Africa

Mali begin their Africa Cup of Nations 2023 campaign with a 2-0 win over South Africa as Percy Tau misses a first-half penalty for Bafana Bafana.

There are fears that a famine is looming in the drought-hit and war-scarred Ethiopian region.

Credit: Mike Segar/Reuters via Gallo Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jan 16 2024 (IPS)

Iran’s time of public rebellion has ended. The protesters marching, chanting, and dancing under the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ banner have long stopped. And shifting regional dynamics may play to the regime’s favour.

Protest wave repressed

The wave of protest against the theocratic regime started on 16 September 2022 and lasted far longer than anyone could have predicted. But by the one-year mark it had all but died down, its unprecedented scale and reach superseded by the unparalleled brutality of the crackdown.

The regime murdered hundreds of protesters, injured thousands and arrested tens of thousands. It subjected many to torture, sexual abuse and denial of medical treatment while in detention.

It weaponised the criminal justice system, holding express trials behind closed doors in ‘revolutionary courts’ presided over by clerics, with zero procedural guarantees. It sentenced hundreds – including journalists – to years in jail and handed out several death sentences. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, some of the human rights violations committed by the regime could constitute crimes against humanity.

Shortly after the first anniversary of the protests, on 6 October, it was announced that the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to Narges Mohammadi, an imprisoned Iranian woman activist with 20 years of struggle for democracy, human rights and women’s rights under her belt. Over the years, she’d been arrested 13 times, sentenced to 31 years in prison and 154 lashes, and been in prison three times. She received the news behind bars.

Ahead of the anniversary, afraid of protests returning, the theocratic regime put back on the streets the morality police whose intervention had resulted in Mahsa Amini’s death. Conservatives proposed a new ‘hijab and chastity’ law that would impose a stricter dress code and harsher penalties for violations.

The reinforcement of morality rules soon claimed its next victim. On 1 October, high school student Armita Garawand was left unconscious, reportedly assaulted by a hijab enforcer for not wearing a headscarf. She remained in a coma for several weeks before dying on 28 October. At her funeral mourners were assaulted and dozens were arrested, including well-known human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.

Succession

Battered but unbeaten, the Iranian regime views upcoming legislative elections as part of its road to recovery. On 1 March, people will be called on to vote for all 290 members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. The key battle will be over turnout, which was already down to 42 per cent in 2020 – the lowest since the 1979 revolution. That record could be shattered, as opposition and reformists call for abstention or boycott.

Along with parliamentary elections, in March Iran will hold elections for the Council of Experts, the body of clerics that appoints Iran’s Supreme Leader. The Council has recently faced criticism for its lax oversight of 84-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s performance, and might have to step in relatively soon.

In power since 1989, Khamenei is in a race against the clock. Bent on ensuring that the theocracy he largely built stands strong after he’s gone, he’s preparing his 54-year-old second son to succeed him. But the ongoing economic crisis may conspire against his plans. The cumulative impacts of international sanctions, fluctuating oil prices, mismanagement and rampant corruption have fuelled inflation and unemployment, and discontent runs high.

To prevent accumulated grievances from translating into mass protest, the regime will likely try to tread a fine line between displaying indestructible power and offering minor concessions.

Regional balance shifts

When the protests erupted international support poured in. People around the world showed solidarity with Iranian women and called on their governments to act. Early on, the USA imposed sanctions on the morality police and several senior leaders of the force and other security agencies. New sanctions by the European Union, UK and USA were announced on the eve of the anniversary of the protests.

On International Women’s Day in 2023, a group of Afghan and Iranian women launched the End Gender Apartheid campaign, which seeks recognition and condemnation of the two regimes as based on gender apartheid. They want the 1973 UN Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, which so far applies only to racial hierarchies, extended to gender. The campaign wants this specific and extreme form of exclusion to be codified as a crime under international law so those responsible can be prosecuted and punished.

There was hope that such moves would foster action to hold those responsible to account. Civil society called for the creation of a dedicated accountability mechanism to work alongside the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran.

But on 7 October, as Armita lay in a coma, the paramilitary wings of Hamas launched their attacks into Israeli territory, and global attention shifted to this outrage and Israel’s murderous campaign of revenge. As a key source of support for Hamas, Iran was far from out of the spotlight – but condemnation of theocracy and gender apartheid now took a back seat to geopolitical considerations.

