By Francesco Vigliarolo, Editor of Economic Systems and Human Rights: Using Socioeconomic Models and Practices to Promote Global Economic Socialization  

After the fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of the last century, we witnessed the birth of globalization and the affirmation of a global economy based on the principles of capitalism, which remains the only dominant model after the disappearance of communism and state socialism. As a result of the crisis of Keynesianism, the return of neoliberalism, and the rise of the economic financialization process started in the 1970s, an economic model called "financial capitalism" was born. The main objective of this capitalism is the maximization of financial income on international markets, even at the expense of real production. In fact, it is estimated that for every 10% of global production, financial wealth ​​grows by 30%. Currently, 95% of financial wealth has no connection with goods and services exchanged, which means that monetary wealth is almost completely detached from society and the real economy.

In fact, a 1989 study by Herman Daly and John Cobb shows that from the second half of 1970s in the United States, the wealth measured through the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) no longer corresponded to real welfare, measured by Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), which included services and distribution of wealth. In other words, it was shown that GDP was growing while ISEW was decreasing. That is, parallel to the growth of GDP, new poverty grew, which also meant a reduction in human rights due to new socio-environmental conflicts, such as externalities (environmental damage) and growth of unemployment. From 1975 to 2012, employment in the private sector was at serious risk: the employment rate fell by 75% in developed countries and by 59% in developing countries, according to the main World Bank report of 2019.

In other words, global economic systems have transformed into enemies of the world population due to the economic impacts of the environmental crisis, the worsening of social conflicts in many states (especially democratic ones), the progressive weakening of the workforce, the distancing of production from real needs and “the growing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few” (Stiglitz). The constant growth of relative poverty and inequalities (even for the middle classes) distances the majority of people from the possibility of fully exercising their human rights. Think about rights to health care, education, healthy food, and economic, social, and political participation. These rights are widely inaccessible. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes rights to adequate standards of living, health, and well-being, is almost impossible to implement today. 

What can we do? How can we reverse this situation? Can there be a global economic system that is not centered on capital accumulation and does not jeopardize the exercise of human rights? The rise of globalization has also led to a new strengthening of social, economic and environmental practices. These practices, many of them spontaneous, are social responses to these global economic systems that have transformed vocations, passions, identities, rights and ideals into individual interests (Hirschman). Because of this, socially-oriented economies are being strengthened as never before. People are seeking new bottom-up, socially and environmentally responsible economies through social and solidarity economics, sustainable local development, ethical finance, and fair trade. In the 90s, we witnessed a proliferation of these practices like never before all over the world (Rifkin, 1995). Practices like these re-awaken civil society participation and propose community values at the base of a universal economy. They try to fight the individualism of classical theories (based on the individual interest as motor of economy) introduced by Smith onwards. They result in goods and services that reflect relational identity (Donati). They propose that we must maximize human rights for all. Economic Systems and Human Rights: Using Socioeconomic Models and Practices to Promote Global Economic Socialization deals with economic socialization in a new way: as a process in which active participation of society puts community values and principles at its core. These principles are reflected in goods and services, and they are essential for all, despite social, cultural or other differences. The text focuses on the demand for peoples’ rights over the demand for consumption; on practices, models, and theories centered on the social and environmental ontological aims as opposed to individual interests. It proposes an economy that is friendly to our citizens, one that opposes the dominant systems that may one day rob us of the possibility of happiness as a right, born with human life itself.



Francesco Vigliarolo is Chairholder of UNESCO’s Economic Systems and Human Rights Chair at the National University of La Plata, Argentina, and he is Professor of Regional Economics at the Catholic University of La Plata, Argentina. Vigliarolo is an expert in regional and social economics, economic sociology, and sustainable development. 
 

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