Economic Justice: A Prerequisite to Peace

• In Event: Positive Peace, Global Transformations, and U.S. Contestations: Decolonial, Ecological, Economic, and Democratic Pathways in Education (Part 1)

Proposal

Whatever definition of peace you use – whether it’s Galtung’s absence of overt conflict or structural violence – economic justice is essential to achieving peace. Yet we live in a world laden with economic injustices that foment ever escalating conflict and violence. In this paper I examine some of the worst manifestations of these injustices, their consequences, and most especially the possibilities and efforts to overcome them.
· Poverty and inequality are rampant;
· Nearly half the world lives on less than $5/day;
· Nearly one-in-ten go to bed hungry at night;
· One in four children under 5 are severely malnourished; and
· Billions have very limited access to safe drinking water and reliable electricity.
Progress, at best, is extremely slow and things may be getting worse. What can only be seen as an obscene statistic is that 80 individuals – billionaires – have more wealth than 50% of the world combined! The richest 1% own almost half of the world’s wealth, while the poorest half of the world own just 0.75%!
Why is there such injustice in a world with more than sufficient resources to end these obscene statistics? As we on this panel and in this SIG argue a major cause is structural – we live in a world of patriarchal racial capitalism. While patriarchy and racism existed before capitalism, today they are all intricately tied together. Many decry racism and patriarchy but take capitalism as necessary.
What is the relationship of war and violence to capitalism? While war and violence existed long before capitalism, capitalism has exacerbated them in a number of ways. Many would point to colonialism and neocolonialism as fueled by capitalism. Poverty is a form of institutional violence. Moreover, the selfish individualism that capitalism promotes works against the collective, cooperative actions and ethos needed to mitigate war and violence.
For peace to flourish, for our world to get out of the multiple global crises we face – we desperately need system change. Contrary to Margaret Thatcher’s TINA – There is No Alternative to (neoliberal) capitalism, I’m a firm believer in David Bollier’s TAPAS – There are Plenty of Alternatives! I look at a wide range of transformative alternatives, including solidarity economies, doughnut economics, participatory democracy, and ecofeminist approaches, drawing from initiatives such as the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, the Global Tapestry of Alternatives, and the Doughnut Economics Action Lab. By challenging the inevitability of capitalism’s TINA narrative and foregrounding TAPAS, the paper argues that positive peace requires structural transformations that create economies oriented toward equity, sustainability, and the common good – that is, economic justice.
The multiple challenges our world faces are daunting, but I am an optimist. I have been fortunate to work in dozens of countries, and everywhere I found people who believe what is the slogan of the WSF -- Another World is Possible -- and struggle for it. Let me close with a quote from Arundhati Roy: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

Author

• Steven Klees, University of Maryland