This post by Conrad Shaw  was originally published on opendemocracy.net

The benefits of financial security are obvious, so why doesn’t the idea of UBI enjoy more popular support?

If we took all of the income the United States makes in a year and divided it by the total number of Americans, then every woman, man, and child would be making over $50,000. That’s over $200,000 for a family of four.

If we wiped the slate clean and took all of the personal net wealth of the United States and divvied it up among every American with a heartbeat, each person would receive over $250,000 as a nest egg.

Let’s take a second to think about those numbers. Even though nearly 40 per cent of the country doesn’t work in paid employment and 46 per cent couldn’t come up with $400 if their life depended on it, the ‘average’ American apparently pulls in $55,000 a year and has a cool quarter-of-a-million Dollars in assets. The national poverty line is defined as just below $12,000 per year for an individual.

Does it surprise you to learn how much wealth there is in this country, or how rich the top one percent really are?

These facts should make it clear that we already have the resources to eradicate poverty if we want to. It wouldn’t require a revolution. It would only require an adjustment of our priorities in favor of a Universal Basic Income or UBI.

UBI is a serious solution that simply and elegantly delivers an economic floor of security to every person in society. As these figures show, we can easily afford it, so it should be a no-brainer on the basis of both logic and human decency.

Right now the UBI movement is exploding. It’s founded on the idea that everyone in a civilized society has an inalienable right to the basic necessities of life such as food and shelter and healthcare, and that the most effective way to guarantee those rights is through a regular cash stipend to each individual. In the US a good starting point for a full UBI would be around $12,000 a year for every adult, with a smaller amount provided for each child.

Beyond human decency, there are myriad other arguments to be made in favor of UBI: economic stimulus and sustainability, improved health outcomes, reduced crime, more community action, higher creativity, more self-fulfillment, more participation in politics, and more flexibility to spend time with and care for our children and loved ones when they need us.

Even Silicon Valley is pushing hard for it as a way to help people through the coming times of job displacement due to automation, since recent estimates forecast that we will lose up to half of our jobs to machines in the next 20 years. Basic income pilots are popping up all around the world, doing important research to test these claims and measure the efficacy of direct cash giving under a host of different scenarios.

But here’s the thing: the US has just witnessed a presidential election in which large numbers of voters rebelled against the technocrats and political elites on both sides of the aisle who have ruled America for decades. These voters felt ignored and decided to push back. What’s to say that UBI won’t be seen as another technocratic solution handed down by the same political class from Washington DC? If so, it would probably be doomed.

The UBI movement must avoid the establishment’s tendency to overestimate its own influence and take everyone else for granted, of valuing the support of billionaires and corporations above all else. Basic income is a policy of, by, and for the people, and to succeed it’s going to have to have the support of the great mass of those people, both Democrats and Republicans.

I care less about convincing another tech whiz kid CEO, veteran venture capitalist, or Nobel laureate economist to join the movement, and much more about bringing on board farmers in Missouri, displaced coal miners in West Virginia, and schoolteachers in Wisconsin. This is necessarily politics after all, not just economics and philosophy. To win a Universal Basic Income we must eventually pass legislation, and in order to do so people will have to stand up and demand it across the political divide.

So how do we handle the politics of UBI? My partner and I are filmmakers. Politics runs on storytelling, and we see film and visual media as the most powerful storytelling tool available today. So we’ve decided to make a film about UBI, a documentary film, but what kind of documentary?

It can’t just be for and about the experts and the reams of historical evidence; great research doesn’t rivet an audience. Statistics alone don’t capture hearts and minds or make an emotional connection that’s powerful enough to overcome the opposition. I’ll wager that every single one of the films you remember most vividly in your life, those that have had the most impact on you, have revolved around human stories, not talking heads and facts.

What’s more, they were likely not simple snapshots of people in interesting situations. They were rich character studies, following unexpected plot lines, and ultimately culminating in some kind of growth or change. An effective documentary about UBI must do the same.

And it also needs to honestly address the elephant in the room: some people’s fears about subsidizing laziness in others. While I expect a world with a Universal Basic Income would be freer and more productive—populated by more effective and intrinsically-motivated human beings—others might forecast a world of entitled do-nothings living off the work ethic of a noble few. If we want to prove them wrong we had better provide some evidence to back our claims.

This is the point of the trials that have already happened, or are underway or are coming soon around the world. But how much can a study of UBI in a rural Kenyan village or an already generous Scandinavian social support system offer to Americans? Even successful results in the trial that’s currently taking place in Oakland, California might not hold much water in making the case to a Montana rancher or a manufacturing worker from the Rust Belt.

So instead, what we’ve decided to do is to create a new basic income pilot program specifically for our film, crafted for the sole purpose of telling diverse American stories from all walks of life: a farmer, a student, an athlete, a new family, a manufacturing worker, a police officer, an artist, a teacher, a veteran and a retiree.

We want to know and show what all of them do with a floor of security to stand on. Each participant will receive a basic income of $1,000 per month for two years, and we’ll check in with them regularly, recording their achievements, failures, choices, and growth in their daily lives.

BOOTSTRAPS – proof of concept from deia schlosberg on Vimeo.

However, we aren’t billionaires or celebrities, and this film will boast no A-list stars. We’re artists and journalists, and so we need your help. While the big political movers and shakers would consider our $600,000 pilot budget miniscule, it’s an unachievable fortune for everyday Americans. So if you are invested in the idea of a brighter future through UBI please give a few dollars to the campaign to fund our pilot, and share this article widely.

As a former engineer, one of UBI’s greatest appeals for me has to do with human optimization. When people are operating through anxiety, they lose 10-15 IQ points. When they are worried about survival, they aren’t dreaming about what they can offer to the world. We are currently turning people into diminished versions of themselves through the systems that we’ve built, but it needn’t be that way.

We can invest in them and support them to bring their best selves to the challenges they face. If we expect people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, the least we can do is provide the boots and a solid floor to stand on. When everyone around us has that same fair footing, we’ll all stand taller together.

You can make a contribution to the Bootstraps campaign here.

Lead image: Flickr/Russell Shaw Higgs

The post Getting to the heart of Universal Basic Income appeared first on P2P Foundation.

All these and much much more make up the Sustainable Development Goals – the globally agreed wish list for saving the world and building a better future. If you haven’t heard of them, you’re not alone. Their public outreach leaves a bit to be desired. In any case, they make up the UN’s development agenda up until 2030.

