Recently, the Paris-based World Inequality Lab released an important report, named Global Justice Report. The World Inequality Lab is a research group led by renowned economist Thomas Piketty. This report talks about dealing with two serious crises facing the world today – climate change and economic inequality. Climate change is a serious threat to our existence. The earth is getting warmer every year. The Earth’s temperature has increased by 1.5 degrees compared to before the Industrial Revolution. At the current pace of warming it may soon reach 3 degrees. In some areas the temperature may increase by 5 degrees or more. Then life will become very difficult in areas like Bihar and UP in India. To stop global warming, we will have to stop using fossil fuels and replace them with wind and solar energy. It is possible, but it will require large investments. Rich and poor countries are not able to agree on how its expenses should be divided. Another major crisis facing the world is the increasing economic inequality. A small section has become extremely rich and its wealth is increasing every year. About 3,000 people in the world have a net worth of more than a billion dollars. This is a huge amount – approximately Rs 10,000 crore. The wealth of the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, has exceeded trillion dollars. This is Rs 100 lakh crore. is equal to. Highly concentrated wealth is a threat to democracy. The super-rich influence the media, political parties, election results, and government policies. When they have control over government policies, they twist them to their advantage. They weaken environmental regulations to make profits from natural resources. This process is clearly visible in America. India is also moving in the same direction. The Global Justice Report offers a plan to avoid both crises – global warming and economic inequality. The core of this plan is a Global Justice Fund, which will be financed by a global wealth tax. Under this, every person with wealth more than 20 lakh dollars will have to pay wealth tax. It will start at 1% per annum and gradually increase to 20% for those whose wealth is more than $500 million. The Global Justice Fund will be used in such a way that all countries of the world can reach the new economic order by 2100. In this system, the per capita income of all the countries will be around the per capita income of today’s America. Working hours will be reduced to only three or four hours daily. There will be a huge expansion of education and health services. And with the help of energy transition, global warming will end. It is surprising that such a big change can be brought about by taxing the ultra-rich, who constitute less than 1% of the population. Many people will say that it is not possible to implement it politically. But if this plan is beneficial for 99% of the world’s population, why is it politically difficult to implement? The reason is, the remaining 1% are very influential. They will not allow the global wealth tax to be implemented. This is the state of democracy in today’s world. (These are the author’s own views)
Source link
Jean Drèze’s column: 1% solve the problems of 99% of the population "’Super-Rich’ Can Solve