Khamenei publicly stated that Iran wasn’t involved in the 7 October attacks, and although he reiterated Iran’s political and moral support for Hamas, he reportedly told Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh that Iran wouldn’t directly intervene unless it was attacked by Israel or the USA. But Iran’s leadership of the anti-Israeli and anti-western ‘Axis of Resistance’ and the key role it can play in either expanding or limiting the scope of the conflict means it will be included in any attempt to redefine the regional order, and could well emerge stronger.

Amid the chaos and in the search for security, the international community might be increasingly willing to look the other way. Iran’s search for international respectability saw a milestone in November, when it took advantage of other states’ lack of interest to claim the chair of the UN Human Rights Council’s Social Forum. The result was a largely empty room – but it remains the case that Iran succeeded in occupying institutional space to whitewash its blood-soaked image.

This mustn’t be allowed to happen. Iranian women mustn’t be left to their own devices. Iranian pro-democracy and human rights activists, both inside and outside Iran, need the support of the international community if they’re to have any chance.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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By Kristalina Georgieva
WASHINGTON DC, Jan 16 2024 (IPS)

We are on the brink of a technological revolution that could jumpstart productivity, boost global growth and raise incomes around the world. Yet it could also replace jobs and deepen inequality.

The rapid advance of artificial intelligence has captivated the world, causing both excitement and alarm, and raising important questions about its potential impact on the global economy.

The net effect is difficult to foresee, as AI will ripple through economies in complex ways. What we can say with some confidence is that we will need to come up with a set of policies to safely leverage the vast potential of AI for the benefit of humanity.

Reshaping the Nature of Work

In a new analysis, IMF staff examine the potential impact of AI on the global labor market. Many studies have predicted the likelihood that jobs will be replaced by AI. Yet we know that in many cases AI is likely to complement human work. The IMF analysis captures both these forces.

Kristalina Georgieva

The findings are striking: almost 40 percent of global employment is exposed to AI. Historically, automation and information technology have tended to affect routine tasks, but one of the things that sets AI apart is its ability to impact high-skilled jobs. As a result, advanced economies face greater risks from AI—but also more opportunities to leverage its benefits—compared with emerging market and developing economies.

In advanced economies, about 60 percent of jobs may be impacted by AI. Roughly half the exposed jobs may benefit from AI integration, enhancing productivity. For the other half, AI applications may execute key tasks currently performed by humans, which could lower labor demand, leading to lower wages and reduced hiring. In the most extreme cases, some of these jobs may disappear.

In emerging markets and low-income countries, by contrast, AI exposure is expected to be 40 percent and 26 percent, respectively. These findings suggest emerging market and developing economies face fewer immediate disruptions from AI.

At the same time, many of these countries don’t have the infrastructure or skilled workforces to harness the benefits of AI, raising the risk that over time the technology could worsen inequality among nations.

AI could also affect income and wealth inequality within countries. We may see polarization within income brackets, with workers who can harness AI seeing an increase in their productivity and wages—and those who cannot falling behind.

Research shows that AI can help less experienced workers enhance their productivity more quickly. Younger workers may find it easier to exploit opportunities, while older workers could struggle to adapt.

The effect on labor income will largely depend on the extent to which AI will complement high-income workers. If AI significantly complements higher-income workers, it may lead to a disproportionate increase in their labor income. Moreover, gains in productivity from firms that adopt AI will likely boost capital returns, which may also favor high earners. Both of these phenomena could exacerbate inequality.

In most scenarios, AI will likely worsen overall inequality, a troubling trend that policymakers must proactively address to prevent the technology from further stoking social tensions. It is crucial for countries to establish comprehensive social safety nets and offer retraining programs for vulnerable workers. In doing so, we can make the AI transition more inclusive, protecting livelihoods and curbing inequality.

An Inclusive AI-Driven World

AI is being integrated into businesses around the world at remarkable speed, underscoring the need for policymakers to act. To help countries craft the right policies, the IMF has developed an AI Preparedness Index that measures readiness in areas such as digital infrastructure, human-capital and labor-market policies, innovation and economic integration, and regulation and ethics.

