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Necessary Evil: How to Fix Finance by Saving Human Rights
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 world's total financial assets--valued at a staggering $300 trillion--being four times larger than the combined output of all the world's 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 economy's servant not its master, and regain the public trust and credibility it has so spectacularly lost over the past decade--all by helping human rights, not harming them.
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 economy's servant not its master, and regain the public trust and credibility it has so spectacularly lost over the past decade--all by helping human rights, not harming them.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published March 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 28, 2019
It's really comfy to blame the tool:
- the nuclear reactions for the nuclear bombs' fallout,
- states for all kinds of weird shit that happens around the societies that inhabit them,
- cities for the crowdedness and dirt,
- roads for rush hours,
etc.
Money's just another nifty scapegoat that gets the blame for what people do with it.
As the rumor mill goes, money wields some secret ingredient that makes us go bonkers while secretly coveting it and doing evil things while we're at it. I've never been able to locate the said ingredient. So... it might be that it's the people are at fault for whatever goes awry with money and finance and society and human rights and environment and whatever our greedy little paws manage to fuck up.
Of course, I do love the arguments the author brings to the table, and a lot of it makes sense. Even though I can't help pointing out that had we (as a crowd and as private persons) just a little bit wiser, this volume might have been made redundant. Sadly, that's not the case and therefore a legal-ish review of how the finance fucks up badly our basic rights is quite a timely topic to ponder.
Q:
In fact, for too long the human rights community has ignored or dismissed finance as antithetical. It has not helped, of course, that financiers— and by extension, the financial system— have returned the favor by spurning human rights matters as irrelevant and someone else’s problem. Both sides are wrong, and both suffer as a consequence. The fact is that the two desperately need each other; like Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, their destinies are tied, whether they like it or not. (c)
Q:
The proof of the pie is in its eating: who gets to eat, when, and how much. (c) Okay, that's funny.
Q:
It might seem odd, therefore, even perverse, to argue not only that we should acknowledge the intimacy that exists between finance (that is, money’s systemic incarnation) and human rights, but that we should actively encourage it. (c)
- the nuclear reactions for the nuclear bombs' fallout,
- states for all kinds of weird shit that happens around the societies that inhabit them,
- cities for the crowdedness and dirt,
- roads for rush hours,
etc.
Money's just another nifty scapegoat that gets the blame for what people do with it.
As the rumor mill goes, money wields some secret ingredient that makes us go bonkers while secretly coveting it and doing evil things while we're at it. I've never been able to locate the said ingredient. So... it might be that it's the people are at fault for whatever goes awry with money and finance and society and human rights and environment and whatever our greedy little paws manage to fuck up.
Of course, I do love the arguments the author brings to the table, and a lot of it makes sense. Even though I can't help pointing out that had we (as a crowd and as private persons) just a little bit wiser, this volume might have been made redundant. Sadly, that's not the case and therefore a legal-ish review of how the finance fucks up badly our basic rights is quite a timely topic to ponder.
Q:
In fact, for too long the human rights community has ignored or dismissed finance as antithetical. It has not helped, of course, that financiers— and by extension, the financial system— have returned the favor by spurning human rights matters as irrelevant and someone else’s problem. Both sides are wrong, and both suffer as a consequence. The fact is that the two desperately need each other; like Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, their destinies are tied, whether they like it or not. (c)
Q:
The proof of the pie is in its eating: who gets to eat, when, and how much. (c) Okay, that's funny.
Q:
It might seem odd, therefore, even perverse, to argue not only that we should acknowledge the intimacy that exists between finance (that is, money’s systemic incarnation) and human rights, but that we should actively encourage it. (c)
April 8, 2018
3 out of 5 stars....
First off, I have a problem with the author calling finance an evil. Sure, as the author describes, human rights are too often the casualty, but, as have been said by many others, the arrow of history points forward. Specifically, world poverty has been minimized coincidental with finance, so, likely because of finance; human beings run finance and are neurologically wired overwhelmingly for justice.
That being said, I agree with the author that more can be done to further human rights, like with better regulation and redistribution, and the book does offer many ways to do this.
Throughout history, the wealthy always have had advantages, however excessive wealth doesn’t always bring happiness. There, the author seems to ignore.
Anyway, I do recommend the book because finance is an important topic, especially since the Great Recession and income inequality is perhaps the biggest casualty of the recovery.
First off, I have a problem with the author calling finance an evil. Sure, as the author describes, human rights are too often the casualty, but, as have been said by many others, the arrow of history points forward. Specifically, world poverty has been minimized coincidental with finance, so, likely because of finance; human beings run finance and are neurologically wired overwhelmingly for justice.
That being said, I agree with the author that more can be done to further human rights, like with better regulation and redistribution, and the book does offer many ways to do this.
Throughout history, the wealthy always have had advantages, however excessive wealth doesn’t always bring happiness. There, the author seems to ignore.
Anyway, I do recommend the book because finance is an important topic, especially since the Great Recession and income inequality is perhaps the biggest casualty of the recovery.
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April 4, 2019330.122 K556 2018
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews