Compassionate Capitalism-The Pursuit of Equal Income Distribution

During the last decades, the great weaknesses of capitalism have flourished. Inequality of income distribution has worsened painfully, the gap between rich and poor widens more and more every day, and just a few lucky entrepreneurs in the world are able to enjoy the capital benefits of the global system. Hunger, poverty, demographic explosion, ageing, and unbridled mass migration, among other factors, have become critical social dilemmas directly related to capitalist deviations, all of which cause us to foresee a chaotic world scenario in the near future. The numbers shown in this article confirm that the world’s economic disparity, instead of diminishing, is increasing at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, since the world economy completely depends on capitalism, this system is still extremely powerful and influential in global decision-making, thus further aggravating economic disparity. Therefore, as it is not possible to avoid the capitalist system, we will make proposals that are feasible for implementing within the current capitalist tendencies in order to alleviate global imbalance. Compassionate Capitalism is an alternative that promotes flexibilization of the system in order to make it more sustainable. It seeks to diminish corporate control over the economy and markets by regaining the State’s economic intervention so that profits are fairly redistributed for the common welfare. The information used for the study is based on the most recent international reports and global circumstances of the topics in question.


Introduction
Nowadays, unequal income distribution has become a common asset.Awareness of the great gap between rich and poor people is spreading throughout the globe, since it is an unscrupulous and cynical condition where only the richest 1% of the world population own more wealth than the rest of the planet (OXFAM International, 2017).This critical disparity has worsened each year, and it does not appear it will get better anytime soon.Some exceptional governments (mainly from developed countries) have adopted public policies that have alleviated the economic disparity in their communities by combining strategies and ideologies from two diverse political systems: capitalism and socialism.Thus, it is not unusual to find political parties and full governments, mainly known as "social democracies", which are in favor of a capitalist economic system but are also very committed to social welfare.It is in this sense that the concept of compassionate capitalism arises.
Is there any real chance for capitalism as a system to become compassionate in order to combat its own deviation?This article seeks to analyze, from a critical perspective, the deviations of capitalism that have led us to critical social dilemmas that are worsening alarmingly day by day; augmenting an argument in favor of the feasibility of a global system ruled by the alternative of an unusual asset called compassionate capitalism.This article intends to demonstrate that these controversies regarding the economic system will be solved by bringing together the private and public sector, civil society and governments, towards tendencies related to this alternative.To do so, critical thought is focused on a comparison of theories, ideologies, case studies, and data analysis.

Methodology
This is a descriptive, correlational, and explanatory investigation with a purely qualitative focus since it is founded on the collection of documental date that bases its argument on the validity and reliability of bibliographical resources used as key sources.The tangible reality affecting the world economic system structure is defined using the results obtained from this study, basing the argument and proposals on prior experience, understanding of the subject, and the collection of genuine, updated, diverse, and reliable information.There is no manipulation of the variables.This is an external observation of the occurrence in its natural form, and it is defined as research-based theory founded on emerging design; this means that the theory comes from the information itself-it is not forced into categories.The type of sampling is theoretical, i.e., the collection of the information and the emerging theory will indicate the composition of the sample.(Hernández et al., 2010) To achieve the main objective of this investigation, world income distribution is comparatively analyzed through the last few years.It is carried out purely in a current timeframe, emphasizing the argument of how inequality and over-amassing are prevailing not just in worldwide wealth distribution, but are also increasing at an alarming rate that allows us to foresee an uncontrolled critical situation in the near future.This shocking approach leads us to address the problems associated with world population, such as demographic explosion, uncontrolled mass migration, scarcity, lack of quality of life, and social discontent, all of which have become regular aspects of daily life.
These findings allow us to raise awareness of how the continuance of these social hurdles, as the consequence of a distorted world capital share, are accelerating the decline of the global system.
The proposals are centered on the discussion of plausible theoretical and practical options to reducing the global imbalance.Among other ideas, the core concept to be approached in this section is Compassionate Capitalism, which is understood as an alternative to managing capitalism, avoiding its worst deviations.State economic regulation, corporate social responsibility, and civil empowerment are brought together into a common goal: to fairly distribute national wealth among all social sectors.