The human-capital and labor-market policies component, for example, evaluates elements such as years of schooling and job-market mobility, as well as the proportion of the population covered by social safety nets. The regulation and ethics component assesses the adaptability to digital business models of a country’s legal framework and the presence of strong governance for effective enforcement.

Using the index, IMF staff assessed the readiness of 125 countries. The findings reveal that wealthier economies, including advanced and some emerging market economies, tend to be better equipped for AI adoption than low-income countries, though there is considerable variation across countries.

Singapore, the United States and Denmark posted the highest scores on the index, based on their strong results in all four categories tracked.

Guided by the insights from the AI Preparedness Index, advanced economies should prioritize AI innovation and integration while developing robust regulatory frameworks. This approach will cultivate a safe and responsible AI environment, helping maintain public trust.

For emerging market and developing economies, the priority should be laying a strong foundation through investments in digital infrastructure and a digitally competent workforce.

The AI era is upon us, and it is still within our power to ensure it brings prosperity for all.

Kristalina Georgieva is a Bulgarian economist serving as the 12th managing director of the International Monetary Fund, since 2019.

— For more on artificial intelligence and the economy, see the December issue of Finance & Development, the IMF’s quarterly magazine.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Gender inclusion remains an important non-technological innovative measure enhancing export performance. Women in developing countries such as Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka have long been involved in the agriculture and textile sector. Credit: Obaidul Arif/IPS

By Quratulain Fatima
ISLAMABAD, Jan 15 2024 (IPS)

The World Economic Forum is hosting world leaders in Davos from January 15-19 2024. One of the key themes for the forum this year is “Creating Growth and Jobs for a New Era” with a focus on creating economic gender parity.

The World Economic Forum states that “The potential gains from closing economic gender gaps could unlock a “gender dividend” of $172 trillion for the global economy while closing the gender investment gap could add $3 trillion to assets under management in the US alone.”  World Trade Organization (WTO) estimates that eliminating gender discrimination would lead to a 40% increase in productivity.

The potential gains from closing economic gender gaps could unlock a “gender dividend” of $172 trillion for the global economy while closing the gender investment gap could add $3 trillion to assets under management in the US alone.”  The World Trade Organization estimates that eliminating gender discrimination would lead to a 40% increase in productivity

Trade has remained a significant contributor towards increasing the economic stature of countries. Historically the trade has been observed through the gender neutral lens by practitioners and researchers.

However, in recent times, trade and gender links have been explored and efforts have been made to strengthen by international organizations including the World Economic Forum, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development,  International Labor Organization (ILO), International Finance Corporation, and World Bank among others.

Trade openness has been shown to have a positive impact on employment, wages, and very importantly the overall export performance of the country. Several studies have shown that both technological and non-technological innovations improve a country’s export performance. Gender inclusion remains an important non-technological innovative measure enhancing export performance.

Women in developing countries such as Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka have long been involved in the agriculture and textile sector.

Recently women’s participation in the ICT and service industry has also gained momentum in developing countries. It is, however, important to note that South Asia remains second lowest at 63.4% out of eight regions at the gender parity index 2023. Although its position improved by 1.1 percent from the year 2022 attributed to rising scores in countries like Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh; there is much to be done.

Women entrepreneurs are a very small portion of the export profile for developing countries. In a country like the United States that remains Pakistan’s biggest trade partner in textiles and related goods share of women exporters from Pakistan is minimal.

Trade development authority in Pakistan and Trade promotion bodies in developing countries have focused on improving women entrepreneurs’ participation in international trade through training and resources.

However, women’s participation in the trade shows even in the traditionally established Textile and Apparel sector that provide major access to industry buyers in the USA remains negligible for countries like Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh; all of which are very well established and reputed in the USA market hence lowered entry barriers for women.

Less visibility of women entrepreneurs in the export sectors especially for developing countries tied to the fact that women and men have unequal access to education, productive resources, transport, networks, and other resources that impact economic activity.

This in turn affects women’s ability to capture trade-related opportunities. General trade barriers such as deficient infrastructure and tiresome regulatory and documentation requirements also impact women more than men.

Evidence also suggests that women entrepreneurs are concentrated in relatively less profitable sectors and even in profitable sectors they lag behind men-owned businesses.

