WEALTH ALLEVIATION:
RESOURCE-LIGHT CONSUMPTION FOR THE GLOBAL CONSUMER CLASS, AND THE
RIGHTS OF THE MARGINALISED MAJORITY
Debating the Jo'Burg Memo
Date: August 30
Time: 18h15-18h45 (theatre) and 19h00-20h00
(debate)
Venue: Boell Forum at the Global People's Forum +
[ where is it ]
With Joan Martinez-Alier, University
Barcelona; Arunadhal Mittal, Food First Institute for Food
and Development Policy; and
Heman Agrawal, Assistant Co-ordinator of the Memorandum Group
"Poverty is the siamese
twin of wealth. Both develop jointly and neither can be fully understood
without reference to the other. (...) Hence, in our perception,
no calls for poverty eradication are credible unless they are accompanied
by calls for the reform of wealth. (,,,) Indeed, conventional development
experts implicitly define equity as a problem of the poor. They
highlight a lack of income, technologies or market access, and advocate
remedies for raising the living standard of the poor. In short,
they work at lifting the threshold - rather than lowering or modifying
the roof. With the emergence of bio-physical constraints to economic
growth, however, this approach turns out to be definitely one-sided
- suggesting at this point that it was probably never adequate.
In any case, the quest for fairness in a finite world means changing
the rich in the first place, not the poor. Poverty alleviation,
in other words, cannot be separated from wealth alleviation..."
(The Jo'burg Memo,
pp. 35).
The Jo'burg Memo takes a look at poverty that is by and large absent
from the mainstream discussions at the summit. It links the fate
of the poor to the over consumption of the wealthy. We will discuss
this issues with our eminent guests:
Joan Martinez-Alier is professor at the Universitat Autònoma
de Barcelona. He is a founding member of the International Society
for Ecological Economics. Anuradha Mittal, a native of India,
is the Co-Director of Food First, and director of the national campaign
"Economic Human Rights: The Time Has Come!". Heman
Agrawal, assistant coordinator and editor of the Jo'burg Memo
native of India, is research scientist at the University of Witten/Herdecke
(Germany).
The debate starts at 19h00. It will be preceded from 18h15 to
18h45 by "Fair Wealth?", a theatre play inspired
by the Jo'burg Memo, by the Sibikwa
Community Theatre Group.
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