The information used for the study is based on the most recent international reports and global circumstances of the international economic system; it is focused on global wealth distribution, income distribution, economic growth and development and the social patterns associated with them.This investigation took place in the year of 2017 over a four-month period.

Review of the Literature
In order to understand the context in which Compassionate Capitalism would evolve in the global system, it is necessary first to address the neglected cycle into which the interaction of income distribution, social-labor relations and international markets have fallen.Let us start by gaining a better understanding of the main concepts and theories related to this subject.

The concepts: Economic Growth and Development
Every nation in the world seeks to create, promote, and improve social development for their societies.At least in theory, that's what governments are willing to achieve.However, what the majority of periphery societies face every day is economic weakness, lack of quality of life, low-paid and scarce job creation, among other factors, all of which translate into social discontent, violence, and crime, along with terrorism and the mass migration boom.One of the biggest reasons for this situation is that capitalism is an economic theory that causes people to confuse essential concepts related to prosperity, sustainability, and human development.
Capitalism is based on the principle that capital accumulation and wealth are the key elements for success and good quality of life.The more you earn, according to the theory, the more you prosper.political leadership.Therefore, they are able to rule the international arena, as they are the pioneers of technological readiness, business innovation, market trends, and capital distribution.
Periphery nations are the ones that have been unable to achieve internal self-sufficiency, thus remaining behind in their economies, which are dependent on the core countries.Their industrial and productive sectors are weak, shattered, and inefficient, so their effectiveness is determined and structured according to the terms and interests of the superpowers.
In the third stage we find the semi-periphery countries, which share mutual conditions from both types of nations.On the one hand, they can have great assets in terms of productivity and/or economic efficiency -bringing them closer to the northern scale -while, on the other hand, they face other vulnerability factors (mainly related to the scarcity of social welfare and lack of political democracy), which causes them to remain significantly behind the north, and therefore, more related to the underdeveloped world.
The most representative semi-periphery nation would probably be China.Even with its capacity to generate an enormous, productive economy, it has not been able to achieve the same developmental standards as the superpowers.This is due to the existence of key social and political standards that are still in the rudimentary stages.Red tape, labor exploitation, authoritarian governance, institutional corruption, among others, cause them to be in a constant struggle for a leadership position in the global order.They might be good at strategic alliances and market trends, since its powerful economy allows them to be, but it is still difficult to see them as world rulers, as long as their internal structure is still so deviated.Thus, the international arena continues being controlled by the traditional core countries.
The world has resorted to a co-dependent, cyclical economic structure that only "works" in terms of dominationsubordination co-relations (Cuevas & Rodríguez;2017).As the Globalist Theory states (Kauppi & Viotti, 2012), the core countries are unwilling to share their economic and political power with the periphery countries.They will continue controlling the system in order to continue stockpiling their economies with the capital that comes from the south.
Based on the above statements, we can conclude, then, that the theory of possibilism might be plausible in exceptional cases where only a few people and countries are able to overcome their underdeveloped status by putting forth admirable efforts in the powerful struggle against the dominant capitalist system.

World Income Distribution in Two Words: Unequal and Over-Amassing
There are many studies related to income distribution.All of them point to one conclusion: Economic income and global wealth in general are distributed in a manner that is alarmingly unequal.Therefore, it is necessary to understand and be aware of the worrisome situation we are facing every day.
In relation to inequality, underdeveloped countries and, specifically, underdeveloped urban cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City or Bombay, clearly show how overcrowding has overwhelmed urban life.In this type of communities, it is common to see extremely poor regions surrounding "prosperous" cities, where wealthy families, well-educated people, innovative businesses, and upscale buildings remind the poor sectors just how unfair life can be.While they do not have access to good education, a worthy salary or a decent house, other inhabitants, just a few blocks away, enjoy a privileged life full of benefits unavailable to others.In the poorest sectors, this painful disparity generates feelings of frustration and impotence for the unattainable living standards that others happily enjoy.That frustration is transformed into serious urban deviations such as violence, crime, informal jobs, and drug trafficking, among others.
