填空题 Perhaps the main social trend of the 21st century is the high level of and quickly increasing inequality between incomes from capital and labor.
In industrialized as well as in developing countries, minority of haves seems to derive ever-increasing profits in the stock market and in global economic ventures, while the large majority of have-nots is employed in insecure jobs earning stagnant or slowly rising incomes.
Global capital markets can contribute to economic development, but they become socially and economically questionable when they do not contribute to the prosperity of all.
A host of UN summits during the 1990s highlighted the global shortfalls in providing social protection, health and education. The question is how the full provision of these basic services can be financed at the global level.
66. ______
However, governments in most countries, and particularly in poor, developing ones, have little leeway to conduct their own economic and social policy making. They are severely hemmed in by conditions imposed by the IMF and the World Bank.
In addition, they are often dependent on the changing priorities and pet projects of donors.
There is also a great need to improve democratic and transparent structures in developing countries, so their governments can be more closely monitored by their own populations. The emergence of new civil society movements can help governments become more accountable.
From the international side, social policy monitoring should focus on a limited number of internationally accepted social objectives, such as universal primary education by 2015.
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Second, there is the need for a more sustained and predictable basis for financing social investments.
It is estimated that access to basic social services for all the world's people could be ensured with an additional US $ 30～40 billion per year over the next 10～15 years. Part of this money could be (and is already) financed by better targeted donor contributions, debt relief and restructuring of national government budgets.
However, there is also a structural need for effective taxation of capital incomes internationally. Since capital incomes and Internet trade are so elusive, globalization favors taxes where the location of the tax base is readily identifiable, such as in traditional shopping, real property or labor.
The result of recent tax reforms has therefore been that labor income, including social welfare, is taxed more heavily than capital income, with negative consequences for job creation.
The co-ordination of taxation policies is a sensitive national issue, as exemplified by the recent European Union-United Kingdom rift over a possible European withholding tax on bond interest.
68. ______
A third step would be a new social contract between governments, civil societies and the private sector, a contract based on mutual interests.
Some of the ground rules of such a contract already exist in the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This covenant is supplemented by other rights, which are laid out in the International Labor Organization Declaration on fundamental rights at work.
A contract could stipulate, for example, that families who cannot afford to send their children to primary school may receive financial assistance from an international fund.
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Meeting these objectives would contribute to stronger social cohesion between people and nations and lay the foundation for greater global prosperity.
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A. At the dawn of the new millennium, it is time to think long term. There are great opportunities for making a quantum leap in social and economic development. We have the knowledge and the means to do it.
B. The first step is to improve the quality of social policy making and the efficiency of social investments, such as in social welfare, health and education.
C. Perhaps the best way to proceed is to set up multilateral process, either in a new world tax authority or a process within the World Trade Organization, which already has considerable experience with multilateral treaties.
D. This cohesion would be of obvious interest to the private sector, which would also play an important part in this worldwide contract. It would promise to abide by the ground rules and provide constructive help in building an efficient, equitable international tax system.
E. International financial support for the achievement of these objectives should be provided within the context of well designed multilateral monitoring and evaluation system.
F. Another part of the contract would consist of a promise by the international community to co-finance some of the social objectives mentioned above.