The ultimate economic policy that will ensure prosperity for the vast majority of people around the world.

   More than 30 years ago, then-Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa made the following speech to the Diet.

   If those who are sweating with their foreheads feel that they have been left behind, there is a risk that the sense of solidarity and social stability among the Japanese people, 90% of whom have been middle class, will fray."

   And the gap between rich and poor in Japan, where 90% of the population used to be middle class, has been widening ever since, and the poverty rate in Japan now exceeds 16%. And one in six of the entire population is said to be living on an annual income of fewer than 1.12 million yen, and more than 50% of single-mother families are poor, and children born into these families are forced to live in poverty from birth.

   Why has the gap between the rich and the poor widened so much?

　The reason is that until now, the ideal form of capitalism was being created in which the profits of companies were distributed to their employees, thereby making them rich, and when the employees of all companies became rich, many people became rich, thereby increasing the purchasing power of the people, increasing sales and profits, which were then distributed to the employees again. However, at some point, the true intentions of capitalists began to come out into the open: the majority of a company's profits should be returned to shareholders, rather than to employees.

   Employee salaries are then treated as if they are a necessary evil that reduces shareholder returns, and before long they are seen as a cost that should be reduced as much as possible.

　Strangely enough, there are many cases where the employees themselves have taken it for granted, striving to reduce labour costs in order to increase shareholder returns as much as possible.

　And now less than 1% of the world's population controls more than 90% of the world's assets.

　In other words, the current economic structure is such that the profits generated by the diligent and hard-working people of the world are given to the 1% of the population, and each of us is like a worker bee, working to increase the wealth of the 1% of the population, like a queen bee.

   The majority of people, believing it to be in the interest of the company, are working hard to keep their own labour costs as low as possible and increase the Queen Bee's share of the profits.

　The days of Marx's 19th-century call for a workers' revolution to destroy the capitalists who exploit the workers are long gone, and liberalism and capitalism were supposed to make everyone richer, and indeed in the decades after the war, there were indeed such times. 

　At that time, both American and Japanese companies fully returned their profits to the workers, and it was believed that this was the role, mission, and morals of the companies.

   However, in the 1980s, when the rival communist states of the capitalist countries collapsed and the impracticality of communism was revealed to the world, the capitalists, who until then had distributed wealth to the people in order to win over communism, no longer felt the need to be modest and began to openly give priority to the profits of the shareholders. 

　Many companies began to move their production bases to countries with low labour costs, where they could increase shareholder returns more efficiently.

　This meant that companies that produced with cheap labour costs could sell their products at a lower price and thus survive the sales competition, while companies that continued to produce domestically with high labour costs became increasingly unable to survive.

　In this way, in the name of the global economy, it became commonplace for many companies to shift their production bases more and more to countries with low labour costs.

   This led to downward pressure on wages for workers in industrialised countries in order to compete with products made in countries where wages were lower.

　Thus, the shareholders, who receive more and more dividends, get richer and richer without limit, while the workers, who receive lower and lower wages to generate those profits, get poorer and poorer, an impossible and unjust situation, exactly as Marx advocated in the 19th century.

　And as mentioned earlier, the world is now in the worst possible state of capitalism, with more than 90% of the world's wealth concentrated in the hands of 1% of the world's population of shareholders.

   Normally, as Marx expected, the overwhelming majority of exploited workers would be angry and revolution would take place, and in no time the rich 1% would be overthrown by the poor 99%, but for some reason, there is no sign of this at all.

　The reason is that 99% of workers are neither so poor nor in need of a revolution, and they hardly believe that they are being exploited in the first place. For them, the shareholders are almost invisible, what they really see is the company they work for, and they think that the most important thing is to make sure that the company survives and does not go bankrupt.

　As a matter of fact, even if they demand a reduction in shareholder dividends and higher employee salaries, there is a risk that the products of companies whose employees' salaries have risen in this way will be priced so high that they will lose out to international competition and go bankrupt soon afterwards. Asking for higher salaries in such a situation is like strangling yourself, so no one would do such a foolish thing.

   So what can be done about it?

　The fact that the 1% have absorbed most of the profits generated by the 99%, while the 99% continue to feel as if the survival of the companies they work for is being held hostage and they can't complain at all, and so few people want to do anything about it and everyone has given up, is probably the biggest cause of the current situation. This is the main reason why the current situation is getting worse and worse.

　If only 99% of the people in the world would decide to change the situation once and for all, because the current state of affairs is unjust, the situation could be changed in no time.　

　It can be done in a very simple way.

   The rate of increase in dividends to shareholders must not exceed the rate of increase in workers' wages.

　We can make an international agreement that companies all over the world must comply with this law, or they cannot operate.

   This could be done immediately if 99% of the world's population agreed with the aim and if national parliaments enacted such laws, and if the UN made international laws based on them.　

　But why doesn't anyone want to do something as simple as this? It is because most people are unaware of the astonishing effectiveness of the law that says the rate of increase in dividends to shareholders must not exceed the rate of increase in workers' wages.

　In fact, if the rate of increase in workers' wages were to exceed the rate of increase in dividends to shareholders, it would reverse the flow of wealth that is now increasingly concentrated in the hands of shareholders, and create a system in which more and more wealth would flow to workers around the world.

   However, doing so on a company-by-company or country-by-country basis would be meaningless, as labour costs would soar, product prices would rise and the companies would be eliminated in the blink of an eye by international competition.

　That is why we should enact international laws all over the world at once so that companies all over the world are forced to prioritise workers' wages over the interests of their shareholders.

　That way, there would be no fear of capital fleeing elsewhere, or of losing out to companies with low labour wages.

　If there are companies or countries that do not comply with international law and run amok, we just need an international boycott and economic sanctions.

   This would create a truly ideal economic system in which workers' wages around the world would rise, their purchasing power would double, companies' profits would rise and their profits would be passed on to the workers.

　All that remains is to increase the number of people around the world who agree with these measures and to get 99% of them to support them.

　I mean, who would not support such a measure with so many advantages?

　What do you think?

#World economy #International law #working poor #Poor families

#Global economy #Inequality issues #International agreements enacted