All Human Hall projects
Analysis, strategies, and suggestions
against inequalities
Inequalities are multidimensional. Besides of gender equality or extreme poverty related to migrations, relevant ones are the one of income, awareness, power, and territory. The ecological transition can create some intra or inter-generational conflicts too.
The project explores, also thanks to some experimental economics studies, the topic of inequalities in their complexity. To develop the environmental and ecological justice, we have to overcome the topic of re-distribution and deepen the one of pre-distribution of rights and powers, we have to study the institutional models of economic democracy, and analyze the processes through which the deliberative democracy can support behaviors coherent to inclusive policies.
TEAM
WHAT DO WE DO
EQUITY AND RIGHTS
FOR A SUSTAINABLE TRANSITION
Speaks Lorenzo Sacconi, full professor of Economic Policy
Why the need of a “multidimensional” analysis of inequalities?
When we speak about inequalities, rightly we tend to give great emphasis to some aspects, such as gender equality or extreme poverty related to migrations. However, inclusion is a broad and complex topic. There are territorial inequalities, related to the acknowledgment of some cultures, capabilities, and power – which have some consequences on the income and richness inequalities too – and of class, which are always essential.
The project aims to have an impact on local communities. For instance, a big city: how occur territorial inequalities in Milan?
When we speak about Milan, we don’t have to think just at the city center. It is a metropolis with more than 3 million inhabitants, with significant inequalities. Poor or middle-class people are put at the margins or outside the city center. This increases the inter-generational inequalities. One of the goals of our project is to discuss about the attractiveness of Milan, analyzing topics to create proposals and strategies.
Which will be the direction of these proposals?
From an historical point of view, we want to give more emphasis and attention on the re-distributive politics, which try to fight marginalization through a taxation. However, it is important to depend on the pre-distribution too, which means the distribution ex ante of rights and powers. The proposals of this project aim to act in this direction
For instance?
One of the possible proposal concerns, in those large companies, a change in the model of the corporate governance. For example, giving co-decisional powers to one organism – the Council of Labor and Citizenship – chosen by workers (also with flexible contracts), suppliers, representatives of local communities. It means changing the distribution of powers inside companies. And it could have consequences on the distribution of income and richness too.
Why we give more emphasis to the re-distribution and not to the pre-distribution?
The current model is the result of a balance between capitalism (which produces richness) and welfare state (the one in charge to redistribute it). Facts prove that this balance doesn’t work anymore. The tax burden is contested, and it is difficult to think to increase it. At the same time, the operation of market and companies – through the distribution of power – has increased inequalities of income and richness, also in those countries with a strong social-democratic tradition (even though we are among the most unequal ones with the US and UK). For the balance between democracy and capitalism to work, it is necessary that the market, the organizations, and the third sector will be shaped to distribute abilities and powers, acting before inequalities are developed, because they involve a re-distribution too. It is a central topic in the ecological transition as well.
How?
The politics of ecological transitions have distributive effects too. The higher costs affect specific categories and territories, causing not only catastrophic effects on the poorest population, but also migrations. The transition practices must look at future benefits, but also at their distribution. They have to keep together aggregated effects on clime and distributional effects among categories of people and generations.
Can you name some concrete examples of inequalities related to the ecological transition?
Speaking about Milan: if we heal a neighborhood, but the costs to live in it become prohibitive, the urban regeneration produces processes of gentrification. Another example: the ecological transition can involve radical technological changes, which is not certain will become concrete inside those companies. However, it is possible that a company closes giving place to another. The capital can move, but the workers cannot do it so fast. In this way we risk huge social costs, with the consequence to obstacle the transition itself. Because the vested interests that stop it, are welded with the legitimate opposition of those who are affected by these damages. So, it is necessary to renew the procedures of democratic deliberation, creating processes able to distribute benefits and costs. If we don’t respect equity, huge changes find insurmountable obstacles.
