School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
Int J Health Policy Manag. 2015 Nov 19;5(2):137-9. doi: 10.15171/ijhpm.2015.202.
Despite the mythology that the global economy with its trade rules creates a 'level playing field,' international trade has never involved 'level players.' The inequalities in outcomes generated by the more powerful winning more frequently has led to innovative ideas for ex post redistribution to make the matches between the players both fairer, and in the analogy to basketball used by the authors, more interesting and even more competitive. The proposal for a Global Social Protection Fund, financed by a small tax on the winners to enhance social protection spending for the losers, presumably increasing the latter's capabilities to compete more effectively in the global market game, is one such idea. It has much to commend it. Several problems, however, stand in its way, apart from those inherent within nations themselves and to which the authors give some attention. First, much global trade is now intra-firm rather than international, making calculations of which nations win or lose exceedingly difficult. Second, tax havens persist without the transparency and global regulatory oversights that would allow a better rendering of where winnings are stashed. Third, pre-distribution inequalities (those arising from market activities before government tax and transfer measures apply) are still increasing as labour's power to wrestle global capital into some ameliorative social contract diminishes. Fourth, there are finite limits to a planet on the cusp of multiple environmental crises. These problems do not diminish the necessity of alternative policy playbooks such as the proposed Fund, but point to the need to embrace the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a single set, such that economic growth for the bottom half of humanity includes deep structural reforms to both pre-distribution and redistribution, if the targets for environmental survival are to be met.
尽管有神话称，全球经济及其贸易规则创造了一个“公平竞争环境”，但国际贸易从来都不是“平等参与者”之间的竞争。实力更强的参与者更频繁地获胜所产生的结果不平等，导致人们提出了事后再分配的创新理念，以使参与者之间的比赛更加公平，并且正如作者在篮球类比中所使用的那样，更有趣，甚至更具竞争力。一个这样的理念是设立一个全球社会保护基金，由对赢家征收的小额税款供资，以增加对输家的社会保护支出，这可能会增加后者在全球市场竞争中更有效地竞争的能力。该提议有很多值得称赞之处。然而，除了作者关注的那些内在国家本身固有的问题之外，还有其他几个问题阻碍了该提议的实施。首先，现在许多全球贸易是公司内部的，而不是国际的，这使得计算哪个国家是赢家或输家变得非常困难。其次，避税天堂仍然存在，缺乏透明度和全球监管监督，这使得难以确定赢家的奖金藏匿在哪里。第三，预分配不平等（那些源自政府税收和转移支付措施实施之前的市场活动）仍在增加，因为劳动力将全球资本纳入某种改善性社会契约的力量正在减弱。第四，在即将发生多重环境危机的星球上，存在着有限的极限。这些问题并没有降低像提议的基金这样的替代政策方案的必要性，但它们指出需要拥抱新的可持续发展目标（SDGs）作为一个整体，以便为人类的下半部分实现经济增长，包括对预分配和再分配进行深刻的结构性改革，如果要实现环境生存目标的话。
