CLAIMING OUR FUTURE IDEAS
'Reducing Income Inequality'
A National Discussion in N.U.I. Galway on Saturday 28th May 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011 at 10:00 AM (GMT)
Galway, Ireland
EVERYONE WELCOME! CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Claiming our Future is organising its second national discussion for people to share their ideas on reducing income inequality. At our first event in the RDS last October over 1,000 people voted and identified eight policy priorities. One of these was to 'Achieve greater income equality and reduce poverty through wage, tax and income policies that support maximum and minimum income thresholds'. This second national creative and participative event in Galway will focus on how we can make this policy goal a reality.
In this national event we aim to:
- Share information, knowledge and perspectives on poverty, income inequality and strategies to address this issue.
- Stimulate and support ongoing work and campaigns across the country to debate this issue and to build support for policies to reduce poverty and income inequality.
- Identify a number of demands that could be made to leverage political engagement with the challenges of poverty and income inequality.
The event will involve discussion on what principles could guide our approach to poverty and income equality, on the measures that could be implemented to reduce income inequality and on what local action can be taken to make progress on these far-reaching issues.
The day will also involve creative breaks and visuals along with some guest performances.
EVERYONE WELCOME! CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
This is drawn from the Spirit Level research by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. (See here for more information)
- The level of consumerism that holds sway in society makes it difficult to contain economic activity within sustainable limits. Income inequality increases the pressure to consume. This is evident in societies such as USA and Britain where rising income inequality has been accompanied by a decline in savings and a rise in debt. Greater equality will reduce this pressure to consume.
- Higher levels of income equality enables a greater sense of public responsibility. Societies where there are higher levels of income equality are shown to recycle a higher proportion of their waste than societies with lower levels of income equality.
- Policies to cut emissions must be seen to be applied fairly if they are to gain public acceptance. The carbon emissions caused by the consumption of a rich person may be ten times as high as those from the consumption of a poorer person in the same society. Policies that squeeze the poor while allowing the rich to continue to produce much higher levels of emissions will be unlikely to gain popular support.
- Income equality can improve the real quality of our lives at lower levels of consumption. Growth has become a substitute for income equality. As long as there is growth there is hope that makes income differentials tolerable. Growth is a substitute for equality and in turn equality would make growth much less necessary. It is a pre-requisite for a steady state economy.
