How long are we Latin Americans going to continue living in this petty and ridiculous atmosphere? How long are we going to remain divided? How long are we going to be victims of powerful interests that prey on each of our peoples? When are we going to raise the great call for unity? The call for unity within nations is raised –why isn’t the call for unity among nations raised as well?” (Fidel Castro, on the 100th anniversary of his birth)