Skip to main content

Home/ ThesisPolitics/ Group items tagged CCPA

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Shantastic Marie

Income Inequality Reframe: The 99% « Framed In Canada - 0 views

framedincanada.com/...come-inequality-reframe-the-99

inequality canada CCPA Occupy Thesis

shared by Shantastic Marie on 23 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Occupy Wall Street is shining new light on the question of how to frame income inequality.
  • growinggap.ca project
  • income inequality elicited many and varied response
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • ambiguous
  • gap between the rich and poor
  • couldn’t identify with the rich
  • preventing them from identifying with the poor
  • Rather than see the rise of the richest and the misfortunes of the poorest as a product of a larger system that treats people differently – unfairly – five years ago, the Canadians in our focus groups saw the problem of systemic poverty from an individualistic standpoint
  • struggles of the middle class trying to keep afloat
  • talking about it in terms of the rich and the poor was an unconscious form of ‘othering’
  • And so we shifted the frame, focusing the lens on the gap between the rich and the rest of us
  • systemic problem of poverty
  • show how much the majority of Canadians have in common when it comes to income inequality – that it’s a systemic problem which affects us all
  • inequality heightens social tensions and threatens the health and vibrancy of our democracy
  • Five years and a worldwide recession later (a recession caused by irresponsible financial schemes hatched by a handful of bankers and traders on Wall Street), social unrest has been slowly unfolding
  • Arab Spring
  • G20 protests
  • Occupy Wall Street
  • fed up with a system that has wildly rewarded the richest one per cent while 99 per cent of Americans grapple with a Great Recession whose impact doesn’t seem to be letting up
  • They are showing us they are ready to stare down powerful corporate interests that prevent America from dealing with its serious fiscal and social issues.
  • large groups of citizens taking to the street
  • viewed by the establishment as anarchy
  • threat to rule of law or radical
  • hard limits of the kind of post-9/11 authoritarian constraints on perfectly law-abiding citizens who simply demand their right to be seen and heard. The 99 per cent, the new income inequality frame, has been ignored by governments of all levels, in far too many countries, for far too long.
  • The Wall Street occupants are showing us that when the system isn’t working for the 99 per cent, something is dangerously wrong with our democracy
  • new frame with which to view income inequality in North America: it is about the 99 per cent. It isn’t about individuals or individual failure. It’s about a system that’s failing the vast majority of citizens who believe things can be better than this.
Shantastic Marie

FAST FACTS: Connecting the Dots | Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - 0 views

www.policyalternatives.ca/...fast-facts-connecting-dots

Occupy Politics Thesis CCPA inequality

shared by Shantastic Marie on 23 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • rise in attention being paid to the growing poverty and inequality in Canada
  • The Occupy movement can be credited for much of the recent attention but it is the data being released by mainstream institutions and ‘think tanks’ that have made it politically acceptable to challenge the dismal reality. Most recent is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising (Dec. 2011). It shines a spotlight on the growing inequality in OECD countries, including Canada, which is shown to have income inequality above the OECD average
  • significant coming from the OECD
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • recognition that significant change is in order
  • economic policies are at the root of the problem. The report acknowledges that the policies that have given us an increasingly low-wage economy, inequitable tax policies and a shrinking social safety net are not serving us well
  • OECD appears to be realizing
  • For the OECD, this is a major shift in thinking
  • Neoliberalism was supposed to make the world a better place for us all.
  • The OECD Jobs study had a significant influence on policy reforms in Canada through the 1990s, many of which were first outlined in the Liberal government’s 1994 policy paper Agenda, Jobs and Growth. This document provided the template for a restructuring of social policy in Canada throughout the 1990s – a template that continues to guide policy today.
  • “Canada spends less on cash benefits such as unemployment benefits and family benefits than most OECD countries. Partly as a result, taxes and transfers do not reduce inequality by as much as in many other countries. Furthermore, their effect on inequality has been declining over time.”
  • “publicly provided services fulfill an important direct redistributive role” and that the scaling back of employment protection, something that the Jobs Study advocated for “ had an overall disequalizing effect.” The OECD report leaves us with hope because it demonstrates that we need to rethink neoliberal economic theory.
  • begin a process of reversing the damage done
  • As recommended by the OECD, this will require that we return to a more equitable taxation and redistribution model, and invest in education and social programs
  • latest mantra—austerity
Shantastic Marie

The Monitor | Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - 0 views

www.policyalternatives.ca/...index.php

Thesis inequality CCPA Politics

shared by Shantastic Marie on 23 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Shantastic Marie on 23 Feb 12
     
    Read later if need more info on previous revolutions, covers Latin America Revolutions & Middle East Revolutions in many part series
1 - 8 of 8
Showing 20▼ items per page