Political divisions and divided economiesValues in the governance of nations have become misaligned. Concepts of "Left" and "Right" have become confused. Some who claim they are liberal have politically liberal (Left/open society) values but economically conservative (Right/capitalist) values on the other hand. Others have socially conservative as well as capitalist conservative values. Yet others who are anti-capitalist have socially liberal values. Who then is a true liberal?
Rather than debating the definitions of liberalism and Left and Right, let us focus on a core issue that is stirring up populism on both Left and Right, and threatening to destabilise political and economic Establishments in many countries. It is the increasing precarity of employment and incomes for the majority of people along with increasing wealth inequalities in societies. In policy circles, the "formal" sector does not respect, or understand, the "informal" sector where the majority of citizens, especially women, live and work. Common people in democracies everywhere are realising that their views are not being heard by people in charge of the governance of their nations and in international forums.
Women and workers of the world unitedThe G20 has assembled in India this year to develop a way for the world to become One Family with One Future. The G20 process which India is hosting provides an opportunity for the voices of women and workers of all countries to be combined and heard by the powers on top. This opportunity should not be missed.
I have explained the strategic need for this, and also outlined the agenda the G20 should unite to adopt, in my two recent columns in The Tribune. Links are here. For convenience, I am also reproducing both below.
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/what-numbers-dont-tell-493992
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/setting-the-g20-agenda-496207
WHAT NUMBERS DON'T TELL
Time has come for economists and policymakers to listen to the real people
India is hosting the G20 this year in the spirit of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: One Earth; One Family; One Future. India wants peace in the world. We want all the world’s citizens to live in harmony, and in harmony with the animals and the trees with whom we share our One Earth.
We have big questions to discuss about our economies and our societies. For Indians, one question is, how large will India’s economy become? Five trillion dollars, ten trillion dollars, and when? The second, for all citizens of the world, is: What kind of society do we want to live in?
Human beings connect with the economy with the work they do. We must reflect on what sort of work human beings do and how their work is valued in the economy on one hand, and in society on the other. We must honor those whose work has nurtured us throughout our history. Because if we will not value their work any longer, we will not survive much longer. In the economy, the only work that is considered valuable is work done to earn money. Because its value can be measured and added to the GDP.
Ever since human beings came to live on the Earth, our mothers have worked to bring us into the world. They have worked to nurture us without being paid to do it. They have done this work because it was natural for them, and it fulfilled them too. The work of mothers and caregivers brings goodness to society, even though it adds nothing to GDP measured in money terms.
For centuries, farmers working with their own hands have grown the food that has fed us. For centuries too, masons using their skills have built the homes we live in. They have also built the magnificent monuments that we to show off to the world with pride in who we are. While we do not pay mothers for the work they do, we do pay farmers for the food they grow, and we also pay workers for what they build. But how much monetary value do we attach to their work? How is the price of their work fixed?
Prices of the work done by farmers’ and workers is fixed in the trade between them and those who buy their produce. One side has its labor, skills, and time to give. The other side has money to pay. Money can be stored in a vault: those who have money can wait for a better time to pay. Those who work cannot wait to be paid: their work does not have a shelf life. In an economy, the bargaining power of those who control the money is always greater. Laborers must be paid before their sweat dries. And farmers must be paid before their produce rots.
The real difference between a “capitalist” country and a “socialist” country is not whether the government or private sector runs the country’s economic enterprises. The difference is in how much human beings are valued in the economy, and how much respect they are given. The time has come to bring back the spirit of family into the economy to make the world feel more like one family in the spirit of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: One World, One Family.
I will pose two questions to all economists, whether they consider themselves as capitalists or socialists. The first is about the value economists attach to the work women perform in society. There is a world-wide drive to get more women into the workforce. Economists say too few women in India are working for money. If many more did, the economy would grow much faster, they say. They seem to forget that hundreds of millions of Indian women go out of their homes to work and earn every day—as women farmers, as wage laborers, as domestic workers, care givers, sanitation workers, etc. Their work is not given much value in the economy. And because they don’t earn as much money as men do, they are not respected as much as men. Economists would much rather that these women were employed in formal enterprises where they would learn to do the work that men do.
Which leads me to my second question. Capitalists do not value human beings much. They would much rather replace humans with automated machines who do not form unions to demand higher wages. Technology is advancing rapidly. Machines can now do almost everything that human hands were required for. Artificial intelligence is even replacing the need for human minds in enterprises. Therefore, employment of humans in formal enterprises is reducing, even in wealthy countries. The question is, how many of the masses of Indian youth and Indian women—the largest workforce in the world—can be employed in formal enterprises in future?
In capitalist economics, Nature is only a source of inputs for capitalist production machines. Humans are only a resource for capital to produce more capital. With technological advancement capital does not need human beings for production. It needs them only as consumers to buy what machines will produce. The problem is, where will human beings get the money to pay for what they consume, if they are not earning somehow, nor earning enough?
