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Necessary Evil: How to Fix Finance by Saving Human Rights

Necessary Evil: How to Fix Finance by Saving Human Rights

Author: David Kinley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780190691127
Published In: May 2018
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.S. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Finance governs almost every aspect of modern life. Every day, we use the financial system to mortgage our homes, to insure our health, to invest in our futures through education and pension funds, to feed and clothe ourselves, to be paid for our labor, and to help others in need.

As the fuel of capitalism, finance has been a major force for human progress for centuries. Yet it has periodically generated disasters too, from the Great Depression to the recent sub-prime mortgage crisis.

In writing Necessary Evil, eminent human rights law scholar David Kinley spent ten years immersed in researching finance's many facetsafrom how it is raised and what it is spent on, to when it is gambled and who wins and who loses to produce this unique account of how finance works from a human rights perspective. He argues that while finance has historically facilitated many beneficial trends in human well-being, a sea change has occurred in the past quarter century.

Since the end of the Cold War, the finance sector's power has grown by leaps and bounds, to the point where it is now out of control. Oversight of the sector has been weakened by deregulation, as powerful lobbyists have persuaded our leaders that what is good for finance is good for the economy as a whole. Kinley shows how finance has become societyas master rather than its servant, and how, as a consequence, human rights concerns are so often ignored, sidelined or crushed.

Using episodes of financial malfeasance from around the globeL from the world's banking capitals to the mines of central Africa and the factories of East Asia. Kinley illustrates how the tools of international finance time and time again fail to advance the human condition. Kinley also suggests policies that can help finance protect and promote human rights and thereby regain the public trust and credibility it has so spectacularly lost over the past decade.

An authoritative account of the extraordinary social consequences of the financial system at the heart of the worldas economy, Necessary Evil will be an essential tool for anyone committed to making global capitalism a fairer and more effective vehicle for improving the lives of many, and not just providing for the comfort of a few.

Introduction

Taming the money monster

The argument

The research journey

The finance/human rights relationship

Stages in the relationship

Chapter 1 Strange bedfellows

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

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

Chapter 3 Flirting with Risk

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

Chapter 4 Private matters

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

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

Chapter 6 Cheating

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

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

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