In this post, I’m going to introduce you to what the SDGs are, what’s good about them, and my one problem with the SDGs that actually drives me crazy every time I think about it.

What are the SDGs

The Sustainable Development Goals (aka SDGs or Global Goals) follow on from where the Millennium Development Goals left off, in 2015. They will guide the development priorities for the UN and its agencies, the aid budgets of most wealthy nations and major development charities up until 2030, when it’ll be all change all over again. Here’s the full list:

• Goal 1  End poverty in all its forms everywhere
• Goal 2  End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
• Goal 3  Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
• Goal 4  Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
• Goal 5  Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
• Goal 6  Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
• Goal 7  Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
• Goal 8  Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
• Goal 9  Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
• Goal 10 Reduce inequality within and among countries
• Goal 11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
• Goal 12 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
• Goal 13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
• Goal 14 Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
• Goal 15 Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
• Goal 16 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
• Goal 17 Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

As you can see, they’re… Let’s call them ‘stretch targets’.

The SDGs. Image credit: Reedz Malik

Others more cynical than I have called them a utopian wishlist more suited to a letter to your fairy godmother than a serious policy statement, or words to that effect. But you know what they say about ambitious goals: even when you don’t hit them you still end up doing pretty well. And to be honest, aren’t these exactly the things we should be aspiring to?

What is amazing about the SDGs

Before I get on to my one glaring problem with the SDGs, I want to take a moment to consider what’s so good about them, particularly in comparison to the old Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

They apply to the whole world

.No country has locked down 100% of this stuff. The UK certainly hasn’t. These goals are for every country to work towards, and kisses goodbye to the patronising old development model of ‘developed’ countries that have apparently got it all worked out (yeah, right) and ‘developing’ ones who need help.

They’re holistic

.They cover a lot of ground because they understand that poverty and wellbeing are complex, multi-faceted and relate to a lot of different things at once. I like the way the goals are not split up into environmental, social, economic, but instead many of the goals cover all three aspects of sustainability. Goodbye silos.

They’re inclusive and collaborative

When the goals were being drafted, diplomats from each country got to contribute and they also engaged with charities, scientists and academics for their contributions. You may not have been consulted or even told about them until now, but compared to other high-level global policy, this was very inclusive.

My one problem with the SDGs

So the SDGs sound wonderful, right? They do. Really, they do, and overall I think they are a fantastic thing that will do a lot of good in the world. But there’s one problem that I think people should be aware of (and I want to get it off my chest).

One of the goals is liable to contradict the others. Yes there will always be trade-offs and that’s understandable, but in my opinion, one of these goals sticks out like a sore thumb because it just doesn’t fit.

Goal 8 calls for ‘decent work and economic growth’ and I take issue with it for several reasons.

What’s wrong with Goal 8?

Problem 1: it’s a means not an end

This may just be me, but I can’t stand it when you have a list of things and one doesn’t fit with the others. Like if you had a whole list of your favourite books and one of the list items is ‘Waterstones book token’. What the hell is this?! A book token isn’t a book, it’s just a way to get more books! Goal 8 is kind of like the book token here. It isn’t a goal in itself, it’s at best a means to reach other goals. As this article on postgrowth.org puts it: “Growth that is at best a means to reach certain welfare goals is redundant as a development goal in itself.”

Problem 2: Growth doesn’t necessarily benefit the poor

Problem 1 on its own would just be a grammatical pet peeve. What makes it problematic is that it isn’t even a very effective means to achieve the other goals. In fact sometimes it can do the opposite. The most important goal of all the SDGs is to eradicate extreme poverty. The thinking is obviously that economic growth helps with this – but that isn’t actually necessarily true. Of all the wealth produced by growth since 1990, the poorer 60% of the world population only received a pitiful 5% of it. And that’s not even the poorest, that’s over half of all humanity. The very poorest people who need it most got such a tiny sliver it’s almost nothing. Growth is a very inefficient way of helping the poor out of poverty because the vast majority of the wealth goes to the rich, a slice goes to the middle class and the poor just get some crumbs. So, Goal 8 could easily conflict with goals 10 (reduced inequality) and Goal 1 (no poverty).

Problem 3: Growth probably isn’t compatible with a safe climate

There’s no hard evidence that economic growth is compatible with the kind of emissions cuts we need to keep climate change to below 2 degrees. The only time global emissions went down is when we had the 2008 global crash and recession. People get all excited about decoupling when they see that the UK’s economy grew while our direct emissions went down, but that figure for direct emissions doesn’t include ‘embedded emissions’ in consumer goods, and it doesn’t include aeroplane flights or international shipping. We have seen that emissions can hold steady while growth rises, but we need emissions to go down, and fast, and we just don’t know that that can happen with growth. If not, then we need to prioritise climate action (Goal 13) rather than growth (Goal 8).

Problem 4: it shouldn’t be 2 in 1, it’s already an important goal

Unlike the others, goal 8 is a double whammy: decent work and economic growth. They obviously thought those were a natural pair, but they could easily be in conflict, as a company that abuses its workers could make more profit and so contribute more to economic growth. Well-paid workers contribute more to growth than poor ones, because they have more spending power, but healthy workers could contribute less to growth than sick and stressed ones because they won’t be paying for medicines and therapies. All this is because of what a strange and unhelpful metric GDP growth is. Decent work – good jobs that are useful and fulfilling with fair wages and rights – is already a very important goal. Why stick something else in there as well? The way it stands, Goal 8 could even come into conflict with… Goal 8.

Problem 5: it gives companies/governments a loophole to keep doing the same

As well as being unnecessary and counterproductive, the growth part of goal 8 also gives regressive companies and countries a loophole where they can say ‘we’re working on the SDGs!’ when they’re doing anything that will boost growth, even if it goes against the other goals. A study by Ethical Corp found that Goal 8 was in the top 3 of the SDGs that corporates are most keen to engage with. I recently saw a major brand boasting on their website that they were making progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 8. Like… Every other company out there.

The SDGs also sidestep deep systemic issues (but that’s understandable)

The Sustainable Development Goals were never going to be perfect. They have flaws because they are trying to make progress from within the capitalist system we have. They sidestep fundamental causes of poverty like structural readjustments, unfair debts, unfair trade deals, and of course the history of colonialism. They seek to bring the poor and ordinary up, but don’t dare to mention the elephant in the room: that the elite have too much. None of this is surprising and I don’t think the drafters of the SDGs or the UN can be blamed for that. They weren’t going for a radical political statement that would be divisive. They wanted to get everyone on board. Like sustainable development itself, it’s very hard for anyone to disagree with the SDGs as a whole. That means that as well as the UN, charities and governments, they have also had excellent buy-in from corporates, with the likes of Unilever, Coca Cola and H&M using them to inform their ‘corporate responsibility’ and sustainability work. 46% of corporate reps said their business would engage with the SDGs, according to a survey by Ethical Corp. Their engagement is worth a little watering down, given their immense scale.

