Amartaya Sen Lecture Series: What We Owe Each Other

In 2015, khun Anand Panyarachun – who studied at Trinity College, Cambridge at the same time as Professor Sen – and Joe Horn-Phathanothai brought the Lecture Series to Asia. Following the success of the first two Lectures in Bangkok, featuring Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, and then OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría, khun Anand and Joe invited Baroness Minouche Shafik, the Director of the LSE, to give a talk on the topic: “What We Owe Each Other”.

Khun Anand Panyarachun, in his opening remarks, noted that while he was studying in Cambridge with Amartya Sen in the 1950s, the social contract was very different. Over the subsequent decades, we have seen rising life expectancy, improved education, increased prosperity, and lower birth rates, all leading to fundamental changes in this contract. Today, in the face of a “new normal” created by Covid and looming environmental catastrophe, we are in need for a new social contract.

Baroness Minouche Shafik described the various social contracts that bind people and their government, families, societies. Some are “unspoken agreements” such as those between generations of a same family, or between husbands and wives in relation to household chores or the raising of children. Others are formal contracts, like the provision of pensions by employers. And then there are the contracts between us and our governments, such as the provision of healthcare and education. Contrary to popular belief, much of the social payouts one receives from the government, whether during the early stages of life, in the form of education, or at the later stages of life, in the form of healthcare, are not from redistributed income from “the wealthy”, but are prepaid/post-paid contributions from one’s own savings in the form of taxes paid to the government during our working years.

After her talk, Baroness Shafik was joined on a panel discussion with Professor Sen and Professor Liz Robinson.  The panel was moderated by Joe Horn-Phathanothai.  Professor Robinson is a top environmental scientist, and heads LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment one of the most reputable research centres on the topic.  

During the panel discussion, Professor Robinson addressed the need for a new social contract in order to solve the problem of environment degradation. Climate action needs to be taken now, or never. Professor Sen also remarked how ageing society should not be viewed as a problem, but rather more positively as a reality that we will all have to face.

By ThaiPR.NET | Nov 14, 2022 
Source: https://www.thaipr.net/en/general_en/3266498 

Thank you to ThaiPR.NET for the information.