Revista (PDF) - Universidade do Minho

America and Europe are three-class societies. In America, for
example, more than twenty-five percent of the population graduate
from a four-year college and then move into the ranks of the symbolusing
class. Their increasing prosperity stands in sharp contrast to the
grim picture of life at the bottom. The underclass – comprising about
20 percent of the population – inhabits a world of low wages, dead-end
jobs, and high unemployment even in boom times.
And then there is the vast majority. Over the past quarter century,
the middle class has endured a long period of economic stagnation.
Despite optimistic rhetoric from the right, economic growth has
bypassed these people. In America, the richest twenty percent has
captured virtually all of the growth in the nation’s wealth since the
early 80s. While income trends have been somewhat less extreme,
family income for the vast middle class is only modestly higher than in
1973 – and this modest increase is due entirely to the massive entry by
women into the workplace.
Trickle-down economics has utterly failed. And it will continue
to fail in the globalizing economy of the future. The past is prologue:
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The Case for Stakeholding *
BRUCE ACKERMAN
(Yale University)
* Texto da conferência proferida na sessão inaugural do ciclo «Ideias e Políticas
para o Nosso Tempo», promovido pelo Departamento de Filosofia e Cultura da Universidade
do Minho e pela Fundação Mário Soares. A sessão teve lugar no Campus de Gualtar,
em Braga, no dia 16 de Novembro de 2001. Os promotores deste ciclo agradecem o
apoio dado pela Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento
e Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. «The Case for Stake-holding» pode
ser traduzido por «Em Defesa de uma herança Social de Cidadania».
DIACRÍTICA, FILOSOFIA E CULTURA, n.º 17/2 (2003), 217-228