Conclusion

The SDGs represent real progress. They give everyone across sectors a common language for sustainable development and gets everyone on the same page. They represent a clear roadmap on where we collectively want to go from here. The progress they aspire to can be best realised if we ignore growth and work on the things that matter – which are summed up perfectly with all the other goals.

Photo by Davezilla was taken

The post My one problem with the Sustainable Development Goals that drives me crazy appeared first on P2P Foundation.

In this light, the editorial below illustrates some of the many and diverse ways in which a call for sharing is being expressed, whether it’s by campaigners, activists, progressive economists, academics or anyone else. To learn more about STWR’s campaign, please visit: www.sharing.org/global-call

In January, the case for sharing the world’s wealth was given major prominence at the annual gathering of the super-rich in Davos. Although the issue of inequality was noticeably pushed down the agenda at this year’s event itself, Oxfam again made newspaper headlines with its latest review of statistics on the growing gap between rich and poor – showing that 1% of people now own more wealth than the other 99% combined. Their new report titled “An economy for the 1%” revealed how the global inequality crisis has reached new extremes, with the wealth of the richest 62 people growing by 45% in the past five years. Meanwhile, the wealth of the bottom half has dropped by 38% in the same period.

Whether or not there was a previous in time in history when so few people controlled so much wealth, one thing is for sure: any so-called recovery from the global financial crisis in 2008 has been overwhelmingly captured by the “Davos Class”, and hardly shared by the world’s majority poor.
According to Oxfam’s report, inequality is the result of “an economic system that is rigged to work in the interests of the powerful”, leading the anti-poverty charity to call on governments to commit to a number of common sense policies that can “end the economy for the 1%” and start building “a human economy that benefits everyone”. Above all, they call on world leaders to agree a global approach to end the era of tax havens. “This global system of tax avoidance is sucking the life out of welfare states in the rich world,” the report states. “It also denies poor countries the resources they need to tackle poverty, put children in school and prevent their citizens dying from easily curable diseases. … Far from trickling down, income and wealth are instead being sucked upwards at an alarming rate.”

Yet civil society demands for tax justice – meaning greater transparency, democratic oversight and redistribution of wealth in national and global tax systems – were delivered another blow following recent negotiations on corporate tax dodging at the European Union. The Anti-Tax Avoidance Package (ATAP) agreed by the European Commission at the end of January was widely denounced by progressive analysts, despite some previously high expectations. Far from making it harder for companies to dodge tax via tax havens, the Tax Justice Network reported that the new measures will do nothing to enhance the transparency or accountability of the EU’s tax rules. It may even add “fuel to the fire” by, in some cases, weakening member states’ own rules, or by the creation of major loopholes.

The EU has still to adopt the minimal measure of country-by-country reporting, which could help ensure that multinational corporations pay their fair share of taxes where they do business. The latest Google tax row in the UK has also further underlined how the British government lobby’s on behalf of major profit-making interests, and has no real concern whatsoever of ending the abuses of blacklisted tax havens.

Who then can blame the residents of Crickhowell in the heart of Wales, where small local businesses have decided to use the same tax-dodging practices of the likes of Google, Amazon and Starbucks by moving their entire town offshore. They have now become the UK’s first Fair Tax Town, with a brilliant campaign to copy the tax dodging practices of the big corporate players. As they state on their video below: “Either we all pay tax, or none of us do. If it’s optional for the multinational corporations, then it’s only fair that it’s optional for us small high street guys. If the government doesn’t act now to close the loopholes, then we’re going to use them too!”

Looking ahead towards 2016, there are of course many other areas of policy and activism where a call for sharing is central to political demands, especially in new economic activities on a more local or national level. Chief among these is the initiatives and practices that form part of the sharing economy, which is also becoming a hot topic of intellectual debate among academics and progressive thinkers. As another recent academic paper questions: is the sharing economy “a pathway to sustainability or a nightmarish form of neoliberal capitalism?” The answer of course depends on what you mean by economic sharing, which from STWR’s perspective is an explicitly political question in relation to the power structures and policies that maintain an unjust status quo.

We’ll soon publish a valuable contribution to this debate from STWR’s founder Mohammed Mesbahi, who has a unique and visionary take on what the sharing economy means in its most spiritual, universal and futuristic meaning. Of the Top 10 sharing economy predictions for 2016, we can only agree with Neal Gorenflo, founder of Shareables, that mounting social crises are bound to “elevate sharing and the commons as a systemic solution”. Another important development to look out for in the field of online sharing, as pointed out by commons theorist David Bollier, is platform cooperativism – which can be described as where the cooperative movement meets with 21st century technologies, or “an online economy based in democracy and solidarity”.

A separate but connected field of scholarly debate concerns the degrowth or post-growth movements, which are fast increasing in popularity as we transition towards more democratic, just and balanced modes of economic organisation. In many ways, the degrowth discourse – despite the issues it raises in terms of its negative framing – is one of the most important economic debates for students and activists, and one that is entirely predicated on the need for a fairer and more sustainable sharing of global resources.

All of the core proposals that are generally discussed within the movement – from a citizens debt audit and basic income to green tax reforms and setting environmental limits – in some way reflect the “new common sense of sharing” that must govern social and political relations in the new millennium. It also embraces the question of living more simply, which has monumental significance in relation to resolving the huge imbalances in consumption patterns across the world. To quote from a recent article in the New Internationalist by the prominent degrowth scholar Giorgos Kallis:

“From a degrowth perspective, the issue is not that the Global North consumes more than it produces (or produces more than it consumes, à la Keynesians). The issue is that it produces and consumes more than what is necessary, at the expense of the Global and inner ‘South’, other beings and future generations. Producing and consuming less will reduce the damage done to others.

This is a question of social and environmental justice: a ‘shrink and redistribute’ from the global 1% (and to a lesser extent the 10%, which includes the middle classes of the EuroAmericas) to the rest. Such invocations of sober simplicity may resonate with dormant common senses about the ‘good life’ present in many cultures, East and West. It can recover the commonsensical critique of ‘excess’ from the grip of austerians, who hypocritically use it to justify their regressive policies.”