As Thomas Piketty creatively demonstrated in his book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" (2014:431), we are facing a radical global divergence of distribution of capital due to the fact that rich people can make more money than the poor only from the revenues and benefits they are able to obtain while investing huge amounts of money in stock portfolios.He compares this to the minimum quantities that the majority of the world's population manages to accumulate, obtaining a return on capital that is significantly less, percentage-wise, than what the richest obtain.As the author claims, it is also easier for rich people to undertake risky strategies that help them obtain greater advantages and benefits from the stock exchange.This dilemma, among other elements that we will discuss later, is causing world wealth to become more concentrated (over-amassing) into only a few persons -persons, not even corporations -because the great fortunes that continue growing belong to individuals, mainly resulting from family inheritance (Piketty, 2014) - The enormous disparities in income distribution and economic power worldwide have to do with what Buckley and Casson (2010) call competitive individualism versus voluntary association.According to these authors, the western culture is mainly influenced by individualistic competitiveness--a capitalist strength that underdeveloped societies do not share.Competitive individualism allowed the merchant to act freely in order to serve his own economic interests.In this perspective, the interference of other matters with paternalistic purpose is unacceptable (Buckley & Casson, 2010:81).To the contrary, less developed countries promote voluntary association with each other in order to cooperate, be well-integrated, and improve their living standards by means of reciprocal comradeship.Individualism is not a part of their culture, as neoliberal tendencies have not really reached their social structure.Voluntary association strives for the welfare of the entire community; thus, their co-dependency makes it difficult for them to obtain efficient business results.Therefore, it is easier for developed countries to invade those "rudimentary" societies, getting access and control over those massive markets.This crude discrepancy, which reasserts what the Globalist theory states, causes us to conclude that there are minimum alternatives for southern nations to overcome their underdeveloped status.They will continue being subordinate to the dominant northern world as long as they continue in the mindset of voluntary association.
-Real income in general has stagnated or declined for those who are further down in the productive chain, while large capital gains are made and centered in northern nations and/or in hands of only a few extremely rich.World wealth is rapidly moving from the south to the north, shrinking the share of capital to unsustainable levels.Opportunities for better living standards are aligned with wealth distribution.Those born in prosperous nations will get more access to high quality education, health care, housing, and human development -thus, more access to capital -than those with no access to those assets.

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The excessive neoliberal manifestation into which capitalism has fallen, has triggered not only inequality, but also other social deviations that soon will no longer be manageable.Demographic explosion, mass migration, and ageing are direct consequences of capitalism, and they empower economic inequality.It is a vicious cycle.For instance, demographic explosion is a result of more fertility and less mortality rates.That phenomenon brings more consumption, production, competition, and markets, as more people means more active workers and then, more consumers.However, it conversely also brings uncontrolled mass migration, mainly from people moving from periphery nations to industrialized countries which are supposedly able to cover those basic needs for them.A huge supply of a non-qualified, unemployed labor force must compete with each other for any kind of precarious jobs in order to survive in their countries of origin, forcing them to look for better living opportunities abroad.This is again the co-relationship between domination and subordination, where the most vulnerable people struggle to survive in an economic system controlled by the most powerful.
-Ageing is also a social deviation related to domination and subordination.As the quality of life improves mainly in the developed world, less fertility and more life expectancy is the result.Core countries with high standards of human development have arrived at an extreme manifestation of this: they are now struggling with an increasingly elderly population that is not being replaced with youth.There is no active labor force to support the national economic efficiency standards, so they must resort to immigrant labor.We can foresee how bad this issue can get, when the immigrant population is mainly composed of poorly educated, unskilled workers who are not socially integrated into the receiving societies.What capitalism once reaped as human benefits are now becoming the critical dilemmas that must be solved in order to allow the economic system to survive.

Proposals
Though economic inequality has been a reprehensible aspect of capitalism from the very beginning, it hasn't been until the last few decades where we have come to a wider awareness of just how critical this problem is.
As we have seen, income distribution inequality, has to do with a rotten capitalist system.There is no other way to make this economic system.tosucceed unless we keep the restraining divergent relation on of dominantssubordinated.It makes us to agree with Karl Marx, when he stated that as long as capitalism keeps ruling the world, there won't be opportunity to develop any other forms of global governing.Our human nature determines our individualistic manner and permanent competion veness that we stress with each other every single day.
