Shared Prosperity: How Does That Work?
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Wendi Momen, Shared Prosperity: How Does That Work?, bahai-library.com.
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Shared Prosperity

How Does That Work?

Wendi Momen

In January 2013 Save the Children published a report in
response to the UN’s appeal for suggestions on what should
replace the eight Millennium Development Goals that come to
an end in 2015. Entitled ‘Ending Poverty in Our Generation’,
the report outlined an ambitious new development framework
which, it said, could help all countries end extreme poverty in
the next 20 years.1 It was the first time that an organisation
proposed specific new targets to replace the MDGs.2
The theme was taken up with alacrity and the idea of ending
extreme poverty by 2030 became rather an anthem in the
following months. On 2 April 2013 Dr. Jim Yong Kim, the
president of the World Bank, announced that the World Bank
Group’s mission to help free the world of poverty focused on
two specific goals: to end extreme poverty for the 1.2 billion
people who continue to live with hunger and destitution by
2030 and to promote shared prosperity.3
When asked what the term ‘shared prosperity’ meant for the
Bank he responded that ‘The shared prosperity goal captures
two key elements, economic growth and equity, and it will seek
to foster income growth among the bottom 40 percent of a
country’s population. Without sustained economic growth,
poor people are unlikely to increase their living standards. But
growth is not enough by itself. Improvement in the Shared
Prosperity Indicator requires growth to be inclusive of the less
200                                              Lights of Irfán vol. 16

well-off.’ But he went on to say that the goal of shared
prosperity goal did not imply reducing inequality by
redistributing wealth, by ‘suggesting that countries redistribute
an economic pie of a certain size, or to take from the rich and
give to the poor’. Rather, his point was that ‘if a country can
grow the size of its pie, while at the same time share it in ways
that boost the income of the bottom 40 percent of its
population, then it is moving toward shared prosperity. So the
goal combines the notions of rising prosperity and equity.’
‘Ending extreme poverty’ is defined by him as ‘the percentage
of people living with less than $1.25 a day to fall to no more
than 3 percent globally by 2030’. Promoting shared prosperity
means ‘fostering income growth of the bottom 40 percent of
the population in every country.’ He went on to say that
‘Ending extreme poverty within a generation and promoting
shared prosperity must be achieved in such a way as to be
sustainable over time and across generations. This requires
promoting environmental, social, and fiscal sustainability. We
need to secure the long-term future of our planet and its
resources so future generations do not find themselves in a
wasteland.’
The same theme was taken up by the UK Government, among
other governments. In its Corporate Report: Economic
development for shared prosperity and poverty reduction: a
strategic framework4 published on 31 January 2014 by the
Department for International Development (DfID), it stated:

Economic development is key to eradicating poverty.
Accelerating progress is essential if the goal of zero
extreme poverty by 2030 is to be achieved. The evidence
is clear that this will require much higher growth rates in
many countries, more inclusive growth — in particular
for girls and women, and actions to tackle the structural
barriers that deny poor people the chance to raise their
incomes and find jobs.
Shared Prosperity                                               201

The UK government can do more to help partner
governments address the causes as well as the symptoms
of poverty. This involves putting in place the building
blocks that are crucial for countries to exit poverty:
peace, the rule of law, property rights, stable business
conditions, and honest and responsive governments,
accountable to their citizens.

The Department for International Development’s
(DFID) economic development strategic framework
highlights the importance of the institutions that
encourage private investment and export growth: free
and fair markets; sound macroeconomic management;
clear and consistently applied policies, regulations and
laws; secure property rights; and functioning
commercial courts.

The private sector is the engine of growth. Successful
businesses drive growth, create jobs and pay the taxes
that finance services and investment ...

The concept of shared prosperity as explained by the
organizations above stands in contrast to a view held by much
of civil society, an example of which is the left-wing New
Economy Working Group5 whose agenda is to ‘Promote public
values and policies that support an equitable distribution of
money and real wealth to meet the needs of all.’