Women-led businesses also lack resources to expand into international markets and when they do they have relatively smaller trade volumes and higher trade costs making businesses less able to sustain losses in the short term. This chain translates into limited mobility to trade and has been one of the reasons that woman-led businesses got impacted worse during post COVID-19 crisis.

Several steps can be taken at the domestic and international markets to help women entrepreneurs reach their maximum potential in exportable sectors in trade.

Gender provisions in the trade policy and trade agreements are one of the most important steps. The WTO Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic 2017 endorsed by 127 countries is seen as important towards women’s economic participation in the economies and international trade.

Some regional and bilateral trade agreements like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and USMCA (United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement) are now actively adding gender language and provisions. Canada has been a pioneer in including gender chapters in its trade agreements, such as the one with the European Union (CETA) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

These chapters typically address topics like equal access to economic opportunities, fair treatment in the workplace, and support for women entrepreneurs. These examples can be emulated widely in bilateral and multilateral trade agreements further translating into gender provisions in the trade policy at the local level.

Enhancing the role of women in export sectors where women’s presence is already established can be very helpful. In the case of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India, women are involved in farming and livestock management.

Facilitations for easy access to training, credit, and improved participation opportunities in agricultural extension services can encourage women’s participation in international trade. Both financial institutions and the private sector should be engaged in this agenda. Private –Public partnerships to ensure investment in export-oriented sectors to strengthen women-led small and medium-sized businesses need prioritization.

Women who have access to technology are more likely to participate in international trade. Access to technology gives women the opportunity to sidestep issues of restriction of mobility and overcome cultural barriers while providing equal opportunities to connect with consumers and buyers of their businesses. Studies have shown that access to phones and the Internet has improved incomes and economic opportunities for women in Pakistan, India, Bolivia, Egypt, and Kenya among others.

Country trade missions at embassies and consulates abroad must ensure that women are included in awareness webinars/ seminars conducted by trade offices of their countries abroad. These trade offices are also central facilitation centers for connecting exporters with buyers and managing Trade show participation. Increasing participation in trade shows, trade delegations and awareness of the importing country regulations/requirements will enhance women exporters’ opportunities to find business abroad.

The world needs to pay more attention to women’s inclusion in trade. Trade has been shown not only to reduce the economy but also the gender gap. The world needs equitable and inclusive prosperity through gender-inclusive steps on the economic and social front alike.

 

Flight Lieutenant Quratulain Fatima is a policy practitioner currently working as a Trade Diplomat for Pakistan on the West Coast USA. She has extensively worked in rural and conflict-ridden areas of Pakistan with a focus on gender-inclusive development and conflict prevention. She is a 2018 Aspen New Voices Fellow. Follow her on Twitter, @moodee_q.

 

Members of the UN Security-Council gather for a meeting on the maintenance of international peace and security in the Red Sea. 10 January 2024. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías

By Norman Solomon
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Jan 15 2024 (IPS)

Have you heard the one about the U.S. government wanting a “rules-based international order”?

It’s grimly laughable, but the nation’s media outlets routinely take such claims seriously and credulously. Overall, the default assumption is that top officials in Washington are reluctant to go to war, and do so only as a last resort.

The framing was typical when the New York Times just printed this sentence at the top of the front page: “The United States and a handful of its allies on Thursday carried out military strikes against more than a dozen targets in Yemen controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, U.S. officials said, in an expansion of the war in the Middle East that the Biden administration had sought to avoid for three months.”

So, from the outset, the coverage portrayed the U.S.-led attack as a reluctant action — taken after exploring all peaceful options had failed — rather than an aggressive act in violation of international law.

On Thursday, President Biden issued a statement that sounded righteous enough, saying “these strikes are in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea.”

He did not mention that the Houthi attacks have been in response to Israel’s murderous siege of Gaza. In the words of CNN, they “could be intended to inflict economic pain on Israel’s allies in the hope they will pressure it to cease its bombardment of the enclave.”

In fact, as Common Dreams reported, Houthi forces “began launching missiles and drones toward Israel and attacking shipping traffic in the Red Sea in response to Israel’s Gaza onslaught.” And as Trita Parsi at the Quincy Institute pointed out, “the Houthis have declared that they will stop” attacking ships in the Red Sea “if Israel stops” its mass killing in Gaza.

