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Title details for What We Owe Each Other by Minouche Shafik - Available

What We Owe Each Other

A New Social Contract for a Better Society

by Minouche Shafik
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From one of the leading policy experts of our time, an urgent rethinking of how we can better support each other to thrive
Whether we realize it or not, all of us participate in the social contract every day through mutual obligations among our family, community, place of work, and fellow citizens. Caring for others, paying taxes, and benefiting from public services define the social contract that supports and binds us together as a society. Today, however, our social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change.
Minouche Shafik takes us through stages of life we all experience—raising children, getting educated, falling ill, working, growing old—and shows how a reordering of our societies is possible. Drawing on evidence and examples from around the world, she shows how every country can provide citizens with the basics to have a decent life and be able to contribute to society. But we owe each other more than this. A more generous and inclusive society would also share more risks collectively and ask everyone to contribute for as long as they can so that everyone can fulfill their potential. What We Owe Each Other identifies the key elements of a better social contract that recognizes our interdependencies, supports and invests more in each other, and expects more of individuals in return.
Powerful, hopeful, and thought-provoking, What We Owe Each Other provides practical solutions to current challenges and demonstrates how we can build a better society—together.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 27, 2021

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780691220277

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780691220277
      • File size: 2343 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      February 15, 2021
      An appeal to use the occasion of the pandemic to recast our view of rights and obligations. "Moments of crisis are also moments of opportunity," writes Shafik, the director of the London School of Economics. Challenges abound, from climate change to the economic meltdown that has followed the spread of Covid-19. The social contract of yore was a kind of social superego: In exchange for paying taxes, serving in the military, sitting on juries, and the like, the state would deliver certain services, such as defense, roads, and education. To some extent, the state thus charged is necessarily a welfare state. However, writes the author, a welfare state does not exist only to redistribute wealth, as critics of democratic socialism charge, but instead to serve as a kind of "piggy bank" that helps mitigate challenges as they arise. No one knows when they'll get sick or how long they'll be able to work, which leads to a system wherein the young and old pay less into it than do those in their most productive years, drawing benefits and then paying for them before drawing benefits again. Some states are better than others at all this. Ultra-capitalist Singapore, Shafik writes, is more socially equitable than "nominally communist China," which has no mechanism for taxing the estates of the wealthy. The author also advances the important argument that a new social contract must be formally stated rather than just "moral suasion." In such a scenario, "those who lose their jobs have an obligation, if they are physically and mentally able to do so, to retrain if necessary and return to work as soon as possible." More than anything else, a social contract that includes provisions for equal pay for equal work, the right to health care, and other such things requires willing participation, but it is "ultimately about increasing the accountability of our political systems." A welcome update of Rousseau-vian ideals of duty, responsibility, and reciprocity.

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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