Capitalism shall come into its own colapse, showing us its rudest deviations (greed, power abuse, discrimina on, intolerance), by means of hunger, civil war, scarcity and social chaos.We are not far  from that, and it may be the one and only lead for us to make consciousness of the self-destruction we are running to.Even we see how capitalism is declining today, it may be centuries yet to come, with the exacerbation of its deviations.Therefore, as an innovative economic model is not feasible in the short term, we shall apply other partial alternatives that help us to aleviate the chaos.Like Compassionate Capitalism.This concept refers to the possibility of lighten in the exacerbation of capitalism, giving a breath to those in the lowest sectors of the chain.It intends to leverage the positive aspects of capitalism, like private property, free markets, liberal economy, but retaking some mercan list assets.Like government economical intervention, internal market consolidation, states' responsibility over social wellbeing, in terms of fair income distribution cannalized to education, labor training, research & development, technological redness, etc.That would permit the economical success of capitalism, and the equalization of the less developed ones Income distribution inequality is a basic element of capitalism.There is no other way to make this economic system succeed unless we maintain the repressive, divergent relationship of dominants over the subordinated.This causes us to agree with Karl Marx's vision, when he stated that as long as capitalism continues ruling the world, there will be no opportunity to develop any other forms of global governance.Capitalism allows us to exercise our most individualistic and ambitious human nature, thus we permanently focus on competition with one another.That cannot lead us to a good end.
Capitalism is already showing us its crudest deviations (greed, power abuse, discrimination, unfair trade, over-amassing of capital), resulting in hunger, scarcity, unchecked mass migration, urban overcrowding, precarious jobs and wages.Social discontent is present in the majority of the world population.We are not far from social chaos, though hitting rock bottom might be the one and only way for us to create awareness of the self-destruction we are driving ourselves to.
One of the biggest issues that has made capitalism so powerful is the laissez-faire policy that corporate conglomerates enjoy.They are free to develop their self-interest strategies in order to obtain maximum profits from the system.Since they hold economic and market control, they have a big influence over global governing.They can manipulate laws, market trends, global prices, exchange rates, and obviously income distribution and wealth amassing.
So, how do we expect to create a better economical balance if enterprises and international banking (besides controlling economic and market trends) have the full benefit of laissez-faire?
Even though capitalism is coming into its own decline, it may yet be centuries to come before it arrives at a total collapse.Therefore, because an innovative economic model is not feasible in the short term, we shall apply other partial alternatives that enable us to alleviate the problems of global imbalance.Compassionate Capitalism could be one of them.This concept refers to the possibility of lightening up the exacerbated liberal tendencies of capitalism, giving breathing room to those on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.This would be done not by avoiding capitalism; rather, we would be making it more flexible.Compassionate capitalism seeks to provide leverage for the positive aspects of the capitalist system, such as private property, free markets, and liberal economy, while the state retakes its ruling role over the economy in order to fairly channel the profits towards improving human welfare.
Economic intervention by the state is the one alternative able to combat capitalist deviations since it offers better control over corporate practices, internal market consolidation, income distribution, and human development improvement.This is done by enforcing education, health, research & development, job training -an alternative which combines the economic success of capitalism with the compassion of social welfare.
Nowadays we find this intriguing political strategy put in place in some advanced economies, mainly in Europe, which is the least unequal region on earth.The most advanced countries, in terms of human development, are governed by compassionate capitalist tendencies, making access to public services and life opportunities more equal for everybody.They mandate income distribution measures, regulate corporate competition, wage levels, job creation, and access to healthcare and education, effectively channeling all the profits.This kind of governing is called social democracy, also known as the third way, as it combines the greatest advantages of capitalism with those of socialism, combining the best of the two options into one.It advocates a varying synthesis of center-right economics and center-left social policies.
