Necessary Evil

How to Fix Finance by Saving Human Rights
Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-0-19-069112-7
Verlag: OXFORD UNIV PR

Buch, Englisch, 288 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 596 g

Finance is the evil we cannot live without. It governs almost every aspect of our lives and has the power to liberate as well as enslave. With the worldâs total financial assetsâvalued at a staggering $300 trillionâbeing four times larger than the combined output of all the worldâs economies, there is, apparently, plenty to go around. Yet, while proponents of finance-driven capitalism point to the trickle-down effect as its contribution to wealth redistribution, there are still nearly a billion people across the globe existing on less than $2 a day; 14 percent of Americans are living below the official poverty line; and disparities in wealth equality everywhere have reached unprecedented levels. Evidently a trickle is not enough.

How can this be when so much wealth abounds, and when finance is supposedly chastened and reformed after its latest global crisis? How, especially, can it be in an age when human rights are more loudly proclaimed than ever before? Can the financial sector be made to shoulder more of the burden of spreading wealth, reducing poverty, and protecting rights? And if so, what role can human rights play in making it happen?

In answering these questions, David Kinley draws on a vast array of material from bankers, economists, lawyers, and politicians, as well as human rights activists, philosophers, historians and anthropologists, alongside his own experiences working in the field. Necessary Evil shows how finance can shed its conceit, return to its role as the economyâs servant not its master, and regain the public trust and credibility it has so spectacularly lost over the past decadeâall by helping human rights, not harming them.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kinley, David

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Internationales Recht und Europarecht Internationales Recht Internationale Menschen- und Minderheitenrechte, Kinderrechte
• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Humangeographie Wirtschaftsgeographie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Internationale Wirtschaft
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Kultur Menschenrechte, Bürgerrechte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Wirtschaftspolitik, politische Ökonomie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction

-

- Taming the money monster

- The argument

- The research journey

- The finance/human rights relationship

- Stages in the relationship

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- Chapter 1 Strange bedfellows

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- Hubris

- Finance as a utility

- Financial ownership

- Financial weapons of mass destruction

- Transformative powers

- Interdependency

- The poverty prism

- The public problem of private poverty

- Incentives and exceptionalism

- Anthropology on Wall Street

- Mission statement

-

- Chapter 2 Living together

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- Ends and means

- Money as an instrument

- A common liberal heritage

- Human rights globalization

- Paying for rights

- Finding rights

- Human rights and the global economy

- Rights Politics

- Complicated confederacy

- Speaking different languages

- Missed opportunities

- Human needs and human rights

- Rights differences

- Rights impacts

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- Chapter 3 Flirting with Risk

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- The attraction

- From boring banking to fantasy finance

- The majesty and tragedy of leverage

- Human rights risks

- Rich world austerity

- Poor world impacts

- Faith

- Faith no more

- Greed

- Greed in finance

- When risk goes bad

- Risky lessons

- Conclusion

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- Chapter 4 Private matters

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- What money can buy

- The generation and investment of wealth

- Income

- Remittances and credit

- Rent-seeking

- Capital

- Capital and tyranny

- Capital gains

- Responsible capital

- The business of impact

- Equity and inequality

- Rewarding capital

- Consequences of unequal wealth

- Wealth and giving

- The givers

- The Receivers

- Mixed motivations

- How much is enough?

- The private/public connection

-

- Chapter 5 Public affairs

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- Duty

- The voice of human rights

- Public funding of human rights

- Taxation, representation and rights

- The consequences of levying tax - a brief history

- Of ghosts and icebergs - the consequences of lost tax

- Tax as a force for good

- Aid and debt

- Development and human rights: more awkward than intimate

- Partnering with the private sector

- Getting the mix right

- Does 'new' aid work?

- Poorly

- Promising

- Possibly

- Conclusion

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- Chapter 6 Cheating

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- Consequences

- Deceit and subversion

- Illicit finance

- Tax evasion

- Tax free

- Tax sport

- Misappropriation

- Questions of impunity

- Regulatory capture

- Legal smoke screens

- Denial in finance

- Denial in human rights

- Wishful thinking

- Measuring progress

- Conclusion

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- Chapter 7 Counseling and reconciliation

-

- What sort of counsel?

- The long shadow of financial exceptionalism

- Attitudes and culture

- Empathy

- Responsibilities

- Esteem

- Sleaze

- Capacity for change

- Regulatory intervention and risk

- Identification of risk

- Allocation of risk

- Risk and the rule of law

- Alternatives

- Reaching across the divide

-

- Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

David Kinley is Professor and Chair in Human Rights Law at the University of Sydney, and an Academic Expert member of Doughty Street Chambers in London. He is a former Fulbright Senior Scholar at American University Washington College of Law, and has taught at Oxford and George Washington Universities as well as the Sorbonne. He is a co-author of The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (winner of an American Society of International Law Best Book Award) and author of Civilizing Globalization: Human Rights and the Global Economy. Born in Ireland and somewhat educated in England, he now lives in Australia.