The report aligns
very closely with PSI’s analysis of inequality and we are happy to endorse it,
because it sends a profound message about a social system where wealth
increases massively but poverty and misery do not recede.
There is nothing
inevitable about this state of affairs. The choices we make and the leaders we
elect will determine if it continues or not.
The existence of
such inexcusable disparities in wealth is not an accident. The accumulation of
wealth is used to entrench power in our society, power that is used to protect
wealth and cement privileges for generations.
The levels of
inequality we see today are not simply unjust, they undermine democracy.
Oxfam’s simple
message that working people must be paid a decent wage, everybody is entitled
to quality public services on the basis of need, not wealth, and that those who
have benefitted most should contribute most has a moral force in an age when
the market is too often the only moral compass.
For billions of
workers on our planet the only wealth they hold is public wealth. Their right
to water, energy, education and health can only be realised through public
services. Markets do not provide these outcomes for the world’s poorest and
never will. Only public services funded through progressive taxation can
provide basic human rights to the world’s most needy.
How can it be
justified that wealthy industrialists and bankers rent vacation boats for
$500,000 a week while each day people die preventable deaths through lack of
clean water?
That more than $20
trillion sits in tax havens when governments say they cannot afford to keep
essential public services open?
That multinational
corporations exploit tax loopholes to sneak away more money from Africa each
year than is received in total aid revenues? – even as we are reminded daily of
the tragic consequences of inadequate public health funding in West Africa that
has caused the current tragic outbreak of Ebola.
How is it that
today many of the largest and wealthiest multinational companies in the world
have simply stopped paying taxes?
The answers Oxfam
provides are simple, smart and entirely achievable. All that stands between
them and real change is a lack of political will. Our job is to make the cry
heard. To give action to the urgency. To ceaselessly expose the injustice and
demands its resolution.
The time to act is
now. You can count on PSI, its affiliates and 20 million members to make change
possible.
Rosa Pavanelli
General Secretary
Public Services International (PSI)
General Secretary
Public Services International (PSI)