Along with the visions for fairness and equity in civil society campaigning on climate change, these debates on global degrowth encompass some of the foremost populist discussions on sharing the world’s resources. To be sure, the emphasis in these debates is on community-level alternatives or national policy proposals for governments, but there is nevertheless a vital focus on the question of a sustainable transition to a new international economic model. No doubt many of these big-picture issues will be discussed at the next International Conference on Degrowth, to be held in Budapest from 30th August to 2nd September this year.

There are many other ways of recognising and understanding the growing call for sharing, however implicitly it is expressed, especially in terms of worsening humanitarian crises across the world. What kind of sharing is there in a world where fears of terrorist attacks and mass refugee flows are driving many Western governments to roll back human rights protections? Where most governments (both North and South) are further cutting welfare spending, increasing fees and payments for healthcare systems, making the labour market more “flexible”, and further privatising public services and assets – all in a time of economic contraction and extreme wealth inequality? It seems that all the trend lines for social cohesion are going in the wrong direction, while the world is fast approaching an intensified period of economic turmoil, conflict and tension.

The case for sharing cannot anywhere be clearer than the ongoing refugee crisis, reportedly the largest humanitarian crisis since the second world war. The leading light of generosity shown by Germany and Sweden is now rapidly waning, and the prospect of a “fair and proportional share of refugees” among all European and other states is becoming a pipedream – let alone the viable prospect of legal entry and safe passage for the million-plus people fleeing war and persecution. Instead, EU governments are collectively spending billions on border controls, policing and razor wire fencing, while already scant international aid budgets are being diverted to domestic expenditures for dealing with asylum seekers.

It appears hopeless to rely upon our government leaders to “bear witness to the full arc of the refugee crisis”, when there is no official acknowledgement of how – in Professor Noam Chomsky’s words – this “human catastrophe” is “in substantial part the result of Western crimes”. Yet despite the increasing disunity and lack of empathy or compassion being demonstrated among nation states, there is a “solidarity explosion” from ordinary citizens who are working tirelessly to help the refugees. As reported on Common Dreams:

“Europe’s governments have largely failed the million refugees they’ve helped create – cue doors and wristbands of shame, theft, teargas and racist backlash – but its people often step up to declare “we are one, united humanity.” Greek islanders have earned a shot at a Nobel by saving thousands; online wise guys have shredded Denmark’s greed; Banksy has decried French violence; and Finnish clowns mocking racist patrols have taken to the streets to let “peace and love flow without borders.”

There is much more to say about the economic, political and even spiritual significance of the refugee crisis that STWR will discuss in the period ahead, including the inner or psychological changes that are needed before we can truly let “peace and love flow without borders”.

The above survey is, as ever, but a brief snapshot of recent trends and developments that relate to the growing call for sharing, and there are numerous other causes and issues that are worthy of mention – such as the growing campaigns against TTIP and other free trade agreements, and the budding Democracy in Europe movement (DiEM25). We will continue to highlight these issues in blogs, articles and future editorials. For regular sharing-related news and information you can also visit STWR’s Twitter and Facebook pages, as well as our Scoop.it! page on “what we’re reading”. If you haven’t done so already, please sign up to our newsletter on the homepage if you’d like to receive periodic updates in your email inbox about what we’re up to at STWR.

Photo credit: Metropolico.org, flickr creative commons

The post Letting “peace and love flow” for a world in crisis appeared first on P2P Foundation.

This week, a coalition of NGOs launched a campaign for a new law in the UK that could make sure that corporations pay their fair share of taxes to public coffers. Dubbed the ‘Tax Dodging Bill’, the proposed law could generate at least £3.6 billion a year for the UK treasury (equivalent to £600 for every household below the poverty line), and billions more for developing countries.

As a policy brief accompanying the campaign outlines, a just tax system is fundamental to a society that shares its wealth and resources fairly among the population. When those most able to pay can unfairly escape their contributions to society, inequality increases and there is less public money available to benefit the majority of people, including the poorest.

News headlines in recent years have revealed just how little tax big corporations pay, causing public outrage at a time of brutal austerity measures and growing inequality. In the UK, for example, the 7 big digital companies – Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo and Facebook – made combined UK sales of about £9.5 billion in 2012, but only paid £54 million in corporation tax.

Many campaigning organisations highlight what a scandal this is when 8 million people in the UK live on less than is needed to cover a minimum household budget, while the richest 100 people in the country increased their wealth by over £40 billion in the last year. The direct action protest group UK Uncut have long pointed out how government austerity measures are geared towards transferring wealth from poor to rich, benefitting the richest and most powerful in society at the expense of the most marginalised.

As one UK Uncut activist states: “The tax system is one of the ways that wealth is supposed to be transferred from the rich to the poor, redistributing the wealth that our economic system concentrates at the top. When companies dodge tax it undermines this redistribution, and leaves less money to fund the public services or welfare this government is now ideologically intent on cutting beyond all recognition.”

ActionAid write that the news-grabbing controversies of big corporations who dodge paying their fair share of taxes in rich countries are just the tip of the iceberg. Developing countries lose an estimated $160 billion in tax revenues each year as a result of corporate tax dodging and rigged tax rules – more than all rich countries provide in overseas aid. When 1 billion children live in poverty in these countries and 57 million children are missing out on primary school, recovering this money could fund vital public needs like hospitals, schools and social welfare.

The Tax Dodging Bill sets out a pragmatic and balanced package of reforms to the UK system that represent some key steps the UK government can take on its own to tackle corporate tax dodging. These measures – explained in some detail in the policy brief – would make it harder for multinationals to dodge UK taxes, prevent them from getting unjustified tax breaks, make the UK tax regime more transparent, and also ensure that UK tax rules do not encourage British companies to avoid tax in developing countries.

As a set of campaign FAQ’s make clear, the effects of the UK’s biased tax rules are not limited to the UK itself, as they also incentivise overseas tax avoidance by UK-based multinationals – depriving poorer countries of tax revenues that are essential for fighting poverty. And this is clearly at odds with the UK government’s efforts to tackle global poverty and help developing countries to end their aid-dependency.

Campaigners therefore argue that the UK government should take action on tax dodging on its own, while continuing to engage in global processes to fix the international tax system. They write: “By committing to a UK Tax Dodging Bill within the first hundred days of taking office [after the general election in May 2015], UK political parties would demonstrate the UK’s commitment to tackling the problem of corporate tax dodging, showing leadership and setting the bar higher for global reform.”