Compassionate capitalism is also directly related to Corporate Social Responsibility.This is a relatively new concept regarding how companies are willing to act, not just for the sake of profits but also for moral and social responsibility in economic, social and environmental contexts (Cuevas & Rodríguez, 2017).Every day there are more and more corporations integrating socially responsible actions into their internal structure.There is a relatively positive change in the corporate mindset.However, from a general perspective, corporate social responsibility is still subjugated to capital.It means that social responsibility as a corporation mainly lies below its economic interests.As long as it does not interfere with the corporate profit goals, then social responsibility can be manageable.In fact, many corporations make incursions into the realm of social responsibility only because it might give them a better image with their customers.There are no moral objectives, only capital.That is precisely why we insist on the imperative necessity for economic intervention from the state: it is the only way to diminish corporate power and cause compassionate capitalism to flourish.
On an international level, there have been some other very interesting proposals regarding compassionate capitalism, which address the issue of how income can be better distributed throughout the world.
Tobin tax may be one of the most practical alternatives that have been proposed for reducing economic disparity.Basically the idea is to establish a minimum tax on worldwide monetary transactions.When US economist James Tobin suggested this tax plan in 1972, it was intended to control exchange rate volatility, stimulate productive investment, and discourage speculation.In fact, nothing was said about income distribution inequality.Even so, in the wake of the 21st century, Tobin´s proposal was again taken up by those against free trade and globalization, referring to it as a feasible alternative for driving development, alleviating economic scarcity and global income distribution disparity.
According to Ramonet (2003), if we would have taxed all financial transactions in the early 2000's with a token rate of 0.1%, there would have been a total annual amount collected of 160 billion dollars, which could be used to amortize southern external debt, alleviate extreme poverty, or improve access to basic universal public services in the most vulnerable countries.Today, the total amount we could collect would be much larger.With a tax rate of only 0.05% imposed on financial transactions worldwide, the capital collecting potential would be more than 661 billion dollars, which was equivalent to 1.21% of world GDP in 2011 (CINU, 2011).
Following the economic crisis of 2008, the Tobin tax was endorsed by regional decision makers, governments and international organizations.Such is the case of the European Union (EU), when in 2011 it proposed the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), seeking to levy all financial asset transactions carried out in the secondary market.Tax rates would be around 0.1% for all share and bond transactions (Teruel, 2011).At the same time, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) backed the idea of a global financial and/or monetary transaction taxation, which would begin profoundly reforming the international financial system and its institutions, diminishing financial vulnerability and maintaining stability (CINU, 2011).There is no consensus yet among EU members or the global decision-makers to materialize these kind of proposals.There are divergent and ambitious political interests that have blocked negotiations.Nevertheless, the involvement of global analysts and politicians is a good start for the change.Thomas Piketty's proposal (2014) is also related to taxation.He argues that we are on our way back to patrimonial capitalism, in which a big part of global wealth, which is concentrated in a few hands, is inherited.Therefore, a global framework of patrimony progressive taxation may help to reduce inequality and over-amassing by a very small minority.
Both seem to be great options for transferring a symbolic amount of the world's total wealth from north to south.Nobody could avoid the tax payment, as every single international financial transaction would be charged; thus, the entire global economy would be contributing with the same proportionate amount (0.1%), maintaining fair economic competition in general.
Though these are great ideas, it is important to be aware of how difficult it is to bring these proposals to fruition, as the core countries and their giant corporations are the ones in control of the economic system.Being the great capital holders and the rulers of the system, they have the heaviest influence on governmental decision-making and lobbying to serve their own interests.Compassionate capitalism is then in the hands of the citizens.Ordinary citizens, along with the influential intellectuals and international organizations that are already backing these proposals, are the ones with the power to put pressure on national and global governance; among other actions, activism, citizen involvement, and information dissemination are required in order to expand awareness.The global order is not sustainable in its current unbalanced condition.Political consensus on how to transform the international financial system to make it more equal, stable and fair, is an imperative that the international community cannot just ignore.Worldwide economic disparity may very well bring us to irreversible social chaos, with disastrous consequences.We still have time to reverse it, applying the appropriate corrective measures mentioned above.Thus, it is everybody´s responsibility to be informed, to make consciousness, to spread the voice, to put pressure on people, governments and corporations, in order to direct the change.
. As the latest investigation by OXFAM International (2017) states, only 8 people (males) in the world have amassed the same quantity of wealth as 3.6 billion people combined.