What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract for a Better Society - Minouche Shafik

This book gives a solid overview of how society, ultimately made up of individuals, forms structures such as states, businesses, and communities to positively influence their quality of life. Social contracts described in this book argue that by relinquishing some of our freedoms and by pooling our efforts together, we as a society benefit. This is especially explored in the relationship between the state and its citizens.

Due to newly arising challenges, such as technological progress or increasing climate change, the author revisits the existing social contracts across the globe. And chronologically evaluates needed changes to stages of our life, starting with childhood, education, and eventually moving to health, work, retirement, and future generations. This is done well, as it not only considers the Western world but also the developing world, where the challenges and opportunities often differ.

It does a great job of introducing, in understandable terms, the current issues as well as comparing their potential solutions. Topics such as retirement or deeper integration of women into the workforce are relatively unexplored by me, so I appreciate the overview.

Personally, though, I would enjoy a more in-depth exploration of some of the proposals. Even though there are common, repeating themes, their inherent trade-offs are not always clear. This is especially true for the reliance on the state, which is often the central actor in the proposed solutions.

This reliance is understandable, as for most it presents the easiest and most realistic approach to change, rather than relying on individuals. That being said, dependency on the state does not leave me calm. Even in democracies, one can see unequal opportunities and the influence of actors, through their wealth.

Approaches to generating the needed capital needed to implement the mentioned proposals are various, such as increasing productivity and in my eyes mainly taxation, which is closely tied again to the state. For the rich and wealthy, it has been getting more and more lenient since the 1980s (page 173), which is an unsustainable trend. Taxing this group more would allow a better distribution of wealth and thus a more egalitarian society, even though it is not obvious how to do so.

Ensuring wealth is not kept forever (e.g. through taxing inheritance more progressively) and by considering the real value of commodities, including their effect on the environment (and thus opportunities for future generations), through for instance, the mentioned carbon tax is one of the approaches to achieve this.

Overall, I have to say, as we live in a capitalist-based society, I see these economy-based approaches to improving society (balancing the playing field) as more realistic than perhaps more optimistic/utopistic ideas appealing to me. Thus, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic, and would almost consider it a must-read for anyone.

Motivation to pick-up the book

This book was gifted to me by my sister, who knows I enjoy the topic of sociology and similar fields. We often have conversations about the distribution of wealth and what is in our opinion the right approach.