‘Extreme inequality in the distribution of wealth,
income and opportunity,’ it says, ‘undermines and
distorts all that we care about — democracy and civic
life, economic health and vitality, ecological balance,
and physical health and culture. Moving toward greater
equality is critical to building healthy, democratic, and
economically sustainable communities. The solution is
not simply raising the floor and alleviating poverty, but
directly addressing the overconcentration of wealth.
Our team promotes a broad analysis of the impact of
202                                            Lights of Irfán vol. 16

extreme inequalities and advocates for far-reaching
policy interventions that broaden prosperity and
redistribute dangerous concentrations of wealth.’

It frames its key proposals for sharing prosperity thus:

According to market fundamentalists, equality is not an
issue. Dismissing the issue of a finite ecosystem, they
believe that poverty is best ended by growing the
economy to bring up the bottom. If we lived in a world
of endless resources and open frontiers, this might be a
possibility. This, however, is not our reality. In the
absence of a strong commitment to policies that
maintain an equitable distribution of income,
conventional economic growth increases the wealth gap
even as it destroys the environment.

Effective corrective action       will   require   a   number     of
approaches, including:
o Income policies that assure every person access to an
income adequate to meet basic needs and favour those
who produce real value through productive work for
example teachers, entrepreneurs, factory and service
workers, family farmers, agricultural labourers, and
hospital attendants — over those who profit from
financial speculation and passive financial returns.
o Progressive taxation and public spending policies that
continuously recycle wealth from those who have far
more than they need at the top to those at the bottom
who lack access to the basic essentials of a secure and
fulfilling life.
o Equitable development policies. Land use and regional
development policies that limit sprawl, support multi-
strata development, and prevent geographical division
by class and race and between affluent and blighted
neighbourhoods.
Shared Prosperity                                           203

o Broad participation in ownership and access to
commonwealth. Work and ownership policies that
minimize the class divide by encouraging every person to
engage in productive work and to share in the benefits
and responsibilities of ownership. Broad access to the
shared wealth of the commons is also essential.
The key concepts I derive from these reports and statements
are:
From World Bank:
o the key elements of shared prosperity are economic
growth and equity
o without sustained economic growth, poor people are
unlikely to increase their living standards
o living standards are linked to economic growth and that
growth must be sustained
o promoting shared prosperity means ‘fostering income
growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population in
every country’
From DIFD UK:
o economic development is key to eradicating poverty
o this will require much higher growth rates in many
countries, more inclusive growth — in particular for girls
and women, and actions to tackle the structural barriers
that deny poor people the chance to raise their incomes
and find jobs
o The private sector is the engine of growth. Successful
businesses drive growth, create jobs and pay the taxes
that finance services and investment.
From New Economy Working Group:
204                                           Lights of Irfán vol. 16

o moving toward greater equality is critical to building
healthy, democratic, and economically sustainable
communities
o the solution is not simply raising the floor and
alleviating poverty, but directly addressing the over-
concentration of wealth
o it advocates for far-reaching policy interventions that
broaden prosperity and redistribute dangerous
concentrations of wealth
Thus for all these agencies, prosperity is defined almost
exclusively in terms of having enough money, or being enabled
to find a way to access enough money, to buy enough goods
and services to provide for one’s and one’s family’s needs.
Shared prosperity is about money and enabling those without to
have it or to have more, either by baking a bigger pie so that
everyone can have a big enough piece to provide for his needs
(economic growth) OR by transferring a proportion of the pie
from those who have a large proportion to those who have
none or hardly any. In both instances it is about getting money
into the hands of people so that they can purchase the things
they need to live, including basics such as food and shelter and
healthcare, and the less tangible but still important ‘secure and
fulfilling life’, ‘democracy and civic life’, ‘economic health and
vitality’, ‘ecological balance’ and ‘culture’.
Poverty is similarly defined as a lack of money or the things
money can buy: as the Oxford Dictionary says, ‘The condition
of having little or no wealth or material possessions; indigence,
destitution, want (in various degrees)’. ‘Extreme poverty’ is
defined as ‘living with less than $1.25 a day’.
Using these definitions, the Save the Children report stated
that ‘The Millennium Development Goals have lifted 600
million people out of poverty ... the number of under-five
deaths worldwide declined from nearly 12 million in 1990 to
under 7 million in 2011, and an additional 56 million children
Shared Prosperity                                            205

