This document outlines Prabhu Guptara's remarks on the economics of justice. It calls on governments, policymakers, the church, entrepreneurs, and individuals to make changes to achieve a more just and equitable economic system. Specifically, it advocates for adopting new metrics of national progress beyond just GDP; reforming corporations and the banking/financial sectors; and living more generously and responsibly. It discusses the struggle for economic justice in terms of spirit, culture, practical issues and strategy. It provides principles for why nations don't achieve minimum prosperity and how to achieve and sustain prosperity through eliminating corruption and oppression and instilling the right culture and policies. It closes by highlighting Abraham Lincoln's example of struggling for justice with grace through forgiveness

1. The Economics of Justice
Prabhu Guptara

2. Outline of my remarks this evening
• How much progress have we made since the last EES?
• The Economics of Justice and the Economics of Injustice
• Clarity about the struggle
• Strategy
• Struggling (and winning!) with grace

3. We call upon our governments and policy makers to … (1)
a) Adopt new paradigms:
• Reduce unemployment, underemployment and income inequality by
enabling business to be transformational
• Adopt new metrics of national progress that take into account human
capital, social capital and natural capital, and not just GDP - – (and
relational capital?!)
• To address the refugee stream by combating poverty, countering systemic
corruption, and fighting desertification by supporting initiatives which
have been shown to be effective, eg. Farmer Managed Natural
Regeneration (FMNR).

4. We call upon our governments and policy makers to … (2 )
b) Reform the corporate sector:
• Change company and financial law to encourage responsible
behaviour: “No reward without responsibility, no investment
without involvement, no profit without participation”
• Stimulate the SME sector
• Change corporate law where necessary to enable businesses to
take into account their multiple stakeholders and not just
shareholder profit

5. We call upon our governments and policy makers to … (3)
c) Reform the banking and financial sectors:
• Significantly and permanently reduce the level of personal, corporate and
national debt using dialogue with the parties involved and national
legislation where necessary
• Discourage speculation and financial transactions divorced from the real
economy by supporting financial transaction taxes and by legislating a
minimum amount of time that shares need to be held before they can be
sold
• Dismantle the derivatives market.

6. We call upon the Church in Europe to….
• Model what it means to be a relational community and to support
the development of healthy relationships
• Provide a moral compass for individual and collective decision-
making in the complex tapestry of 21st century society by educating
members on the meaning of the holistic gospel and its practical
application in the different societal spheres
• Fight the culture of greed by encouraging a culture of giving and
generosity.

7. We call upon Entrepreneurs to….
• Personally model and implement structures that will support what it
means to be relational in their businesses.
• Redesign their business to build permanent value across the full
spectrum of capital - financial, physical, individual, natural, spiritual
and community level.
• Apply their relationships, skills, experiences and other resources in
their communities, and in developing nations, by providing training
in business, by becoming mentors, by exploring investment
opportunities and by pro-actively working with NGO’s and business
groups which have a similar focus and holistic ethos.
• Commit to conducting their businesses with integrity, transparency,
professionalism and excellence.

8. We call upon all individuals to…
• Prioritize character development
• Treasure their families and other close relationships
• Practice responsibility by avoiding accumulating (excessive)
personal debt and paying it off as soon as possible where
this has occurred.
• Live within their means
• Be generous
• Invest time and money in something that benefits others
and not just themselves.

9. Outline of my remarks this evening
• How much progress have we made since the last EES?
• The Economics of Injustice
• Clarity about the struggle
• Strategy
• Struggling (and winning!) with grace

10. One indicator:
• Between 1949 and 1979, the share of income going to the top 0.1%
of earners fell from 3.5% to 1.3%. Since then the trend has reversed.
• Average FTSE 100 CEO pay rose from “only” 47 times more than the
average employee in 1998, to 129 times by 2015
• Pay package: £5.48 million in 2015 (up from £4.96 million in 2014,
and from £4.129 million in 2010) - annual survey released 8 August2016 by
the High Pay Centre, U.K.
• “There is an irrational, unhealthy and growing gap between what these
companies pay their workers and what they pay their bosses” – Theresa
May, 11 July 2016

12. Outline of my remarks this evening
• How much progress have we made since the last EES?
• The Economics of Injustice
• Clarity about the struggle
• Strategy
• Struggling (and winning!) with grace

13. What is “just” is *not* commonsense
•Should taxation be progressive or “equal”?
•Should punishments be progressive or “equal”?
•Is VAT/ Sales tax the modern equivalent of a tax on straw
and grain which is denounced in chapter 5 of Amos?
•What about a wealth tax?
• Should there be equal payment for the same work done by
men and by women (indeed should women be allowed to
work at all?)

