Capitalism and Inequality. Regulation in Norway.
Is it the System or the People?
The “system” of capitalism itself seems to result in degrees of financial inequality across societies and between nations. Is this caused by free-enterprise’s lack of well-directed government regulation to counter poverty and limit disparity of wealth?
Apart from systemic causes, inequality is exacerbated by the moral shortcomings of those who find themselves in positions of power and influence within capitalist or other more regulated economic or government systems (communism, socialism or fiefdoms). Inequality and exploitation seem to thrive from the failings of people to live and act by standards of fair and equitable moral belief and behaviour.
What is Right - Knowing and Doing
There are plenty of examples of “what is right” in most religions – and in rationalist secular or humanist philosophies, so the problem is certainly not confined to the west, the east or south, or to particular cultures or religions.
It is dispiriting to see people – and particularly leaders of society – cloak themselves in the philanthropic trappings of a morally “respectable” religion or other philosophy – and then often act so contrarily to the core values of fairness held by that philosophy.
Calls to Cut Foreign Financial Aid
Take the proposals to cut foreign aid at a national level that arise from time to time. Recently, this idea was put forward on the basis that “borrowed” money should not be given away when a country carried national debt. This “whistle-blowing” political call is actually driven by mean, selfish and immoral core values under the guise of pragmatic economic realism. Most countries have net national debt, in some cases many times their GDP. The US carries $32 trillion at last count.
Many of the “richer” nations provide extensive financial aid to poorer or disaster-struck people. Indeed, many householders have a home mortgage, but still manage to donate money and time to charities and other causes working for the broader benefit of the community. We should rail against those that promote an inward-looking foreign policy that limits a generous proportion of financial foreign aid.
Grass-roots Seed-capitalism
A tiny proportion of foreign “aid” from governments, individuals or charitable organisations is sometimes provided as small capital loans to enterprising poor people to enable them to commence businesses and work towards sustainably supporting their families and improving economic conditions in poor communities – a form of free-enterprise “capitalism” at a basic and probably its most morally-defensible level. Capitalism at a massive, national scale always seems to carry gros inequality and disparity in wealth.
Norway as a Non-neoliberal Example
Rather than pursue privatisation like many countries with neoliberal governments, Norway’s democratic socialism has maintained state-ownership and control of enterprises in key areas. It has relatively high taxes and royalties on the operations and profits of oil and mining companies and other profitable industries and is progressive in terms of government-led environmental management and social support systems.
Norway performs well in many dimensions of well-being relative to other countries in the Better Life Index. Norway outperforms the OECD average in jobs, work-life balance, education, health, environmental quality, social connections, civic engagement, safety and life satisfaction. The OECD’s Better Life Index is worth a read http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/norway/
While undeniably rich in natural resources (remind you of somewhere else?), Norway’s high standard of living and enviable wealth and social equality are driven by a well- balanced “mixed” economy – partly free enterprise and partly government regulated – but there must be moral and fair-minded core values somewhere at work as well.