Redirecting Human Rights' poverty approach from the lenses of "equality" to "equity"
Should we all be seen equal before the eyes of Human Rights when addressing poverty? And, should equality remain as the mean and ultimate goal of poverty eradication? These are two questions that if not ignored have been underestimated within the discussions about Human Rights alternative approaches to poverty. In response to them, the author humbly aims to bring a focus on the conceptual and empirical implications of the current Human Rights (HR) approach to equality; proponing that: for the Human Rights institution to address global poverty, it may be necessary to first, change its conceptual lenses and approach, from equality to equity; and, second, to trade off its avocational character for becoming an analyzing and hands-on policy making institution. Thus, this essay begins with a critical discussion of the concept of equality in the HR framework and its further empirical implications for being used to address poverty in an arbitrary neoliberal context. Consequently, equity is presented as an alternative concept for understanding and addressing the complex nature of poverty, referencing South Korea's young and elderly poverty, as a case study. Finally, the framework of "community impact", is introduced as one of the alternatives for the HR operational transformation centered on equity.
Equality is one of the main concepts if not the spine of Human Rights' institutional framework, approach and identity. But is this concept ideal for addressing -among others- the phenomenon of poverty? Furthermore, is the HR institution making an ideal use of it to address poverty? Most apparently, regarding both questions, the answer is no. As for the former, the reason is its inability to account for the complex phenomenon engrained in poverty that goes indeed beyond equality, regardless if based on "common humanity" or "legal equality." And as for the latter, because it mistakenly extrapolates the concept of equality as the indicator of material "sufficiency" -everyone should have the same in a minimum- and sets it as the bar goal for poverty eradication.
The UDHR, for instance, proclaims equalitythat rests first, in common humanity. In its article 1, it establishes that "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights…" Moreover, in its article 7, it proclaims legal equality or "formal equality of opportunity", stipulating that "...all [human] are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law...". Nevertheless, the former is not necessarily an equivalent factor of the latter; quite on the contrary, it is problematic conceptually and empirically. First, conceptually and in a more general context, whereas it is indisputably true and morally correct that all humans are born "equal" and should be treated equally in light of dignity, it is empirically faulty to use "common humanity" as same as "legal equality" to address poverty. This is because the statement that humans are "equal before the law," ignores the fact that law only operates normatively and is blind towards the complex socio-economic contexts that could constrain individuals from having access or being entitled to their rights; it could even prevent the law to offer fair and equal protection to individuals in light of these particular disparities. Fleurbaey presents this idea further in a socio-economic context. One of the downsides on positive rights - engrained in legal equality- in a market-oriented exploitative society, which rests mainly on normative settings, is that they are "impersonal and anonymous,", and which therefore, are most likely to obliviate the victims of this system who are kept in poverty and hardship. Furthermore, in an empirical context, when the HR institution utilizes indirectly "equality" in correlation with income growth or wealth distribution, and sets it as a single bar indicator to address all forms of poverty everywhere -as the SDG 1 and 10 do-, it reinforces the "libertarian ideal" of a socioeconomic system in which the equal participation of individuals on the market is the maximum realization of society, and furthermore, veils and ignores poverty and the intrinsic factors of neoliberalism as oppressive and coercive - this, not less than how the egalitarian approach does in the author's view-. In the same line, Baxi's view serves to mind the consequences of the "market-friendly" approaches to achieve equality and eradicate poverty. One of those approaches is the HR concentration on the "promotion and protection of the collective human rights of global capital in ways that justify corporate well being and dignity", passing flagrant -if not conspicuously in my view- the detrimental effects of exploitative neoliberal structures on HR itself.