However, the Tax Dodging Bill campaign recognises that stopping corporate tax avoidance in the UK and developing countries will ultimately require action at an international level. Although some official measures have been taken through the G20 group of countries and the OECD, progress remains slow and efforts don’t go far enough to prevent big companies from shifting profits and dodging tax. Oxfam are therefore proposing a World Tax Summit that would be more far-reaching and give an equal voice to those poorer countries excluded from current negotiations, which is planned to take place alongside the UN Financing for Development conference in Ethiopia in July 2015.

Share The World’s Resources is not a formal member of the Tax Dodging Bill coalition, but supports its aims as well as the essential framing of its message: that corporations must pay their fair share of taxes, as this is a key part of the established and most important system of sharing that we have (yet) created.

Image credit: wheelzwheeler, flickr creative commons

The post The Tax Dodging Bill: it’s time for big corporations to pay their fair share appeared first on P2P Foundation.

At this year’s gathering of the world’s richest and most powerful at Davos, the World Economic Forum founder has urged delegates that the motto for their 2015 meeting should be ‘sharing and caring’.

Inequality is again on the agenda (if not considered the top threat to world stability, as last year), which has prompted many critics to point out – as usual – that the solutions to inequality are unlikely to come from the global elites that are largely responsible for creating it.

Despite all the media debates and high-profile discussions there is mainly talk and no action when it comes to creating a more equal society. And the only kind of sharing that is championed by the corporate executives and world leaders at Davos is within the context of charity and big business, rather than discussing any real solutions that would require government interventions and wealth redistribution.

A new report and series of interactive infographics from Global Justice Now, formerly the World Development Movement, exposes the core myths that define the worldview of this tiny group of elites. In a refreshingly straightforward and incisive way, it demonstrates the fallacies behind their ideology that is now deeply ingrained in society and a serious obstacle to building a fairer, more sustainable world for the majority.

For example, it is not true that the ‘poor are getting richer’ in the face of soaring inequality, which is starkly illustrated in sub-Saharan Africa where there has been almost no improvement in poverty rates since 1981 (indeed, the number of people living on less than $2 has doubled over this period). As often repeated, the vast majority of the fall in global poverty since the 1990s is the result of China’s effectiveness at tackling poverty, which it famously achieved without following the prescriptions of the so-called Washington Consensus.

The reality is that while the rich have certainly got richer as a result of economic globalisation, most of the poor have remained in poverty. Believing otherwise is to conveniently overlook the devastating impacts of free market, neoliberal economic policies in many developing countries, as well as the inequalities of power that keeps poor people poor. But this is, of course, unlikely to be the chief concern at Davos where discussions revolve around a common theme: that their business practices, overseas investments, entrepreneurial talent and philanthropy are the only answer to world problems.

Another myth is that economic growth is the panacea for social ills and poverty, despite all evidence to the contrary. As the Global Justice Now report argues, growth – while important – is never enough, unless a nation’s economy is geared to sharing the benefits of growth fairly. As long as the benefits are increasingly captured by a small global elite, it is inevitable that the lives of those at the bottom of society will continue to get worse. A neat graphic illustrates a stark fact from the New Economics Foundation’s report Growth isn’t working, asking the reader to guess how much of each $100 of global economic growth has actually contributed to reducing poverty – which is an astonishing $0.60. (Equally shockingly, 95% of the proceeds of growth in the US went to the top 1% during the three years of economic recovery that followed the 2008 financial crash.)

Several of the report’s myths also simply describe how the global economic system is fundamentally skewed in favour of rich countries, which is the real reason why billions of people in poorer countries are lacking the essentials for life, such as adequate food, water and energy. So the image of Africa as poor and helpless is wrong, because the continent is one of the richest in terms of natural resources – and far more money is extracted from the region (such as through profit repatriation, debt repayments and tax evasion) than is given in aid.

The report also argues that international aid could make the world a fairer place, but only if it undergoes major reform so that it is genuinely redistributive and no longer a tool of free market policy. At present, aid is increasingly being used to support multinational corporations in their quest for profits, such as by forcing poor countries to privatise their public services. But this does not mean that overseas development assistance should be entirely scrapped as a system, as “redistributing wealth from the richest to the poorest is a necessary element of creating a fairer world – as it is in creating a fairer society.”

More ambitiously, the report suggests, we should see aid more as a system of global taxation in which it is used to help build what we might call ‘sharing societies’ in all countries. It concludes: “The funds would have to be much bigger than they currently are to create such a change, and the mentality would have to change completely. Creating a better world is not generous, especially if you have created the unfairness in the first place. What’s more aid can never be seen in isolation. Fairer trade, cancelling unjust debt, stopping climate change, tackling tax havens and securing democratic freedoms are all more important in achieving global justice.”

Such common sense is sadly not the preserve of orthodox thinking among the majority of attendees at the luxurious ski resort of Davos, where there is no hint of the poverty and hardship suffered by billions of people elsewhere in the world. As ever, it is up to campaigners and concerned citizens to challenge the myopic outlook of those elites who are concerned about growing inequality, but unwilling to embrace the necessary measures to reverse it.

Photo credit: World Economic Forum, flickr creative commons

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Twitter feeds and newspaper headlines were again dominated this morning by new statistics on growing wealth inequality, as released by Oxfam ahead of this week’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

It is now customary for Oxfam to publish new research on how severe the gap between the 1% and the 99% is growing, prior to the gathering of billionaires and politicians at the Swiss ski resort of Davos. The latest research has heralded another media coup for the anti-poverty charity, demonstrating how extreme is the lack of sharing in our societies when just 80 rich people have the same wealth as the bottom half of the planet.

This is in contrast to the 85 billionaires that held the same amount of wealth last year, according to wealth data drawn from Credit Suisse that also grabbed news headlines in January 2014. (Interestingly, Forbes magazine – who publish the annual billionaires list – later contended that it was actually 67 people who own as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion).

Oxfam estimate that in 2014, the richest 1% of people in the world owned 48% of global wealth, leaving just 52% to be shared between the other 99% of adults on the planet. However, almost all of that 52% is owned by those in the richest 20% of the global population, leaving just 5.5% for the poorer 80% of people. If current trends continue of an increasing wealth share to the richest, the top 1% will have more wealth than the remaining 99% of people by 2017.