14. The Economics of Justice
(not Capitalism, nor Socialism;
not Islamic, nor Vedantic or Humanist!)
• Rule of Law, not Rule of the Elite
• Entrepreneurship not merely Capital
• Merit not merely Connections
• Work rather than Handouts (except wherever there is real need)
• Responsibility not Self-Indulgence

15. Practical consequences
• Not allowing companies to get too big: non-accountability, ‘too big to fail’
etc. That would mean restraint on debt finance by changing current rules
which advantage debt over equity. Recent examples include big UK banks,
Amazon, Google etc not paying national taxes in the UK, etc
• Constraints on national debt which otherwise creates gross injustice between
generations (Paul Mills’s Cambridge Paper on ‘The Prodigal Steward’.
• Requiring companies to measure and report on quality of stakeholder
relationships. To do so, they would have to talk to employees and other
stakeholders rather than only serve the interests of the shareholders.
• A monetary system which does not allow the elite to print money without
limitation, so as to increase their asset values at the expense of those seeking
to get onto the housing ladder, pensioners, those on fixed incomes, etc
• Ability of companies to promote products which are toxic to families (betting,
liquor, consumer loans) without being required to pay for the costs of picking
up the pieces, which is then left to the taxpayer…

16. The dimensions of the struggle
•Spirit and Soul
•Calling and Passion
•Cultural and Intellectual challenges
•Practical issues

17. Four General Principles
1. Every nation should arise at least to
the Minimum Level of Prosperity –
that is:
the value of its physical resources
divided by its population

18. Four General Principles
1. Every nation should arise at least to the Minimum Level of
Prosperity
2. Most nations have never done so throughout history

19. Four General Principles
1. Every nation should arise at least to the Minimum Level of
Prosperity
2. Most nations have never done so throughout history
3. A few nations have succeeded in far surpassing
the Minimum Level of Prosperity

20. Four General Principles
1. Every nation should arise at least to the Minimum
Level of Prosperity suggested by its physical resources
divided by its population
2. Most nations have never done so throughout history
3. A few nations have succeeded in far surpassing the
Minimum Level of Prosperity
4. When achieved, the question is : How sustainable is
that achievement? Or, How can it be sustained?

21. Why nations do not achieve the
Minimum Level of Prosperity
•Looting/ Stealing/ Corruption... vs the Rule of Law

22. Why nations do not achieve the
Minimum Level of Prosperity
• Looting/ Stealing/ Corruption
•Structures of oppression that create
hopelessness, apathy, cynicism and
paralysis

23. Why nations do not achieve the
Minimum Level of Prosperity
• Looting/ Stealing/ Corruption/ Murder
• Structures of oppression that create hopelessness,
apathy and paralysis
•A belief-system that torpedoes
the possibility of progress

24. Why nations do not achieve the
Minimum Level of Prosperity
• Looting/ Stealing/ Corruption/ Murder
• Structures of oppression that create hopelessness,
apathy and paralysis
• A belief-system that torpedoes the possibility of
progress
•Ignorance or unwillingness to put
best policies and best practices
into place

25. In order to achieve/ surpass the Minimum
Level of Prosperity:
• Eliminate corruption/ looting/ stealing/ murder
• Instill a culture that will lead to prosperity
• Identify and weaken/ remove the structures of
oppression
• Struggle systematically against pride/
arrogance/ complacency/ apathy/ fatalism.

26. STRATEGY:
Development, Implementation, Monitoring,
Refining/ Re-orienting
WHAT IS THE “KEY ISSUE” AND HOW TO CAPTURE THAT?
• Environmental scanning
• Sector Analysis
• Identification of Opponents & Allies
• Identifying and reaching out to potential Co-Belligerents
such as Restorative Economy, Bcorps, Circular Economy… (RTn)
• Putting in place SMART goals, with requisite resources
• Announcing and celebrating small and big victories.

27. One starting point (right now!)
www.relational-analytics.com

28. Two starting points (from next month!)
* The Relational Economic Plan for Europe

29. Outline of my remarks this evening
•How much progress?
•The Economics of Injustice
•Clarity about the struggle
•Strategy
•Struggling (and winning!) with grace

30. Abraham Lincoln
• An examination of his relationships:
• William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates
• His rivals for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination
Throughout Lincoln's first term, Chase plotted against him,
criticized him behind his back, and sought to wrest the 1864
nomination away from him -while actually serving in his cabinet.!

31. Chase twice offered his resignation in an attempt to manipulate Lincoln, and yet Lincoln kept him in his
cabinet right until 1864, until a dispute over the appointment of an assistant treasurer for New York finally
persuaded Lincoln that Chase had to go. But just a few months later, when Lincoln had won, Lincoln
forgave Chase's treachery and nominated him as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Goodwin reports that when Lincoln announced his intentions to a friend of Chase's, the friend replied:
Mr. President, this is an exhibition of magnanimity and patriotism that could hardly be expected of any
one. After what he has said against your administration, which has undoubtedly been reported to you, it
was hardly to be expected that you would bestow the most important office within your gift on such a
man.
Lincoln admitted that he "would rather have swallowed his chair than to have
nominated Chase." But he thought it was the right decision for the country and
that Chase would serve well in that position.

32. Such things are only possible in a culture
which is committed to loving one’s enemies
If we want to return to such things, we have to think: what actions and
strategies will rebuild such a culture?
Without such a culture, polarisation (political and economic) of the sort
that we are seeing, is impossible to avoid.
And polarisation, when taken to its inevitable conclusion, has
consequences of which we are all aware – and are all rightly terrified –
and therefore rightly reject.