Consequently, if the HR institution aims to address poverty and promote social justice on a formal and structural level, it can not do so by seeing everyone as equal, because poverty, if anything, is not about equalizing and can not be simply addressed using the same bar to everyone, everywhere. Poverty shows itself in acute differences of socio-economic, political, moral, and psychological realms, if not many other factors; and a feasible case on point to prove this proponent is South Korea's multigenerational and multidimensional poverty. Equality through the neoliberal lenses, look at the eyes of poverty with sense of accomplishment and contentment but without a clue of what it leaves behind; a sense of accomplishment that accompanies South Korea's (ROK) pride when occupying the 23th position out of 189 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI), and a "relative equal society" label with 31.4 points in the Gini Coefficient. Nevertheless, this contentment ignores and deepens the already acute disparities among young generations and elderly population, not only within the hidden economic disparities, but with major poverty issues related to mental health, geriatric health, housing, job and income security, as well as education. Hence, once more, not only "endless growth" has to be rejected as the means of realizing rights, but also applying the concept of "equality" to address poverty. This, since as previously mentioned, it not only obliviates the "complex [and] multifaceted" factors that surround the phenomenon of poverty, but ignores the exploitative and hierarchical socio-economic dynamics that relate to the individual and community experiences, which make humans within societies, indeed, different; different in the mere generational context that imply different livelihood necessities, different in having access to basic rights and in access to opportunities, different in biased gender contexts, different in so many arbitrary settings that the list could continue endlessly.
Therefore, isn't it precisely looking right into the eyes of poverty and its "differentness" where the alternative solution rests? What may the Human Rights institution have to reconfigure to look right into the eyes of poverty, examine its causes, and from the grassroots level, elevate the solutions to the legal and politico-economic spheres? If not a simple task, the alternative may be to look through the lenses of equity and leave equality intact only in its moral value of "common humanity." In the context of addressing poverty then equity would aim for "fairness and justice achieved through systematically assessing disparities in opportunities, outcomes, and representation[,] and redressing [those] disparities through targeted actions". In this sense, the equity approach appears much more effective than the one of equality, as it looks at three essential factors to address poverty: (a) the source(s), (b) the engrained phenomenon on the experiences of individuals or communities under constrained disparities and poverty, and (c) the solutions that can be created based on those different experiences. Looking through equity then would also change how poverty is understood. For this end, Fleurbaey's proponent is essential to establish that poverty is the "systematic violation of basic liberties…[and] an element of a social mechanism that violates the integrity of the people". Thus, the first thing that equity focuses is in the neoliberal structures that create or reproduce "inequity" -lack of fairness and justice by systematic disparities-. This would require to look into both: first, at "constrained disparities'' characterized as Fleurbaey mentions, in an "inversely related [way] to wealth" where individuals do not necessarily have an economic constraint but whose access to basic liberties and rights could be prevented from structural externalities, and second, at "poverty" itself, as an exacerbated version of those disparities that not only account for individuals being unable to enjoy their basic liberties and rights, but whose integrity is threatened under coercive circumstances. In short, equity aims to identify the why, who and how of disparities and poverty, showing that "fairness [and justice] is not advanced by treating those who are situated differently as if they were the same".