Oxfam’s short research brief, Wealth: Having It All and Wanting More, illustrates this staggering inequality with a series of graphs that show how the wealth share of the top 1% has continued to increase since 2010, while the bottom 99% have experienced a decline in their share of total global wealth that is set to fall significantly further over the next 5 years. The wealth of the very richest continues to expand at an inconceivable rate, typically increasing by over a billion dollars per individual between March 2013 and March 2014 – or $4 billion in the case of the Italian pharmaceuticals magnate, Stefano Pessina.

In the words of the paper’s author, senior researcher Deborah Hardoon: “The extreme wealth at the top of the distribution… is not only mind-blowing, but quite obscene when compared with how wealth is distributed to the rest of us in the world.” The main reason for this upward redistribution, according to the brief, is the entrenched cycle of wealth, power and influence that enables the super-rich to create an environment that protects and enhances their interests, particularly through government lobbying activities and campaign contributions.

The most prolific lobbying activities in the US are on budget and tax issues, which Oxfam states can directly undermine public interests where a reduction in the tax burden to companies results in less money for delivering essential public services. In other words, the billions that are spent on lobbying is increasingly moving society away from the direction of economic sharing and redistribution on behalf of the common good, a pernicious trend that is set to accelerate without a dramatic change in government policy and business practices.

The reality of extreme global inequality and the case against it has now been well made in any number of books, reports and conferences, from Thomas Piketty’s tome of analysis to the annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank last year, where the chosen theme was ‘shared prosperity’. But the need for real action from policymakers to share wealth and resources more equitably is ever urgent, especially in the midst of ongoing austerity measures, wage cuts and high unemployment in many high-income as well as low-income countries.

As STWR has often remarked, this will inevitably require government intervention, regulations and laws that guarantee fairness and equity in society, however anathema this may remain to the neoliberal rulebook still held by most of today’s politicians. Although the richest 1% had an average wealth of $2.7 million per adult in 2014, we cannot expect the members of this global elite to voluntarily share their wealth as a response to world poverty, one that is based on charity instead of justice and structural reform. Indeed as Oxfam acknowledge through their many sensible recommendations, the policy solutions for reducing inequality are plentiful and widely known. So if 2014 was the year when the need to tackle inequality went mainstream, perhaps 2015 will be the year when a call for economic justice and sharing becomes the presiding theme of political conversation.

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To address the epochal challenges of the twenty-first century, we will have to heed Christ’s simple message like never before—and finally share the world’s wealth and resources more equitably among us all. 

In Christianity, the need to share is central to the teachings of Jesus and a major theme throughout the New Testament. According to Luke, the earliest Christians tried to put Jesus’ teachings into practice by sharing what they had so that the poor among them would be provided for. And there are many quotes and parables from the Bible that elucidate Jesus’ instruction to care for the sick, the poor, the widowed and the least fortunate within society. Those who are more privileged than others should always open their heart to “do good and share with those in need”, as written in the final exhortations to the Hebrews. Indeed the essence of Christ’s teachings was focused on the need to serve and love others, to share and not hoard wealth, and to seek justice for the poor and dispossessed.

What, then, would Jesus make of the world we live in today? Regardless of the advancements of modern society through mass education, a communications revolution and economic globalisation, still humanity is characterised by super-divisions between the very rich and the very poor. Total global wealth has grown to record levels, yet the bottom half of the world population own less than 1% of all this financial abundance. The number of billionaires doubled between 2009 and 2014, and now 67 people possess as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion.

To be sure, our social order is at odds with the basic teachings of every major religion, all of which expound the importance of sharing wealth and essential resources fairly. And perhaps nothing describes the lack of sharing in our societies more than the incidence of hunger and poverty within affluent nations like Britain, where growing numbers of people on low-incomes are turning to food banks to survive. But there is no escaping the fact that the impact of extreme poverty is generally far more severe in less-developed countries, where millions of people face constant food insecurity and starvation—despite there being enough food available in the world to feed everyone one-and-a-half times over. As a consequence of life-threatening deprivation and inadequate social protection, around 15 million people die every year from largely avoidable causes—equivalent to more than 40,000 people every single day.

Christian churches and groups are long aware of these disturbing facts, and many concern themselves with the need for a fairer distribution of wealth and resources in the world. Charities in the UK such as Tearfund, Christian Aid and CARE do their best to raise awareness of the scourge of poverty amidst plenty, and campaign for dramatic changes in government priorities to ensure a decent standard of living for all. For example, Christian Aid point out that the wealthiest 20% of the world’s population account for 80% of consumption of global resources, whereas the poorest 20% lack the resources to have even a decent standard of living. We are also using 50% more natural resources than the Earth can sustain, which is having devastating impacts on poor people and the planet. In addressing this epochal challenge of the twenty-first century, we will have to heed Christ’s simple message like never before: to think of those less fortunate than ourselves, to make sacrifices where necessary on behalf of others, and to share the world’s resources through compassion and goodwill.

If Jesus’ instruction to share was truly embraced by all peoples and nations, it would clearly have radical implications for the relationships between countries in our divided world. To begin with, a massive redistribution of resources will be called for on an international scale, with a view to securing the long-agreed human rights of the poorest people as a foremost global priority. However, overseas aid alone will never be enough to transform society along more just and spiritual lines. At present Africa is losing $192bn every year to the rest of the world, more than 6 times the amount of aid given back to the continent. Developing countries as a whole lose about $1 trillion each year through tax evasion and other corrupt practices, which is nearly 10 times the size of the aid budget. Tackling the root causes of poverty and inequality will therefore demand major structural reform of the global economy, based upon a genuine form of multilateral cooperation and economic sharing.

We cannot conceive of a ‘global sharing economy’ in the truest sense until everyone has their basic needs met within the environmental limits of our living planet. And this will require an entire rethinking of our political and economic systems, our global governance institutions, even our conception of ourselves as human beings. A recent spate of scientific literature contradicts the notion that selfishness and greed are innate human characteristics, and shows that we are naturally predisposed to be altruistic and cooperative. These findings challenge many of the assumptions that sustain our unequal societies, and give hope and inspiration that we can build a fairer world that nurtures solidarity, compassion and equality.

In the end, there can be no solution to world problems unless we inculcate spiritual values, such as loving kindness and generosity, into our everyday practice of politics and economics. To resolve the interlocking crises of our civilisation we have no choice but to acknowledge our global interdependence, and to accept that humankind is part of an extended family that shares the same basic rights and entitlements. Hence all of the food, raw materials, energy, knowledge and technical know-how of the world must be used for the benefit of everyone, and shared more equitably according to need.