enrolled in primary school from 1999 to 2009’. For these
institutions, the goal of shared prosperity is:
o increasing the welfare of the poor and vulnerable
o raising living standards
o building healthy, democratic,          and   economically
sustainable communities
The ways to achieve these goals are:
o sustained economic growth
o sustainable growth that achieves the maximum possible
increase in living standards of the less well-off (World
Bank)
o economic development
o accelerated economic growth (DFID)
o redistribution of wealth (NEWG)
These institutions identify the building blocks that are crucial
for countries to exit poverty as:
o peace
o the rule of law
o property rights
o stable business conditions
o honest and responsive governments, accountable to their
citizens
They posit that the key elements that are required to eradicate
poverty are:
o social, economic, and institutional arrangements that
foster welfare and income growth of the less well-off
o generating jobs and economic opportunities
206                                            Lights of Irfán vol. 16

o an investment in people, to promote growth and equity
over time and across generations with the aim of
creating an ‘opportunity society’
o implementing policies that create equality
o creating conditions that enable women to contribute to
their fullest potential
o fostering an inclusive society
o engaging and developing the private sector
o developing institutions that         encourage      private
investment and export growth
o improving international rules for shared prosperity
These institution consider that the instigators, or protagonists,
of development are:
o government
o the private sector
o investors
o policy-makers

The Bahá’í approach

Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live
in, and centre your deliberations on its exigencies and
requirements. [GWB 213]

Identifying the issue

While there is much congruence between the approach to
shared prosperity of these organizations and that of the Bahá’í
community, there are some key differences. Perhaps the most
significant difference is in identifying what the core issue, or
problem, actually is. The agencies described above, and many
Shared Prosperity                                                         207

others like them, identify the core problem as poverty itself,
which needs to be remedied urgently with a variety of measures
including policy changes; transfers of wealth; educational,
training and job opportunities; and economic growth. Bahá’ís,
however, identify the core problem as something else entirely,
requiring a completely different remedy:

We must not allow ourselves to forget the continuing,
appalling burden of suffering under which millions of
human beings are always groaning — a burden which
they have bourne for century upon century and which it
is the Mission of Bahá’u’lláh to lift at last. The principal
cause of this suffering, which one can witness wherever
one turns, is the corruption of human morals and the
prevalence of prejudice, suspicion, hatred, untrust-
worthiness, selfishness and tyranny among men. It is not
merely material well-being that people need. What they
desperately need is to know how to live their lives —
they need to know who they are, to what purpose they
exist, and how they should act towards one another;
and, once they know the answers to these questions they
need to be helped to gradually apply these answers to
every-day behaviour. It is to the solution of this basic
problem of mankind that the greater part of all our
energy and resources should be directed ... [From a letter
written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to the National
Spiritual Assembly of Italy, 19 November 1974]

Thus the Bahá’í approach identifies a failure of morals and
ethics — which is a spiritual issue — as the principal cause of
poverty. The approach taken by many of the agencies that are
working to establish shared prosperity neglect or minimize the
spiritual dimension of the human being and the effect this has
on every aspect of individual and community life. The nature
of the ‘problem’, meaning of shared prosperity, the nature of
poverty, the way to address it and who the key protagonists and
beneficiaries are, the nature of the human being, the nature of
208                                           Lights of Irfán vol. 16

community and the ultimate purpose and goal of development
— for most development agencies all these are cast in primarily
in material terms, centring on material wealth and well-being,
while the Bahá’ís see these as primarily spiritual issues at their
root which require an understanding of the spiritual nature and
purpose of the human being to effectively and sustainably
address these material aspects of human life. That is, if the
spiritual, ethical, moral dimension of the human experience is
not addressed and corrected, if people do not understand the
purpose of their lives, then efforts to improve the well-being of
those in need, to lift them out of poverty, to extend the
material benefits of the world to them, will not, ultimately,
succeed, as the reasons why people are in this condition will not
have changed: they will still be subject to ‘prejudice, suspicion,
hatred, untrustworthiness, selfishness and tyranny’. People will
still exploit them, harm them, treat them unjustly — a condition
which exists for many people who live in the wealthiest parts of
the world.