Hence, looking back at the case of South Korea's multidimensional poverty, through the lenses of equity, makes even more evident how the neoliberal lenses of equality ignore hidden phenomena surrounding poverty. Generally, South Korea's poverty is understood in terms of income with a "poverty threshold" set at below 50% of the median income accounting for 14.7% of the households, and appointing for only 0.2% of the population as living under less than $3.65 a day. Nevertheless, these numbers do not reflect the entire reality. On the one hand, it is the young population's state of inequity, which comprises first, a population cluster experiencing constrained disparities in accessing basic rights such as housing security due to monopolization and irregularization of the real estate market. Moreover, young poverty regards people who face hardships to maintain job security in a polarized labor market, and who also are at the verge of mental health crisis. "The traditional way of looking at income to define poverty has a blind spot when it comes to evaluating young poverty," express researchers from the Seoul Institute, which in a recent study on the subject, pointed out that 1 out of 10 government's help recipients are in their 20's and 30's. This numbers raise as the major conglomerates in ROK account for almost 84% of the country's GDP, but share only 11% of the job market, leaving 90% to informal jobs, thus exacerbating the "early young" unemployment rate, that as of 2020 accounted for 10.1%. Nevertheless, these figures are also causal factors on health issues in youth, as it was found that people in financial poverty were more likely to experience depression; 45.7% of all depression patients in the ROK are in their 20's to 30's. Furthermore, "late young" population shows high rates of housing insecurity and even if living above the income poverty threshold, they risk being indebted and "net worth poor". On the other hand there is elderly poverty, which is highly related with the lack of urban and political economies regulation, an almost non-existent retirement welfare system, societal stigmas on elderly agency and, coercive and violent livelihood structures that reflect on the conceptual framework based in Fleurbaey's proponent. It is estimated that 2 million elderly people live under acute poverty and simultaneously work in the unrecognized occupation of rubbish collection for recycling. Despite the fact that this population accounts for 20 to 50% of the recycling rate in the ROK, they carry the social stigma of a job characterized as "3D", which accounts for "dirty, difficult and dangerous". In a study carried about the "Health Status of Informal Waste Collectors in Korea," it was revealed that within 54 participants, 40% had car accidents when at work, 60% had injuries from falling, 16.6% had to be hospitalized, 11 of them suffered from depression and 13 experienced suicidal episodes. This two examples shows that in the ROK, inequity, meaning disparity and poverty, is originated strongly by non-regulation of the liberal-market structures and short-sighted neoliberal approaches to public policy; nevertheless, the young and elderly poverty differ not only within socio-economic structures but in sociological dimensions, and, therefore they require different approaches and solutions.
Lastly, in order to rethink and transform approaches to the multidimensional character of inequity, as a coercive disparity and poverty, it is necessary for the HR institution to accept the challenge of shifting its character from a strongly advocational entity, to become a more analytical and hands-on policy making entity. In this sense, Alston's view that "... transformation is hollow unless accompanied by a theory of change", is essential to establish that there is no further change if the political realm of poverty assessment is ignored. To achieve this stance, the HR institutions may have to first, shift to the character of inequity eradication as a legally binding project. For instance, whereas the SDGs were created based on international law and expressed in light of various international instruments, their accomplishment as Alston assertively explains, relies completely under a "voluntary nature" which diminishes the chances of achieving a better accountability. Once that is established, the second step would be to transform the operative approach towards inequity. In light of that, it is useful to implement "participatory governance[s]" that are characterized by being systematic and inclusive. Moreover, as Hoad propones, it would be necessary to "think harder about the forms, genres and modes of inequality arguments in old and new political imaginaries," change the "focus [of] dispossessed collectives… the nobodies…". For instance, an innovative framework that compiles these steps around equity is "collective impact". In 2011, J.Kania and M.Kramer published an article about collective impact as "a network of community members, organizations, and institutions that advance equity by learning together, aligning and integrating their actions to achieve population systems-level change". This approach is responsive to the current challenges towards traditional poverty eradication efforts, since it intrinsically requires that the different experiences of the marginalized populations are listened to and taken as the source for policy-making solutions; it demands grassroots work on data collection and targeted solutions, shifting of power relations between communities and organizations, as well as the establishment of equity leadership and accountability.
In short, the time has come for the human rights institution to shift directions in addressing disparities and poverty eradication. Short-sighted statistics have shown paradoxically that the efforts on achieving social justice and fairness, are not and have never been about achieving economic-growth, and urge to understand the phenomenon of poverty as it is, about differentness. Thus, to respond to the obvious, the HR institution may have to shift its view from "equality" and single-led neoliberal approach, to the "equity" of intrinsic difference down-top approach. Moreover, it may have to choose a more engaged and policy-transformative character as a global entity; always with confidence and hope, keeping always present that ruin is the path into transformation.
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