But that would require genuine diplomacy — not the kind of solution that appeals to President Biden or Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The duo has been enmeshed for decades, with lofty rhetoric masking the tacit precept that might makes right. (The approach was implicit midway through 2002, when then-Senator Biden chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s hearings that promoted support for the U.S. to invade Iraq; at the time, Blinken was the committee’s chief of staff.)

Now, in charge of the State Department, Blinken is fond of touting the need for a “rules-based international order.” During a 2022 speech in Washington, he proclaimed the necessity “to manage relations between states, to prevent conflict, to uphold the rights of all people.” Two months ago, he declared that G7 nations were united for “a rules-based international order.”

But for more than three months, Blinken has provided a continuous stream of facile rhetoric to support the ongoing methodical killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Days ago, behind a podium at the U.S. Embassy in Israel, he defended that country despite abundant evidence of genocidal warfare, claiming that “the charge of genocide is meritless.”

The Houthis are avowedly in solidarity with Palestinian people, while the U.S. government continues to massively arm the Israeli military that is massacring civilians and systematically destroying Gaza.

Blinken is so immersed in Orwellian messaging that — several weeks into the slaughter — he tweeted that the United States and its G7 partners “stand united in our condemnation of Russia’s war in Ukraine, in support of Israel’s right to defend itself in accordance with international law, and in maintaining a rules-based international order.”

There’s nothing unusual about extreme doublethink being foisted on the public by the people running U.S. foreign policy. What they perpetrate is a good fit for the description of doublethink in George Orwell’s novel 1984: “To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it . . .”

After news broke about the attack on Yemen, a number of Democrats and Republicans in the House quickly spoke up against Biden’s end-run around Congress, flagrantly violating the Constitution by going to war on his own say-so.

Some of the comments were laudably clear, but perhaps none more so than a statement by candidate Joe Biden on Jan. 6, 2020: “A president should never take this nation to war without the informed consent of the American people.”

Like that disposable platitude, all the Orwellian nonsense coming from the top of the U.S. government about seeking a “rules-based international order” is nothing more than a brazen PR scam.

The vast quantity of official smoke-blowing now underway cannot hide the reality that the United States government is the most powerful and dangerous outlaw nation in the world.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of many books including War Made Easy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in 2023 by The New Press.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: Oxfam

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 15 2024 (IPS)

The world’s rich are getting progressively richer while the world’s poor continue to be increasingly poorer.

In a new report released January 15, Oxfam says the wealth of the world’s five richest men has doubled since 2020 –even as five billion people were made poorer in a “decade of division.”

The study, published to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, an annual gathering of mostly the world’s wealthiest and business elites, lists the top five billionaires: Elon Musk $245.5 billion, Bernard Arnault and family $191.3 billion, Jeff Bezos $167.4 billion, Larry Ellison $145.5 billion and Warren Buffett $119.2 billion— totaling about $869 billion in assets.

The fortunes of the five richest men have shot up by 114 percent since 2020 while the world’s poorest will not be eradicated for another 229 years, said Oxfam, a global organization that fights inequality to end poverty and injustice.

Oxfam predicts the world could have its first-ever trillionaire in just a decade while it would take more than two centuries to end poverty.

Asked about the status of women in a world of rising economic inequalities, Rebecca Riddell, policy lead for economic and racial justice at Oxfam America, told IPS: “Women pay the highest price for a broken global economy”.

Globally, she pointed out, men own US$105 trillion more wealth than women—equivalent to more than four times the size of the US economy—and women earn just 51 cents for every $1 made by men.

“Women are also especially harmed by the policies that fuel our inequality crisis, like tax breaks for the rich and cuts to public services,” said Riddell, one of the authors of the Oxfam report on inequality and global corporate power.

They carry out the vast majority of unpaid care work, which is vital to keeping our communities and economies afloat, and their labor is constantly undervalued in the workplace, she noted.

“We found it would take 1,200 years for women working in the health and social sector to earn what the average CEO at the biggest Fortune 100 companies makes in just one year,” declared Riddell.

Oxfam urges a new era of public action, including public services, corporate regulation, breaking up monopolies and enacting permanent wealth and excess profit taxes.