The call for sharing is already on the rise in diverse countries, and underpins many existing initiatives for social justice, environmental stewardship, true democracy and global peace. But a significant shift in public debate is needed if the principle of sharing is to be understood as integral to any agenda for transformative change. In this light, our London-based organisation has launched a campaign that aims to influence public opinion around the need for a global movement of citizens who embrace sharing as a common cause. By signing up to our campaign statement, anyone can pledge to raise their voice for greater sharing in our societies, and help spark public awareness and a wider debate on the importance of sharing in economic and political terms.

To sign up as an individual or organisation, please visit: www.sharing.org

This article was originally published in the Parish Magazine Supplement of All Saint’s Church, Highgate, January 2015.

Photo credit: Rodrigo_Soldon, flickr creative commons

– See more at: http://www.sharing.org/information-centre/blogs/heeding-christ%E2%80%99s-teaching-share-21st-century#sthash.eXGW1bSf.dpuf

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The post Why sharing is a common cause that unites us all appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The following text is the Executive Summary of Share the World’s Resources latest report: Sharing as our Common Cause. You can read or download the whole report here.

This report demonstrates how a call for sharing underpins many existing initiatives for social justice, environmental stewardship, true democracy and global peace. On this basis, STWR argues that sharing should be more widely promoted as a common cause that can help connect civil society organisations and social movements under a united call for change.

Across the world, millions of campaigners and activists refuse to sit idly by and watch the world’s crises escalate, while our governments fail to provide hope for a more just and sustainable future. The writing is on the wall: climate chaos, escalating conflict over scarce resources, growing impoverishment and marginalisation in the rich world as well as the poor, the looming prospect of another global financial collapse. In the face of what many describe as a planetary emergency, there has never been such a widespread and sustained mobilisation of citizens around efforts to challenge global leaders and address critical social and environmental issues. A worldwide ‘movement of movements’ is on the rise, driven by an awareness that the multiple crises we face are fundamentally caused by an outmoded economic system in need of wholesale reform.

But despite this growing awareness of the need for massive combined action to reverse ongoing historical trends, clearly not enough is being done to tackle the systemic causes of the world’s interrelated problems. What we still lack is a truly unified progressive movement that comprises the collective actions of civil society organisations, grassroots activists and an engaged citizenry. A fusion of progressive causes is urgently needed under a common banner, one that can create a consensus among a critical mass of the world population about the necessary direction for transformational change. As many individuals and groups within the progressive community both recognise and proclaim, this is our greatest hope for bringing about world renewal and rehabilitation.

This report demonstrates how a call for sharing is central to the formation of this growing worldwide movement of global citizens. As more and more people begin to raise their voices for governments to put human needs and ecological preservation before corporate greed and profit, the call for sharing is consistently at the heart of civil society demands for a better world. In fact, the principle of sharing is often central to efforts for progressive change in almost every field of endeavour. But this mutual concern is generally understood and couched in tacit terms, without acknowledging the versatility, commonality and wide applicability of sharing as a solution to the world’s problems.

For illustrative purposes, the many causes, initiatives and movements highlighted in this report’s ‘mapping’ section are broadly grouped according to five main categories: social justice, environmental stewardship, global peace, participative democracy, and multi-issue movements. For each of the causes outlined that fall within these overarching themes, it is not difficult to see how most – if not all – are essentially founded on a demand for a more equitable sharing of wealth, power or resources either within countries or internationally. For this reason, we argue that sharing should be more widely promoted as a common cause that can potentially help connect the world’s peace, justice and environmental movements under a united call for change.

How is the call for sharing expressed?

In many ways the need for greater sharing in society is longstanding and self-evident, as there can be no social or economic justice when wealth and income inequalities continue to spiral out of control, increasingly to the benefit of the 1% (or indeed the 0.001%). There is now an almost continuous and high-profile discussion on the need to tackle growing extremes of inequality, which is a debate that is often framed entirely – if not always explicitly – around the need for a just sharing of wealth and power across society as a whole.

At the same time, advocacy for new development paradigms or economic alternatives is increasingly being framed and discussed in terms of sharing. This is most apparent in the international debate on climate change and sustainable development, in which many policy analysts and civil society organisations (CSOs) are calling for ‘fair shares’ in a constrained world – in other words, for all people to have an equal right to share the Earth’s resources without transgressing the planet’s environmental limits. Furthermore, some prominent CSOs – including Christian Aid, Oxfam International and Friends of the Earth – clearly espouse the principle of sharing as part of their organisational strategies and objectives, and call for dramatic changes in how power and resources are shared in order to transform our unjust world.

The renewed concept of the ‘commons’ has also fast become a well-recognised global movement of scholars and activists who frame all the most pressing issues of our time – from unsustainable growth to rising inequality – in terms of our need to cooperatively protect the shared resources of Earth. On a more local and practical level, there is also a flourishing ‘sharing economy’ movement that is empowering people to share more in their everyday lives through the use of online platforms and sharing-oriented business models, as well as through gift economies and shared community projects.

In most other instances, however, the fundamental demand for sharing is implicitly discussed or inadvertently promoted in popular calls for change. For example, millions of people across the world are struggling for democracy and freedom in manifold ways, from people-led uprisings against corrupt governments to those who are actively participating in new democracy movements within communities and workplaces. But there can be no true form of democracy – and no securing of basic human rights for all – without a fairer sharing of political power and economic resources, as further outlined in the section of this report on participative democracy.

Similarly, the principle of sharing underlies many of the campaigns and initiatives for peaceful co-existence, whether it’s in terms of redirecting military spending towards essential public goods, or ending the scramble for scarce resources through cooperative international agreements. From both a historical and common sense perspective, it is clear that competition over resources causes conflict – and there is no sense in perpetuating an economic paradigm where all nations are pitted against each other to try and own what could easily be shared.

Yet the basic necessity of sharing is often not recognised as an underlying cause for all those who envision a more just and peaceful world without insecurity or deprivation. This is despite the fact that the mass protest movements that have swiftly emerged in recent years, including the Arab Spring demonstrations and Occupy movements, are also invariably connected by their implicit call for greater economic sharing across society, not least in their reaction to enormous and growing socio-economic divisions.

Why advocate for sharing?

