Introduction

It would not be an over-exaggeration to suggest that we find ourselves in troubled and problematic times, yet some of us live in material and financial circumstances that are beyond the wildest dreams of our grandparents and great-grandparents. It is also no hyperbole to point out that we live in a divided world, between the haves, the have much less and the have nots – globally, nationally and locally, this inequality reveals itself not just in terms of income, wealth and power but also in the form of health, education, security and access to basic necessities. In Britain, the soup kitchens of the 1930s for the unemployed have been replaced by the food banks of the 2010s for the low paid: Rough sleeping, homelessness alongside ostentation. Some would argue that this is the way of the world, that somehow inequality is the outcome that is to be expected and whether one is born into a wealthy family on the west coast of the United States or in an impoverished village in the Democratic Republic of Congo is just ‘the luck of the draw.’ There tend to be three main types of reaction to this inequality: The TINA response is simply to accept that inequality has always been the way and always will be, justified by employing religious cants, philosophical positions and/or economic theoretical positions in order to give gravitas to the idea of doing nothing. Individuals, if they wish, can help as individuals as if inequality were an existentialist problem. There are those who wish to address the problem of inequality through a ‘do as we do’ mantra where the advanced countries suggest that as they operate within free markets, free trade and ‘democracy,’ then the underdeveloped economies ¹ should follow suit if they wish to catch up. This is the modus operandi of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) of the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and of the leading forums of the advanced countries (G7/G8). The third approach is to seek alternatives that are credible as policies to promote economic development, economic growth and rising prosperity in the underdeveloped economies. Therefore, if the first response is morally bankrupt and the second response is morally questionable, then an alternative should be sought. Rather than ‘do as we do’ a much better slogan for development strategy would be ‘do as we did.’ Therefore, it follows that there must be a moral and a historical element to the formulation of a credible alternative strategy that can address the problem of global inequality.