The study reveals that seven out of ten of the world’s biggest corporations have a billionaire as CEO or principal shareholder. These corporations are worth $10.2 trillion, equivalent to more than the combined GDPs of all countries in Africa and Latin America.

“We’re witnessing the beginnings of a decade of division, with billions of people shouldering the economic shockwaves of pandemic, inflation and war, while billionaires’ fortunes boom. This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else,” said Oxfam International interim Executive Director Amitabh Behar.

“Runaway corporate and monopoly power is an inequality-generating machine: through squeezing workers, dodging tax, privatizing the state, and spurring climate breakdown, corporations are funneling endless wealth to their ultra-rich owners. But they’re also funneling power, undermining our democracies and our rights. No corporation or individual should have this much power over our economies and our lives —to be clear, nobody should have a billion dollars,” he noted.

The study also singles out the following:

– Despite representing just 21 percent of the global population, rich countries in the Global North own 69 percent of global wealth and are home to 74 percent of the world’s billionaire wealth.
– Share ownership overwhelmingly benefits the richest. The top 1 percent own 43 percent of all global financial assets. They hold 48 percent of financial wealth in the Middle East, 50 percent in Asia and 47 percent in Europe.

Mirroring the fortunes of the super-rich, large firms are set to smash their annual profit records in 2023. 148 of the world’s biggest corporations together raked in $1.8 trillion in total net profits in the year to June 2023, a 52 percent jump compared to average net profits in 2018-2021.

Their windfall profits surged to nearly $700 billion. The report finds that for every $100 of profit made by 96 major corporations between July 2022 and June 2023, $82 was paid out to rich shareholders.

Bernard Arnault, the world’s second richest man who presides over luxury goods empire LVMH, has been fined by France‘s anti-trust body. He also owns France’s biggest media outlet, Les Échos, as well as Le Parisien.

Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person, holds a “near-monopoly” on cement in Nigeria. His empire’s expansion into oil has raised concerns about a new private monopoly.

Jeff Bezos’s fortune of $167.4 billion increased by $32.7 billion since the beginning of the decade. The US government has sued Amazon, the source of Bezos’ fortune, for wielding its “monopoly power” to hike prices, degrade service for shoppers and stifle competition.

“Monopolies harm innovation and crush workers and smaller businesses. The world hasn’t forgotten how pharma monopolies deprived millions of people of COVID-19 vaccines, creating a racist vaccine apartheid, while minting a new club of billionaires,” said Behar.

People worldwide are working harder and longer hours, often for poverty wages in precarious and unsafe jobs. The wages of nearly 800 million workers have failed to keep up with inflation and they have lost $1.5 trillion over the last two years, equivalent to nearly a month (25 days) of lost wages for each worker, according to Oxfam.

The report also shows how a “war on taxation” by corporations has seen the effective corporate tax rate fall by roughly a third in recent decades, while corporations have relentlessly privatized the public sector and segregated services like education and water.

“We have the evidence. We know the history. Public power can rein in runaway corporate power and inequality —shaping the market to be fairer and free from billionaire control. Governments must intervene to break up monopolies, empower workers, tax these massive corporate profits and, crucially, invest in a new era of public goods and services,” said Behar.

“Every corporation has a responsibility to act but very few are. Governments must step up. There is action that lawmakers can learn from, from US anti-monopoly government enforcers suing Amazon in a landmark case, to the European Commission wanting Google to break up its online advertising business, and Africa’s historic fight to reshape international tax rules.”

Oxfam is calling on governments to rapidly and radically reduce the gap between the super-rich and the rest of society by:

– Revitalizing the state. A dynamic and effective state is the best bulwark against extreme corporate power. Governments should ensure universal provision of healthcare and education, and explore publicly-delivered goods and public options in sectors from energy to transportation.
– Reining in corporate power, including by breaking up monopolies and democratizing patent rules. This also means legislating for living wages, capping CEO pay, and new taxes on the super-rich and corporations, including permanent wealth and excess profit taxes. Oxfam estimates that a wealth tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires could generate $1.8 trillion a year.
– Reinventing business. Competitive and profitable businesses don’t have to be shackled by shareholder greed. Democratically-owned businesses better equalize the proceeds of business. If just 10 percent of US businesses were employee-owned, this could double the wealth share of the poorest half of the US population, including doubling the average wealth of Black households.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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