LAST WEEK, I wrote about the role of remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). This article outlined the importance of these remittances in poverty alleviation but drew attention to the significance of bank charges in reducing the benefits. This is a small example of the unfairness that exists in the financial world which preserves iniquitous inequalities.
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In January 2018, a 15 page document entitled “Considerations for an Ethical Discernment Regarding Some Aspects of the Present Economic-Financial System” was prepared jointly by the Vatican’s doctrinal office and its department on human development, Pope Francis approved this document last week and has ordered its publication.
The document drew, in part, from Encyclical Letters produced by Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis.
Follows is a brief digest of the document:
It mentions the growing influence of financial markets on the material well-being of most of mankind. What is needed, it says, is both an appropriate regulation of the market dynamics but also a clear ethical foundation. This ethical foundation is particularly important to those working in the financial world.
The response to the 2008 financial crisis might have provided the occasion to develop a new economy, more attentive to ethical principles and a new regulation of financial activities that would neutralize predatory and speculative tendencies and acknowledge the value of the actual economy. Although there have been many positive efforts which should be recognized and appreciated, there does not seem to be any inclination to rethink the obsolete criteria that continue to govern the world. On the contrary, the response seems at times like a return to the heights of myopic egoism, limited by an inadequate framework that, excluding the common good, also excludes from its horizons the concern to create and spread wealth, and to eliminate the inequality so pronounced today.
At stake is the well-being of the majority who are at risk of being excluded and marginalized. A minority is able to exploit and reserve for itself substantial resources and wealth. Inequalities are preserved. Injustice prevails.
What can be done?
The document goes on to say that “well-being must be measured by criteria far more comprehensive than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a nation, and must also take into account other standards, for example, safety and security, the growth of ‘human capital’, the quality of human relationships and of work. Profit should be pursued but not at any cost, nor as a totalizing objective for economic action.”
The United Nations (UN) is trying to address problems of inequality. But results have been disappointing.
The financial sector has become increasingly proficient at eroding the distinction between truth and falsehood. We need those who can prevent this erosion and consequently identify malpractice when it occurs. This identification would be helpful in reducing inequality because malpractice harms the poor more than the rich.
The Constitution, Art XVI Sec 9 says: “The State shall protect consumers from trade malpractices.” We should take this more seriously and to put a wide interpretation of what constitutes malpractice.
Less malpractice means less poverty./PN
