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The Social Commons

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The Social Commons 1 The Social Commons Rethinking Social Justice in Post-Neoliberal Societies Francine Mestrum 2 Copyright © 2015 Francine Mestrum First published in 2015, Global Social Justice, Brussels All rights reserved. Copy-editing by Gareth Richards 3 Endorsements Is a universal social protection for all possible? Francine Mestrum has been, for many years, at the forefront of international mobilisations of civil society in favour of effective forms of a universal social protection for all. Her book shows that what is at stake is the question of whether we want change, because change is indeed possible. — Riccardo Petrella, Professor Emeritus, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium Now, more than ever, activists, progressive researchers and policy-makers need not only the arguments against neoliberalism, they need the tools to articulate alternatives. In this inspiring book Francine Mestrum sets out a framework based on local and global struggles that transforms social protection into an argument for the social commons based on the solidarity of the common good. — Fiona Williams, Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, University of Leeds, United Kingdom This book is timely. And it faces up powerfully to current challenges. The incredible accumulation of wealth in the world has resulted in an explosion of inequalities, exclusions, insecurities, discrimination, poverty. Francine Mestrum was one of first to offer a strategic response – that of universal social protection based on fundamental rights. She has now deepened her approach with the idea of the social commons, which defines an alternative to neoliberal globalisation. — Gustave Massiah, former President, Centre de recherche et d’information sur le développement (CRID), France Francine Mestrum is a researcher and activist working on social development, poverty and inequalities, globalisation and European policies. She worked at the universities of Brussels (ULB – Université Libre de Bruxelles), Antwerp and Ghent (Belgium) and at the institutions of the European Union. She has published several books on her research topics in Dutch, French and English. She lives in Brussels and Mexico City. She is a member of the board of Centre Tricontinental (CETRI), which she represents in the International Council of the World Social Forum. She coordinates the global network of Global Social Justice (www.globalsocialjustice.eu). For more information on social commons, see www.socialcommons.eu 4 Contents List of Abbreviations and Acronyms 8 Preface 10 Introduction: On the Sustainability of Life 13 Beyond Modernity 15 The Commons 17 Interlinkages 19 Democracy and the State 21 Poverty, Inequality and Labour 22 What Then? 25 Words, Words, Words … What Are We Talking About? 28 Part I The Problems 30 1 Poverty 31 What Is Poverty? 32 The Game of Numbers 35 New Strategies 38 2 Inequality 42 A Cautious Shift in Thinking 45 Ideological Differences 48 Income or Opportunity? 50 Why Should Inequality Be Back on the Agenda? 51 3 Labour 55 More Work, Less Rights 57 Less Income, Less Demand 59 Decent Work and Wages 61 From Precariousness to a New Internationalism? 62 5 Part II The Need for Change 67 4 The Basic Income and the Social Protection Floor 68 Post-development, Basic Income and Buen Vivir 70 Basic Income and Labour Markets 74 Buen Vivir 79 New Proposals for Social Protection 80 The World Bank, ILO and ECLAC 83 A Paradigmatic Shift 86 5 Redefining Social Protection 88 The Limits of Welfare States 91 The Failing Theoretical Base 94 What Then Are We Looking For? 100 Social Protection and Human Rights 102 Part III The Solutions 108 6 The Social Commons 109 Defining the Social Commons 115 The Sustainability of Life 119 Changing the Economy 122 The Sustainability of Nature 130 Social Justice and Climate Justice 131 A Shared Interest 133 7 In the Periphery of the Social Commons 136 An Enabling Environment 138 Do Not Demand What Has Already Been Given 141 Tax Justice 142 Tax Havens 144 Innovative Resources 146 A Global Agenda 147 Global Solidarity 151 6 What To do? 154 8 Twenty Ideas for Social Change 155 Conclusion 168 The Common Good of Humanity 172 Banning Poverty 174 Bibliography 177 7 Abbreviations and Acronyms AIDS acquired immunodeficiency syndrome BancoSur Banco del Sur [Bank of the South] BRIC Brazil, Russia, India and China CEO chief executive officer CGD Center for Global Development CTT currency transaction tax ECLAC Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (United Nations) EU European Union FTT financial transaction tax G20 Group of Twenty GDP gross domestic product GFI Global Financial Integrity HIV human immunodeficiency virus HNWI high-net-worth individual ICIJ International Consortium of Investigative Journalists IDS Institute of Development Studies ILO International Labour Organisation IMF International Monetary Fund IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change LuxLeaks Luxembourg Leaks MDG millennium