Today the UK is expecting one of the harshest Budget’s for 30 years. As per normal the UK press manage to capture leaks, hints and tips or are they leaks (!) of what we are to expect.

The current UK coalition government may claim that the deficit is a result of the past regime.
The past regime quite rightly suggest that it is a global issue.

Lets just take a look at the latter. From the outset it appears that freedom of banks to gamble has now lead to the public paying the price.

I look at the economy from a different perspective. Although capitalism can fuel opportunities it has a dark side, one of greed and as Wall Street the movie put it, ‘Greed is good’ and ‘Lunch is for wimps’!

The model to squeeze the worker to support the power of the multinational is based on personal survival.
i.e: The beast wants more and if you feed it, you too can eat some of the pie and live.

We seemed to have missed something. Economics based on helping each other.
We are bred to be immune to the suffering of others. We all know people are dying of malnutrition.
We and I am guilty if this this, will buy the latest gadget but simply express shock when we realise how little the component assembler is being paid or treated. We hope that the manufacturer will influence the factory but on many occasions they don’t or can’t get close enough to the internal abuse. By then it can be too late. In the same way people will rush to buy cheap cloths and will forget that child labour made in a backdrop of underground/Mafia, ungoverned operations and non-policed middle men. Corporate responsibility is played a simple lip service to as it is left to unaudited processes.

The following list shows some of the reasons for poverty. Why can’t our politicians and economists develop strategies that involve global sharing initiative initiatives to tackle each and more of them?

• State discrimination corruption and abuse of public power.
• Lack of social integration. Competition instead of cooperation.
• Crime.
• Substance abuse
• Procrastination
• Climate or environmental factors and abuse of the dumping of recycling waste.
  
• Historical factors, e.g: with origins from imperialism and colonialism.
• Population growth
  
• War, genocide and bullying
• Lack of education and skill development
• Excessive materialism

If we based an economy on developing other nations then collectively we will benefit. If we can see that they (for example, a developing nation) need the building of infrastructure, then together we can trade and harmonise the world. Economics driven on equality not on class, caste or race distinction. One way to expose and help on a community level is to twin schools, enterprises, medical support and food provision.

The obsession with squeezing people in richer countries could impact development projects as they could claim they have less of their own money to share with others. Instead, we should set-up global development funds for those living in richer countries to invest in.

We need economists with imagination not politicians claiming and repeating the policies of the past will work. We all know they don’t and we let them (the politicians) continue on a decade-on-decade of the cycle of boom and bust – yet for some people its doom and dust for all of their lives…

Categories: 2010, Anti-Poverty, Corporate Responsibility, Featured Articles, Futures