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Italian Embassy to the Holy See
Pontifical Council for Culture
TOWARDS A MORE HUMAN AND JUST ECONOMY
A new inclusive economic paradigm in a context of increasing inequalities.
21st September 2016, h 18.00
Palazzo Borromeo
CONCEPT PAPER
Economic and social inequalities represent a
fundamental global challenge. Globalization and
free circulation of goods and people often led to
improvements of life conditions. However, the
unequal distribution of wealth may compromise
these results, becoming a serious threat to the
social cohesion of many countries, as well as to
the geo-political stability of regional and
international scenarios.
health; more than 50% of global wealth is owned
by the richest 1 per cent of world’s population.
In many countries, globalization has boosted
economic growth and facilitated the access to
health and education services. Life expectancy
often increased; wages and incomes witnessed
positive adjustments in many areas which
previously were cut off from traditional economic
progress routes. Moreover, ICT and World Wide
Web guaranteed a greater awareness of global
issues all over the world.
It is important to recognize that the riskiest
consequences do not derive much from the
presence of inequalities per se: in fact progress
and development, notably in the short term, can
be followed by problems in distribution and
equality. Moreover, during economic growth
periods, people do not get wealthier at the same
time, neither the access to the same profitable
resources can be guaranteed automatically to
everyone.
UNDP’s studies reveal that, between 1990 and
2015, income poverty in developing countries fell
by more than two thirds; the number of extreme
poor people fell from 1.9 billion to 836 million;
the child mortality rate fell by more than half and
2.6 billion people gained access to improved
sources of drinking water, even as the global
population increased from 5.3 billion to 7.3
billion.
However, these aspects do not eliminate the
increasing inequality in the distribution of wealth
and resources. In fact, almost 800 million people
in the world suffer from hunger and live with less
than 2 dollars a day; around 80% of global
population has only 6 per cent of the world’s
Looking at inequality indicators, such as the Gini
Index provided by the World Bank, it is easy to
notice the global dimension of the issue: both
high and low-income countries are commonly
affected by the problems which stem from
inequalities.
Therefore, the downside is the particular kind of
inequality caused by the current economic
system: in recent years the GDP percentage
which rewards capital (especially financial capital)
is growing faster than the percentage that
remunerates wages and incomes.
Therefore in a context with strong uncertainty
and precariousness, on the one hand, the wealth
of the majority of the population seem
compromised together with the future
employment of the youngest generations; on the
other hand, the concentration of financial wealth
in fewer hands keeps growing. This trend can
lead to a divergence between the interest of
stock markets and big multinational groups and
the rest of social economic system.
Therefore, inequalities, together with the
“austerity” and public debt restructuration
policies, can have serious social impacts. Public
opinion often does not understand the reason
why in many economies showing positive GDP
growth rates, employment (and in particular
youth employment) rates are diminishing or
stagnant.
The concentration of economic power, the
perceived lack of equality and inclusion in the
economic system can foster various forms of
populism, nationalism and protectionism. These
are evident signals of a deep disease that may
affect different strata of our society that, exposed
to the process of widening free competition and
free market, become “losers” or, in other terms,
victims of the globalization process. Thus, social
and intergenerational conflicts expand and can
threat national and international solidarity.
Consequently, new economic paradigms, capable
of guaranteeing greater social justice, political
stability as well as environmental sustainability,
need to be defined.
In fact, even when effective policies and solutions
against poverty and inequalities are theoretically
known, the implementation of these policies
becomes extremely complex, due to governance
problems and to the absence of coordination
among economic, social and environmental
policies.
This session of the “Courtyard of the Gentiles”
wants to initiate a reflection about the increasing
social and economic inequalities. Thanks to
excellent speakers, this event will provide useful
basis for an effective action in line with the UN
2030 Agenda for a Sustainable Development. This
document describes the fundamental objectives
which must be reached in order to build an
economic architecture able to take more care of
the needs and the aspirations of the weakest and
the poorest, following the way paved by Pope
Francis’ encyclical letters “Caritas in Veritate” and
“Laudato Si”, which represent precious
contributions to the debate about an “integral
ecology”, capable of placing human being at the
center of economic processes.