Social justice, democracy and …taxes: lunch debate with Francine Mestrum

We have invited Francine Mestrum to our first lunch debate on tax justice, which will take place on March 20 from 12:00 to 14:30 at Social Platform's office.

Francine Mestrum is a researcher on globalization, poverty, inequality, development and global governance. She is scientific collaborator at ULB, Administrator of CETRI and member of the International Council of the World Social Forum. You can read here about her last book “Building another world: re-thinking social protection”.

During this lunch debate she is going to highlight that a crisis is also an opportunity, and we should use this current political, economic and social crisis to re-think the solidarity mechanisms we have been living with for decades, though we know perfectly well they are not enough to cope with today’s problems.

Poverty, inequality, environmental problems … but also democracy and tax justice are very much linked to each other. Inequality is one of the causes of poverty, we cannot preserve our environment if we do not care for the poor, we cannot take care of the poor if there is no fair taxation, and we will never have real democracy if not all people pay their fair share of taxes.

We have to examine, then, the direct links between taxes and democracy, taxes and social policies, the proposals for social protection systems (contributory and non-contributory), and look at the different levels, including the European Union, at which changes will be necessary. Some initiatives have already been taken, and tax justice is now on the agenda of several international organisations. But more can be done.

Members interested in participating in this debate, should fill in this form.