Postscript: The Social Question in Its Global Incarnation

The return of the social question worldwide is documented in this volume as a labor issue first and foremost. The countries of the South today are different from the industrialized countries of the North during the nineteenth century. But the social question is not an issue only for the South. It is returning to those parts of the world that appeared to have largely solved the problem. Unable to raise, let alone solve, the social question at the global level, the problem is referred back to where it started, within the perimeters of the nation-states. They can at least mitigate the severity of the global social problem by “good governance,” which means limiting returns to shareholders; taxation to reduce extreme wealth; redistributing property and resources; restoring the public domain; and enhancing the bargaining power of people who lack representation, are prone to disenfranchisement, and are excluded from social provisioning. In our opinion, rather than allow capital to remain shielded behind stare politics, it should be confronted head-on and held accountable for the well-being of both the laboring and the non-laboring poor in the world of today.