From an unequal society to ecosocial welfare

Abstract

This chapter focuses on how the contemporary global model of financialised capital leads to greater inequality, an inequality unequally experienced across different groups in society within and between nations. It explores how inequality intersects with the ecological crisis, increasing wants and fuelling consumption in the Global North, while leaving countries and people in the Global South vulnerable to poverty and ill-equipped to meet the challenges that climate change is already presenting. This is particularly true for women and girls who bear the worst impacts of both inequality and climate change. The second part of the chapter discusses tensions at the heart of welfare policy in the Global North. A less conditional and more enabling and flourishing form of careful social policy is needed to resource the scale and type of active citizenship required in an ecosocial state. The challenge is to redistribute and support work, income, time and democratic participation in a post-growth society and economy through ecosocial welfare. The chapter concludes by reviewing the state of inequality and wellbeing in Irish society.