Material and spiritual measures required

The Bahá’í International Community (BIC), the international
NGO representing the worldwide Bahá’í community in global
fora such as the United Nations, has for decades researched the
Bahá’í teachings that inform Bahá’í thinking on current issues,
including the economy, the prosperity of humankind and the
eradication of extreme poverty. It has identified a number of
principles and themes from the Bahá’í writings that bear on
these complex issues. Far from being a set of theoretical, noble
ideas, the insights offered by the Bahá’ís are born out of their
experience of applying Bahá’í principles and teachings to their
own reality. Bahá’ís are still in a ‘learning mode’ concerning
these issues and are cautiously applying their learning and
understanding to their own communities at the neighbourhood
and local levels. What they have learned so far is that both
material and spiritual measures are required to create shared
prosperity.
Shared Prosperity                                              209

The Bahá’í community sees all the issues of the day as
interrelated and requiring a holistic approach to their
resolution, including ‘an organic change in the structure of
present-day society’ [WOB 42]. It does not accept what it
considers to be the ‘erroneous belief that those with power and
resources already possess everything needed for society to
thrive’ [BIC Document #12-1412]. It takes a nuanced approach to
shared prosperity and poverty, does not seek simplistic answers
nor does it offer any. It takes into account not just the physical
and material aspects of human life but also the cultural, the
emotional, the psychological and the ineffable. Viewed from
this perspective, the current world situation is ‘rooted’ in the
destructive ‘values and attitudes that shape relationships at all
levels of society’, while ‘poverty can be described as the
absence of those ethical, social and material resources needed to
develop the moral, intellectual and social capacities of
individuals, communities and institutions’ [BIC Document #08-
0214].

The Bahá’í International Community confirms that a lack of
material wealth creates personal suffering, damages individuals
and communities and is a major obstacle to peace: ‘To be sure,
material wealth is of critical importance to the achievement of
individual and collective goals; by the same token, a strong
economy is a key component of a vibrant social order’ [BIC
Document #12-0201. At the same time, as noted above, it
considers that the materialistic world view does not capture the
totality of human experience and that the real causes of poverty
cannot be conceived terms of a lack of material wealth alone.
The Bahá’í Office of Social and Economic Development
points out:

To seek coherence between the spiritual and the material
does not imply that the material goals of development
are to be trivialized. It does require, however, the
rejection of approaches to development which define it
as the transfer to all societies of the ideological
210                                             Lights of Irfán vol. 16

convictions, the social structures, the economic
practices, the models of governance — in the final
analysis, the very patterns of life — prevalent in certain
highly industrialized regions of the world. [OSED, Social
Action]

Thus the Bahá’í approach to shared prosperity is not the
transfer of ideas or things from one community to another but
a complete rethinking of the nature of prosperity, of the human
being, of development and of civilization itself. That
rethinking is to be informed by the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, the
founder of the Bahá’í Faith.

Rethinking Prosperity

The Bahá’í community casts the concept of prosperity as a
matter of justice and the realignment of values:

Divine justice will become manifest in human
conditions and affairs, and all mankind will find
comfort and enjoyment in life ... in the aggregate
community there will be equalization and readjustment
of values and interests. In the future there will be no
very rich nor extremely poor. There will be an
equilibrium of interests, and a condition will be
established which will make both rich and poor
comfortable and content. [PUP 132]

Prosperity is seen as an aspect of the ‘ever-advancing
civilization’ which Bahá’u’lláh indicates ‘all men have been
created to carry forward’. [GWB 215] Such a civilization
requires:

... the articulation of a vibrant and compelling vision of
human prosperity at its widest and most inclusive. Such
a vision must address the need for harmony between
varying aspects of development (cultural, technological,
economic, social, moral, spiritual), and must give rise to
Shared Prosperity                                               211

a widely-shared sense of common purpose. This
approach, based in a recognition of the capacity and
responsibility of all to contribute to a better world
transcends us/them patterns of thought that divide the
world into ‘haves’ who grant opportunities for
participation to the ‘have nots’. [BIC Document #12-1412]

The task of creating such prosperity is more than ‘appeals
for action against the countless ills afflicting society. It must
be galvanized by a vision of human prosperity in the fullest
sense of the term — an awakening to the possibilities of the
spiritual and material well-being now brought within grasp.’
[BIC Document #95-0303]

