We Need A New Social Contract!
At the age of 36, she became the youngest ever Vice President at the World Bank. She was named “Woman of the Year” for Global Leadership and Global Diversity in 2009. She worked as a Deputy Governor of the Bank of England from 2014 to 2017. She is the current Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is an Egyptian-born British-American Economist known as Minouche Shafik.
Her new book, What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract For A Better Society, makes readers think why our social contract is no longer working and why we need a new one. Our old social contract was designed for a time where only men were the breadwinners while women would stay at home and care for the old and the young. Additionally, the access to technology was limited and the world had abundant natural resources. The time we are in now has women in the labour market, the technology is growing rapidly and our natural resources are limited. Our time now demands a new social contract. The 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have caused a growing sense of insecurity and disappointment in today's society. The book argues that our social contract is broken under the weight of technology, climate change and demographic changes.
Referring to the UK social contract from Beveridge "cradle to the grave", What We Owe Each Other takes readers through stages of life we all experience -- Children, Education, Health, Work, Old Age, Generations, and New Social Contract. Minouche asks readers to examine how our social contract is broken in each section.
The book includes some critical questions: Do we raise our children at home or does the society provide effective childcare? Do we expect individuals to deal with healthcare and unemployment on their own? Do we expect women to stay at home? How do we use technology to create more opportunities for developing countries? Who gets to decide working hours? Can companies train their employees to stay relevant when the automation takes over? What jobs will become obsolete? Why is lifelong learning encouraged? How do we fund education? Why will our future generations work longer and live longer? How do we redistribute resources?
What I like about What We Owe Each Other is Minouche focuses on the solutions by drawing on the examples of better social contracts from all over the world. This book encourages us to do better in recognising a new social contract which is about “we”, not about “me”. This is an intelligent book that makes a point that teaching a man how to fish is way more effective than giving man a fish.
Get the book here!