development goals NGO non-governmental organisation ODA official development assistance OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development P2P peer-to-peer PPP purchasing power parity REDD reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development SDG sustainable development goals SPF social protection floor 8 SSE social and solidarity economy Sucre Sistema Único de Compensación Regional [Unified System for Regional Compensation] UN United Nations UNDP United Nations Development Programme Unicef United Nations Children’s Fund UNRISD United Nations Research Institute for Social Development WTO World Trade Organisation 9 Preface The existence of poverty in the first city of the nation fifty years after the great Mexican revolution raises serious questions about the extent to which the Revolution has achieved its social objectives. Judging from the Sanchez family, their friends, neighbours and relatives, the essential promise of the Revolution has yet to be fulfilled. This assertion is made in the full knowledge of the impressive and far-reaching changes which have been brought about by the Mexican revolution – the transformation of a semi-feudal economy, the distribution of land to the peasants, the emancipation of the Indian, the strengthening of labor’s position, the spread of public education, the nationalisation of oil and the railroads, and the emergence of a new middle class. Since 1940 the economy has been expanding and the country has become acutely production conscious. Leading newspapers report daily in their headlines record-breaking achievements in agriculture and industry and proudly announce huge gold reserves in the national treasury. A boom spirit has been created which is reminiscent of the great expansion in the United States at the turn of the century. Despite the increased production and the apparent prosperity, the uneven distribution of the growing national wealth has made the disparity between the incomes of the rich and the poor more striking than ever before. And despite some rise in the standard of living for the general population, in 1955 over 60 % of the population were still ill fed, ill housed, and ill clothed, 40 % were illiterate, and 46 % of the nation’s children were not going to school. A chronic inflation since 1940 has squeezed the real income of the poor, and the cost of living for workers in Mexico City has risen over five times since 1939.… It is common knowledge that the Mexican economy cannot give jobs to all of its people. From 1942 to 1955 about a million and a half Mexicans came to the US as braceros or temporary agricultural labourers and this figure does not include ‘wetbacks’ or other illegal immigrants. Were the US suddenly to close its borders to the braceros, a major crisis would probably occur in Mexico. Oscar Lewis, The Children of Sanchez The Children of Sanchez is a brilliantly realised anthropological study of a poor Mexican family, written by Oscar Lewis in the 1950s and published in 1961. In 1964 it was translated into Spanish and published in Mexico, almost exactly 50 years ago. The reactions were all but positive. There was outrage because poor people spoke openly about their daily lives, about their joys and their pains, about their loves and their sexuality. But most of all because it was a US scholar, a foreigner, who spoke about the 10 existence of dire poverty in the capital city of this then ‘emerging’ country. This was unacceptable! I have chosen this book to accompany my reasoning on social protection and social commons because I worked in Mexico City in the winter of 2014/2015. It is amazing how many situations described in Lewis’s book remain exactly the same today, the poverty as well as the ‘emerging’ nature of the Mexican economy and democracy. But most of all, I guess that all the problems described by Jesus, the father of four (official) children (Manuel, Roberto, Consuelo and Marta), are typical problems of poor people, wherever they live, from Latin America to Asia and to Africa. The ‘culture’ of poverty, a way of life developed as a consequence of unmet needs and deprivations, the frustrated aspirations, but also the hopes and joys of a life with little dignity, will be recognised by poor people all over the world. * * * Two years ago I published an e-book, Rethinking Social Protection. It was ‘work in progress’, the first expression of my thoughts about the need for better protection for people in times of crisis. Since then many things have happened. In western Europe a lively debate is going on about the basic income, an idea I do not share though I have taken its most interesting elements into my concept of social commons; in Asia a strong demand for a state-driven social protection is being expressed; in Africa the debate is very timidly starting; and in Latin America, where structural adjustment in the 1980s caused havoc in social policies, most attention goes to the ecological question. Social expenditures have gone up in the past decade, though mainly for the poor.
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