Rethinking the nature of the human being

Fundamental to an understanding of the Bahá’í approach to
shared prosperity and development is its concept of the nature
of the human being. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son Bahá’u’lláh, affirms
that ‘there are two natures in man: the physical nature and the
spiritual nature’ [SAQ 118] but that the enduring, eternal,
essential reality of the human being is spiritual [‘Abdu’l-Bahá in
BWF 262-3], that ‘Man is, in reality, a spiritual being’. [PT 72]
Bahá’u’lláh asserts that the human being a ‘mine rich in gems of
inestimable value’ that are to be dedicated to the service of
humanity. [GWB 260]
Thus any vision of shared prosperity and development must
be responsive to the reality of the spiritual nature of the human
being. The prevailing theories and practices of development,
however, tend to promote the satisfying of people’s material
ambitions over their spiritual goals. It is the purpose of Bahá’í
development processes to achieve shared prosperity to reverse
this balance.
212                                              Lights of Irfán vol. 16

Rethinking Development

Bahá’ís believe that ‘Every member of the human family has
not only the right to benefit from a materially and spiritually
prosperous civilization’ but also that such a civilization will
‘not emerge through the efforts exerted by a select group of
nations or even a network of national and international
agencies’. Rather, Bahá’ís understand that ‘the challenge must
be faced by all of humanity’ and that every person has an
‘obligation to contribute’ towards the construction of that
civilization’. ‘Social action should operate, then, on the
principle of universal participation.’ [OSED, Social Action]

Bahá’ís see the purpose of development as contributing
to the foundation for a new social and international
order, capable of creating and sustaining conditions in
which human beings can advance morally, culturally, and
intellectually.

This purpose is rooted in the understanding that the
transformation of society will involve profound changes
in the individual as well as the deliberate and systematic
re-creation of social structures.

Social change is not a project that one group of people
carries out for the benefit of another. Enduring change
depends upon coherent efforts to transform both the
individual and society. Social change is neither the result
of ‘upgrading the individual’ nor is it the result of an
exclusive focus on reforming social and political
structures. [BIC Document #11-0422]

Rethinking Capacity-Building

Thus a key component of development is capacity-building
within a population so that local people can develop the
attitudes, knowledge and skills that will enable them to address
the issues that affect them and then apply the most appropriate
Shared Prosperity                                             213

measures to effect change for themselves. Central to the Bahá’í
concept of capacity-building is that ‘activities should start on a
modest scale and only grow in complexity in keeping with
available human resources’ [Social Action]. This is very different
from the practice of outside agencies providing communities
with services such as water systems and schools, or individuals
with loans and clothing. When viewed from a popular
perspective, the Bahá’í approach of gradually building the
capacity within a local community to create its own services
and systems seems painfully slow and almost unfair, apparently
depriving people from the very things that will enable them to
progress quickly or to save lives. Yet it has often been seen that
by focusing only on providing people with goods and services,
the very people who should be the protagonists of development
are disempowered and become dependent on outside agencies.
While the goals of improving people’s lives and their living
conditions are important, to sustain that improvement by
enabling people ‘to contribute significantly to their own
progress’ [Social Action] is the fundamental goal of development
for Bahá’ís.
For Bahá’ís, the sequence of courses provided by the Ruhi
Institute has proved to be a most effective way to build
capacity gradually in individuals and in communities and to
transfer these capacities to institutions.

Rethinking Work

The concept of work, too, is recast by the Bahá’í approach
such that it is not merely a means towards material ends:

Work needs to be seen not only as a means to securing
an individual and family’s basic needs, but also as a
channel to developing one’s craft, refining one’s
character, and contributing to the welfare and progress
of society. Work, no matter how humble and simple,
when performed with an attitude of service, is a means
214                                           Lights of Irfán vol. 16

to contribute to the advancement of our communities,
countries and global society. [BIC Document #07-0211]

Bahá’u’lláh Himself lifted work to the station of worship:

It is incumbent upon each one of you to engage in some
occupation — such as a craft, a trade or the like. We
have exalted your engagement in such work to the rank
of worship of the one true God. [KA v. 33]

The significant of this concept for shared prosperity is
enormous, with implications for the economy as a whole; how
business operates, recruits and trains employees, and deals with
all stakeholders in a community; the shape of work within an
enterprise; and who the key players are in an enterprise and how
they are to be remunerated.