Economists see people as numbers in their statistical equations. Economists with socialist mind-sets and economists with capitalist mind-sets debate each other with their numbers, of how many people are poor, and how many people are employed. Economists try to influence policies with their numbers. The time has come for all economists, and policy makers too, to listen to the real people. They must hear the voices of those they consider less important merely because they do not have as much money as others, and who they consider less wise because they are poor.
There are many communities who are concerned about their future well-being in the economy and in society. These include women, youth, farmers, factory workers, self-employed workers, and tiny enterprises. They must come together, regardless of their party affiliations. Their voices must be heard, and they must be listened to now.
SETTING THE G20 AGENDA
The Tide must Turn to bring more Equity into Economies
Workers of the world have been invited by the G20 governments to form a Labor 20 (L20) engagement group to give their recommendations about what G20 governments should do to make the world better for workers everywhere. The Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh, India’s largest union for formal sector workers, has been commissioned by the Indian government to convene this group this year and give recommendations to the G20. It should not waste this opportunity.
Workers should not have high expectations from the formal agreements of the G20. The G20 may not be capable of following through its own pronouncements. The G20 (an expansion of the G7), was set up primarily to stabilize global financial systems with the financial crisis in 2007/8. Though able to do that much before, global financial systems are now breaking up with the US-led G7 wanting to isolate Russia and China.
India is leading the G20 this year. India’s agenda is to move the world towards Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam—one Earth, one Family, one Future. India is asking the G7, who represent less than 10% of the world’s population, to focus on the needs of the remaining 90%, who are suffering from climate change, increasing inequalities, precarity of jobs and incomes, and now suffering further with the US financial and trade sanctions.
India’s leadership provides the poorer 90% of the world’s citizens an opportunity to combine their voices to be heard by the wealthiest 10%. Insecurity of employment and inadequacy of social security have become problems in India, other developing countries, and even in G7 countries. The ease of capital to roam the world has been the thrust of global financial and trade policies since the 1990s, with the “ease of doing business” becoming a measure of the quality of all countries’ economic policies. Meanwhile, the ease of labor to move between countries has become harder (witness the anti-migration measures adopted by the G7). Also “ease of living” of the majority of the world’s citizens, which some economists and civil society organizations have advocated, is even considered a “socialist” idea which interferes with the flow of “capitalism”.
Though not much will be achieved by only complying with the official process, which of course the convenors of the L20 must, India’s G20 moment can be an opportunity for the workers, women, and youth of the world to unite their voices and be heard. They must be strategic about what they will use this opportunity for.
Firstly, large unions representing organized sector workers, must step outside their own walls and build a collective movement by including many representatives of the unorganized sector, where 90% of India’s workers (and the majority in other developing countries too) earn and live.
Secondly, the L20 must ally its agenda closely with the Women 20 (W20). The ILO has celebrated its centenary recently with a multi-year study of the Future of Work. Formal jobs even within the formal sector are become fewer even in industrial countries. With new technologies and new patterns of organization, work patterns are changing. They are becoming more informal, more intermittent, and allowing people to work from home which many citizens prefer. Work such as caregiving, nursing, teaching, organic farming, and community work—work women have traditionally done, whether they are paid or not—will now form a larger part of the work societies need: whereas work in large establishments in the manufacturing and service sectors will be done more by machines.
Women’s work is not valued in modern economies: hence the urge of economists to move women into the formal workforce to add to GDP. The formal sector will not provide sufficient opportunities for youth in the future—whether women or men. Therefore, policy attention must be shifted to make work in the informal sector, much of which is done by women, more secure, more dignified, and more valued.
L20 and W20, along with Youth 20 (Y20), must make only a few demands from policymakers everywhere, and those too in simple terms uncluttered with academic jargon. Nor should their voices be lost in the static of statistics and long lists of wishes.
One clear demand must be to provide social security for all citizens, principally those in the informal sector, whether they are employed or not, because, with the precarity of new employment patterns, many more citizens will not have secure employment in future.
The second must be to value the kind of work women do outside large formal establishments, more of which will be required by society in future. Such work must be given equal respect and provided equitable compensation with the work that men usually do. While formal sector employers must provide leave and support to their employees for family care, more of the “work for pay” in the economy should be designed around patterns of family and community life.
The third is to enable, not discourage, workers from forming associations and unions. They must have the means to be collectively heard, otherwise their scattered voices are drowned by demands for more freedom for business to do only business. The tide for capital and against labor must turn to bring more equity into economies. Otherwise, problems of precarity of incomes in farm, factory and service sectors, which have become hot political issues, will not be solved. They will continue to fuel populist movements from both the Right and Left sides of the political spectrum everywhere.
The paradigm of economic policies must change. In the present paradigm, Nature provides resources to feed an economic machine. In the new paradigm, Nature must be respected as the mother of all life. In the current paradigm, families and communities are being deformed to make the economy more efficient. In the new paradigm, forms of economic enterprises must be reformed to strengthen family values and build social solidarity. In the prevalent paradigm, youth and women have become fodder for the economic machine to create more wealth for investors and more GDP. In the new paradigm, the economy must be reformed to create a harmonious and happier society. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.