“No, King Charles III won’t pay any inheritance tax on his massive gain,” “NPR Editor Bill Chappell reported.”1 “H[e]should get ready to abdicate,” Conor Friedersdof, surmised, in The Atlantic.2
America leads in the rise of gerontocracy. The richest people easily evade income tax while commoners, both poor and rich, suffer the tax burden. This feudal-colonial practice sustains archaic institutions—a major cause of perpetual inequality. Progressive income tax helps egalitarian policies so crucial for the foundation of a civil society free from the burden of rapacious traditions.
The issues in social development emanate from ossified institutions, structures, and behaviors which perpetuate inequality. Thomas Piketty’s new book A Brief History of Equality (2022) signifies redistribution of wealth with egalitarian taxation to solve this problem universally. Remnants of colonial-imperial forces continue to reinforce military-capitalist domination at the cost of social-environmental justice.
Piketty finds it “totally insane” to believe that growth will solve the world’s economic disparity.
While Britain and much of the world gloriously mourned the death of The Queen, many South Asian countries remained mixed about the Imperial domination. “Shortly before the Queen’s death, Uju Anya, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, called the monarch ‘the chief monarch of a thieving, raping, genocidal empire’ on Twitter and wished her an ‘excruciating’ death.”3 We don’t enjoy anyone’s demise. Stoic sympathies speak for themselves. The world is full of contractions. Euphemistically, “It’s a wonderful world.” Genocide, apartheid, and bigotry continue to ravage humanity—not to speak of “climate carnage.”4 “[An] economically illiterate junta is running Myanmar into the ground.5” These yawning global disparities—The Third Rail of Social Development—present insurmountable difficulties to revisit our purpose and goal. Peaceful protests are not enough if the Global South must be saved from the Global North. Russians are defying the authoritarian Putin. The revolt of Iranian women—burning of their Hijabs—is no small cry.6
“Peace built on the oppression of women is no peace at all.”7 Social Development Issues (SDI) seeks to offer a few good articles in this last issue of volume 44, 2022. A conservative Supreme Court has lately unleashed an unabashed attack on women’s fundamental rights. Mashooq Salehin and Vijayan Pillai show how the ban on abortion impedes human development. Likewise, many mundane issues with wider application are discussed within the “social development paradigm.” Current social movements, corporate social responsibility, and “manual scavenging” constitute important foci in the reconstruction—“second founding.”
SDI’s next issue, volume 45, is designed to highlight thematic problems of global inequality (Guest Editor, Christian Aspalter). You are encouraged to submit your contributions to this Special Issue.
Brij Mohan
Editor, SDI
Notes
- Retrieved September 15, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/2022/09/15/1123151802/king-charles-iii-inheritance-tax ⮭
- Retrieved September 15, 2022, from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/king-charles-abdicate-75/671425/ ⮭
- India Currents, Retrieved September 19, 2022, from https://indiacurrents.com/south-asias-relationship-with-the-queen-its-complicated/?utm_source=India+C ⮭
- The expression is owed to the Secretary General of the United Nations. ⮭
- Retrieved September 19, 2022, from https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=rm&ogbl#inbox/WhctKKXgnMKpGKXTCWTDnWbwlVVRjRRnXt ⮭
- “Protest by oppressed sex is rocking the Islamic Republic,” writes Adam Roberts at The Economist. “From far-flung villages to the steps of Tehran University in the capital, women are leading men. They are at the front of protests and rally the crowds by burning their mandatory hijabs (headscarves), cutting their hair, and dancing in public. Their immediate cause is Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old student, who died on September 16th after morality police beat her, apparently for wearing a loose hijab. But their grievances are fed by four decades of religious strictures that have fallen heaviest on women. After a week of gunfire and killing, their protests are spreading.” The Economist, (Sunday Newsletter, September 25, 2022). The morality police in Iran are no different from India’s Hinduaized forces. The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, a self-acclaimed yogi, epitomizes this bigoted zealotry. ⮭
- Jolie, Angela, Time, September 12–19, 2022: 25. ⮭