Rethinking civilization

As we have seen, Bahá’u’lláh states that humanity has been
created to advance civilization and lists the attributes that
people are to have in order to accomplish this:

All men have been created to carry forward an
ever-advancing civilization. The Almighty beareth Me
witness: To act like the beasts of the field is unworthy
of man. Those virtues that befit his dignity are
forbearance, mercy, compassion and loving-kindness
towards all the peoples and kindreds of the earth. [GWB
215]

The nature of the civilization that is to be carried forward,
however, is not merely a material one, as many might think.
Bahá’ís recognize that many aspects of today’s civilization do
not benefit people and are even dangerous and harmful to
individuals and humanity as a whole. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote:
Shared Prosperity                                               215

...    until      material    achievements,      physical
accomplishments and human virtues are reinforced by
spiritual    perfections,   luminous     qualities   and
characteristics of mercy, no fruit or result shall issue
therefrom, nor will the happiness of the world of
humanity, which is the ultimate aim, be attained. For
although, on the one hand, material achievements and
the development of the physical world produce
prosperity, which exquisitely manifests its intended
aims, on the other hand dangers, severe calamities and
violent afflictions are imminent. [SWAB 283-4]

Further, what Bahá’ís anticipate is what Shoghi Effendi, head
of the Bahá’í Faith from 1921 to 1957, identifies as the ‘birth
and efflorescence of a world civilization’ [CF 6, emphasis mine],
not the extension of a western, Asian or other regional one, a
civilization that is ‘the child’ of the Most Great Peace. Such a
civilization is, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá writes, a product of the spiritual
quality ‘love’:

Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of
mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this
mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory
upon every high-aiming race and nation. [SWAB 27]

The birth of such a civilization is a far-distant expectation
for Bahá’ís, who consider its establishment ‘as the furthermost
limits in the organization of human society’ along with the
‘emergence of a world community, the consciousness of world
citizenship’ and ‘the founding of a world ... culture’. [WO 163]
Nevertheless, Bahá’ís claim that it is the efforts that humanity
makes today to realign its values, morals and the material
welfare that derive from these that will begin the process of
building that civilization.
216                                            Lights of Irfán vol. 16

The goal of shared prosperity

For Bahá’ís the goal of shared prosperity is: ‘a just, peaceful
and sustainable society’, which provides a ‘harmonious dynamic
between the material and non-material (or moral) dimensions’
of human life, which has at its base the fundamental truth of
the equality of women and men and which incorporates ‘the
generation of knowledge, the cultivation of trust and
trustworthiness, eradication of racism and violence, promotion
of art, beauty, science, and the capacity for collaboration and
the peaceful resolution of conflicts’. [BIC Document #10-0503]
Bahá’ís believe that ways to achieve these goals are, on the
one hand,
o to incorporate ‘all people, regardless of material wealth,
into the advancement of civilization’
o to articulate ‘a vibrant and compelling vision of human
prosperity at its widest and most inclusive’
o to ensure the ‘harmony between varying aspects of
development (cultural, technological, economic, social,
moral, spiritual) so as to embed ‘a widely-shared sense of
common purpose’ [BIC Document #12-1412]
and, on the other,
o to recognize that ‘a flourishing society cannot be built
by the materially wealthy on behalf of the materially
poor’
o to reexamine and redesign social and economic
‘structures, which have contributed to the exclusion of
the materially poor’
o to genuinely reassess ‘the distribution of power and
wealth’, and to recognize and recast ‘the inherent
relationship between the extremes of wealth and
poverty’
Shared Prosperity                                                      217

o to reframe ‘progress’ in ‘terms of the harmony between
the moral and material dimensions of human life’ [BIC
Document #12-1412]

