How much is enough: On basic goods (II) - Main contents
•The father and son team of Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky, in their book How Much is Enough? criticised the way in which present society aims only at economic growth. Our values are increasingly economic values, in which profit maximisation takes pole position, even in public institutions. They argue against this and list a number of basic goods, things you really must have. After writing last week on health as a basic good, I will this week discuss ‘respect and friendship’.
These days it seems as if the world is in flames: Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, the number of places where people are killing people just keeps growing. How can it be that after decades when many people believed that together we could build a new world, current developments seem to point in the opposite direction, towards intolerance and violence?
In part this can be explained by the fact that in the Netherlands as in the rest of the world the gap between rich and poor has grown. Everyone understands that there will always be income differentials, but the fact that people with vast wealth are growing even richer simply because of the profit on that wealth, while workers lag ever further behind, is appreciated by fewer and fewer people. The bank crisis demonstrated how bankers had enriched themselves at the expense of ordinary people, showing no respect for their clients, so it isn’t surprising that society now has no respect for this generation of bankers. Because of the growing gap between rich and poor, respect on all sides is declining. Poverty is seen as something for which the poor themselves are to blame. Rich people no longer feel themselves to have any connection to people less fortunate than themselves.
Globally the same tendency is evident. For decades multinationals have stashed away their profits in tax havens, with the Netherlands working hard and faithfully to provide the ideal conduit. These profits were in large part made in developing countries and emerging economies. The flow of capital from South to North is many times greater than the flow of development monies from North to South.
Despite the emerging economies, and despite growth in a number of developing countries, most people are faced with a hopeless situation. Population growth remains high, partly because children are seen as insurance for old age. Because of this there is a high proportion of young people, who themselves, after completing their studies or training, cannot find work. Can we demand respect from them for the west? For those multinationals which have plundered their countries of raw materials or exploited them as sources of cheap labour, but which are not prepared to invest their profits in these same countries, at least by paying their taxes? Or respect for the often corrupt leaders and the tiny class of superrich who also profit in the South without sharing these gains with the rest of the population?
The existing socio-economic system undermines our respect for each other. And yet respect is a basic good. Without respect there is no friendship. Without respect people will seek to adhere to extremist groups who pretend to offer friendship (or brotherhood). If we continue with a society in which personal gain is the priority, we will end up with a violent society, such as the one described by Thomas Hobbes: homo homini lupus est. Every person is a wolf who will kill other wolves to survive. Only the strongest survive, but in this they forget that without the ‘weak’ there is no longer any society anyway. Fair shares lead to respect and to friendship. We should in our economic system place such sharing in a more central position.