Given that a call for sharing is already a fundamental (if often unacknowledged) demand of a diverse group of progressive individuals and organisations, there are a number of reasons why we should embrace this common cause and advocate more explicitly for sharing in our work and activities. In particular, a call for sharing holds the potential to connect disparate campaign groups, activists and social movements under a common theme and vision. Such a call represents the unity in diversity of global civil society and can provide an inclusive rallying platform, which may also help us to recognise that we are all ultimately fighting the same cause. It also offers a way of moving beyond separate silos and single-issue platforms, but without needing to abandon any existing focuses or campaign priorities.

A call for sharing can also engage a much broader swathe of the public in campaign initiatives and movements for transformative change. Many people feel disconnected from political issues owing to their technical complexity, or else they feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenges that face us and ill equipped to take action. But everyone understands the human value of sharing, and by upholding this universal principle in a political context we can point the way towards an entirely new approach to economics – one that is integrally based on a fair and sustainable distribution of resources. In this way, the principle of sharing represents a valuable advocacy and educational tool that could help to generate widespread public engagement with critical global issues.

In addition, a popular demand for governments to adopt the principle of sharing has radical implications for current economic and political arrangements, both within countries and internationally. This is clear when we examine the influence of the neoliberal approach to economics that continues to dominate policy outcomes in both the Global North and South, and which is in many ways the antithesis of an economic approach based on egalitarian values and the fulfilment of long-established human rights. In an increasingly unequal and unsustainable world in which all governments need to drastically re-order their priorities, a call for sharing embodies the need for justice, democracy and sound environmental stewardship to guide policymaking at every level of society.

Ultimately, only a collective demand for a fairer sharing of wealth, power and resources is likely to unify citizens across the world in a common cause. Unless individuals and organisations in different countries align their efforts in more concrete ways (a process that is already underway), it may remain impossible to overcome the vested interests and entrenched structures that maintain business-as-usual. While we face the eventual prospect of societal, economic and ecological collapse, there is no greater urgency for establishing a broad-based global movement that upholds the principle of sharing as a basic guide for restructuring our societies and tackling the multiple crises of the 21st century. In the end, this may represent our greatest hope for influencing economic reforms that are based on the needs of the world as a whole, and guided by basic human and ecological values.

Recommendations

This report seeks to demonstrate how a global movement for sharing is already in existence – even if it has yet to affirm its collective identity or purpose. If the case for promoting sharing as our common cause seems convincing, then it compels us to acknowledge that we are all part of this emerging movement that holds the same values and broad concerns, albeit in a disparate and as yet uncoordinated form. The following recommendations outline how we can build upon this recognition and play a part in further strengthening and scaling up a united, all-inclusive and worldwide movement for sharing.

1. Integrate the message of sharing into advocacy and campaigning activities

Based upon our recognition of the need to scale up diverse forms of sharing across the world, it is important to explore what sharing means to us personally and in relation to the issues we are working on. This will enable us to integrate the message of sharing into our campaigning efforts and activism, whenever it is appropriate to do so. We can all therefore help to build popular and persuasive frames around the need for greater sharing in our societies from the perspective of justice, sustainability, peace and democracy. See the full report for some example ideas of how to frame various progressive endeavours in terms of sharing, which also serves as a valuable ‘meme’ that can be adopted and creatively played with in relation to the four key themes outlined in the report.

2. Mobilise on collective platforms for sharing

Building effective people’s movements through collaborative processes is arguably the holy grail of civil society campaigning, and extremely difficult to achieve in practice and on a large scale. But as the crises of inequality, global conflict and environmental breakdown become ever more real and urgent, there is great scope for individuals and groups to mobilise for transformational change on collective platforms for sharing that bring together several campaign issues that may otherwise remain distinct and unconnected. The full report outlines some examples of how social movements, campaign groups and activists could coalesce their efforts in the creation of such a common cause for sharing.

3. Sign and promote STWR’s global call for sharing

Without doubt, a dramatic shift in public debate is needed if the principle of sharing is to be understood as integral to any agenda for social justice, environmental stewardship, participatory democracy or peaceful co-existence. If you agree with the need to catalyse a global movement of citizens that embrace sharing as a common cause, please sign and promote the campaign statement below. By joining the global call, any individual or organisation can influence the development of this emerging theme and vision, and help spark public awareness and a wider debate on the importance of sharing in economic and political terms.

To sign the statement, visit:
www.sharing.org/global-call

To read or download the full report, click here.

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Can the ethic and practice of sharing really create fairer, more sustainable and more democratic societies – and if so, how is it going to happen?

STWR recently took part in an event called Reclaiming the Alternative held in Brighton, East Sussex, UK (#ReclaimingBrighton). The free event was based on the ethic of the gift and sharing, with various presentations given about grassroots alternatives to the unsustainable business-as-usual economy. STWR was invited to give a perspective on the transformative potential of the sharing economy, in which we introduced our essential argument: that the sharing economy indeed has the potential to transform society, but only if it is part of a massive, global and explicitly political movement aiming towards real justice, sustainability and democracy.

After introducing the two sides of a debate on sharing, our short presentation explored whether the sharing economy in its current form represents a movement that can lead us towards the kind of radical changes we need to make the world a better place for everyone.

The talk can be listened to below in which some fundamental questions are introduced, such as: should interpersonal forms of sharing be commercialised, and should commerce have any part to play in a ‘true’ sharing economy? What are the implications if for-profit sharing companies are to remain genuinely aligned with the principle of sharing? And will new business models and technologies that are based on the principles of cooperation and sharing be enough in themselves to challenge existing power structures and lead us towards transformative, systemic change?

Broadening this debate to include the role of governments, the presentation briefly outlines the kind of systems of sharing that need to be strengthened and scaled up if we are to talk about a ‘sharing society’ in any meaningful sense. It also posits that if we want to think really big about sharing in terms of resolving the world’s interlocking crises, then it stands to reason that our understanding and definition of sharing must also include critical forms of sharing resources on an international basis.

In summary, the message of the talk is that supporters of peer-to-peer sharing could help build a much stronger identity by recognising that their activities form part of these broader and more fundamental systems as well as practices of sharing that operate at all levels of society. And if the sharing economy movement is to be truly transformative, it means that we have to move beyond the solely personal, community and city-oriented view of sharing, and also embrace a much wider understanding of sharing that includes the role of governments as well as global institutions like the United Nations.

Here is an audio recording of the talk below (with apologies for the poor quality).

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