Bahá’ís identify the building blocks that are crucial for
countries and people to exit poverty as:
o peace
o unity
o trustworthiness [BIC Document #05-1002]
o the freedom of conscience, thought, and religion [BIC
Document #05-1002]

o justice as the organizing principle of society [BIC
Document #95-0303]

o the elimination of the extremes of poverty and wealth
[Shoghi Effendi, ‘The Faith of Bahá’u’lláh’] through such
measures as taxation, fair pay and education
o the establishment of human rights and responsibilities,
with a balance struck between the preservation of
individual freedom and the promotion of the collective
good [BIC Document #12-1012]
o the equality of women and men [BIC Doc #12-0227]
o the rule of law
o constitutional and democratic government
o the protection of human rights
o economic development
o religious tolerance
o the promotion of useful sciences and technologies
o   programmes of public welfare [all the above, The Universal
House of Justice, 26 November 2003, citing ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, SDC]
218                                               Lights of Irfán vol. 16

The Bahá’ís posit that the key elements for the eradication of
poverty are:
o   a recognition of the oneness of humanity [BIC Doc #05-
1002]

o a coherent relationship between the material and
spiritual dimensions of human life [BIC Doc #12-0201]
o recognition that every individual has a contribution to
make to the betterment of society [BIC Doc #12-0201]
o the ethic of reciprocity: an understanding that the
interests of the individual and of the wider community
are inextricably linked [BIC Doc #11-0118]
o voluntary sharing [‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablet to the Hague]
o consultation as the basic tool of decision-making and
learning [BIC Docs #12-0620 and #10-0503]
o deliberate and conscious changes in individual choices
and in institutional structures and norms [BIC Doc #10-
0503]

o universal education [The Universal House of Justice, 26
November 2003]

The Bahá’ís consider that the primary instigators, or
protagonists, of development are:
o ‘the people themselves’
o communities
o institutions
as ‘the responsibility lies with society — its communities and
social institutions — to make it possible for all people to
contribute their energies and talents to the construction of a
more just and equitable global community. [BIC Document #:12-
1412]
Shared Prosperity                                                219

For Bahá’ís, the beneficiaries of shared prosperity, of
development, are not just the materially poor or those already
wealthy who wish to capitalize on new markets, exploit an
emerging workforce or patent traditional resources for their
own gain:

Its beneficiaries must be all of the planet’s inhabitants,
without distinction, without the imposition of
conditions unrelated to the fundamental goals of such a
reorganization of human affairs. [BIC Document #95-0303]

Conclusion

From the Bahá’í perspective, shared prosperity is more than
the amelioration of material deprivation, profound as that is. It
is not the transfer of goods, services, finances, knowledge,
technology and ideas from one community to another, nor is it
a project that one group of people carries out for the benefit
of another. It requires the development of a new mindset, one
that does not polarize people, making one set victims and
another the rescuers, but instead sees the whole world as one
community, one family. Every person is a participant in the
establishment of shared prosperity, which develops as
individuals, communities and their institutions acquire the
capacities, attitudes and skills that equip them to tackle the
main drivers of poverty and human suffering: ‘the corruption
of human morals and the prevalence of prejudice, suspicion,
hatred, untrustworthiness, selfishness and tyranny among men’.
Shared prosperity, then might be defined as a global
condition in which every person contributes to the building and
maintenance of an ever-advancing, new civilization in which
their collective creativity, energy, love, compassion,
knowledge, intellects, spiritual and moral values, talents,
learning and resources are pooled to provide a just, peaceful,
equitable, safe, united, fulfilling, stimulating, beautiful,
intelligent, nurturing and learning environment which benefits
220                                             Lights of Irfán vol. 16

everyone, protects and sustains the planet and enables them to
live long, healthy, happy, productive lives in service to one
another, in love for humanity.

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Shared Prosperity                                                    221

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222                                                   Lights of Irfán vol. 16

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NOTES
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/online-library/ending-
poverty-our-generation
http://www.nation.com.pk/islamabad/09-Jan-2013/un-plan-sought-to-
eradicate-extreme-poverty-by-2030
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/05/08/shared-
prosperity-goal-for-changing-world
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/economic-development-
for-shared-prosperity-and-poverty-reduction-a-strategic-framework
http://www.neweconomyworkinggroup.org/visions/shared-prosperity
-- Shared Prosperity: How Does That Work? (Used by permission of the curator)