The document discusses ways to mitigate unemployment and poverty within capitalism. It proposes that governments adopt policies to develop the social and solidarity economy to alleviate unemployment and implement a universal basic income to alleviate poverty. The social and solidarity economy involves cooperatives and other models that prioritize social goals over profit and can create jobs. A basic income would provide everyone, including the poor, enough money to cover basic needs like food and housing. Both approaches could help address issues of unemployment and poverty that tend to worsen under capitalism.

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HOW TO MITIGATE UNEMPLOYMENT AND POVERTY IN CAPITALISM
Fernando Alcoforado*
Capitalism has contributed in its evolution throughout history to the advance of
unemployment and extreme poverty. According to the ILO, in 2018 the planet had 172
million unemployed. Even without a recession, the world's population increase will
inevitably lead to an increase in the number of unemployed (173.6 million in 2019 and
174.3 million in 2020) because the market will not be able to absorb new workers. The
United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human
Development Initiative (OPHI) annually prepare the Global Multidimensional Poverty
Index. The recently published 2019 edition shows that there are 1.3 billion
multidimensional poor people in the 101 low- and middle-income countries that the
study examines, that is, suffering several shortcomings of a list of 10 related to health,
education and quality of life. They are almost double the 736 million of those
considered extremely poor, who live on less than $ 1.90 a day [AGUDO, Alejandra.
Quem são e onde estão os pobres do mundo (Who are and where are the world's poor).
Available on the website
<https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2019/07/13/actualidad/1562972599_738643.html>].
How can the countries of the world, including the richest, have so many unemployed
and poor people and what can be done about it? We must combat the view of right-wing
parties and politicians who see unemployment and poverty as inevitable problems and
should not be the object of government intervention and that of left-wing parties and
politicians who see unemployment and poverty as insoluble problems in milestones of
capitalism. The right-wing parties and politicians , reactive to state intervention in the
economy and too convinced that the free market will automatically bring about
universal welfare, does nothing to solve the problem. The left-wing parties and
politicians emphasizes the need for changes in the model of society to solve the
problem. The future trend is that of worsening unemployment and extreme poverty.
Given this perspective, what would be the solution to alleviate unemployment and
poverty within the framework of capitalism? The solution would be the adoption by
national states of public policies aimed at the development of the social and solidarity
economy to alleviate unemployment and the implementation of basic or universal
minimum income to alleviate poverty.
Regarding the Social and Solidarity Economy, it is important to note that it is one of the
solutions to alleviate the problem of unemployment and pave the way to invent in the
future other ways of producing and consuming contributing to greater social cohesion.
This is the opinion of Géraldine Lacroix and Romain Slitine presented in their book
L'Economie sociale et solidaire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2016).
According to Lacroix and Slitine, from equitable trade to solidarity savings through
social innovations in the field of environmental protection, the fight against social
exclusion or equal opportunities, the Social and Solidarity Economy offers answers to
numerous questions of contemporary society. The authors of this book state that the
social and solidarity economy accounts for 10% of GDP and accounts for 12.7% of
employment in France. In Brazil, the social and solidarity economy represents 1% of
GDP [REDE BRASIL ATUAL. Comautogestão,economia solidária já representa 1%do PIBno
Brasil (With self-management, solidarity economy already represents 1% of GDP in
Brazil). Available at the website

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<http://www.redebrasilatual.com.br/economia/2015/08/economia-solidaria-ja-
representa-1-do-pib-no-brasil-3696.html, 2015>].
The Social and Solidarity Economy is a new model of economic, social, political and
environmental development that has a different way of generating work and income in
various sectors, whether in community banks, credit unions, family farming
cooperatives, fair trade, barter clubs, etc. The Social and Solidarity Economy is a new
form of organization of work and economic activities in general emerging as an
important alternative for the inclusion of workers in the labor market, giving them a
new opportunity through self-management. Based on the Social and Solidarity
Economy, there is the possibility of recovering and continuing the bankrupt companies
with a new mode of production, where profit maximization is no longer the main
objective, giving rise to the maximization of quantity and the quality of work.
It should be noted that the Social and Solidarity Economy emerged in Europe with the
first Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century. However, it was in Britain
(more precisely in England) that it took the clearest form from the nineteenth century, as
a “Response to the worsening labor crisis” and growing dissatisfaction with the
performance of the public social security system. Faced with these economic and social
gaps that the history of capitalism has produced emerges, as an alternative model, the
Social and Solidarity Economy [SILVA, José Luís Alves e SILVA, Sandra Isabel Reis.
A economia solidária como base do desenvolvimento local (The solidarity economy as
the basis of local development). Available on the website
<https://journals.openedition.org/eces/1451>, 2008]. It should be noted that the Social
and Solidarity Economy was invented by workers in the early days of industrial
capitalism.
The Social and Solidarity Economy, in its resurgence around the end of the twentieth
century, appeared as a workers' response to the productive restructuring of globalized
capitalism and to misuse and without criteria of new technologies that led to mass
unemployment and the bankruptcy of companies. The Social and Solidarity Economy
stands as a possible alternative to generate employment for workers who are mostly
excluded from the formal labor market and from consumption. Social and Solidarity
Economy has emerged in various parts of the world with practices of economic and
social relations that are enabling the survival and improvement of the quality of life of
millions of people. These practices are based on relationships of solidary collaboration,
inspired by cultural values that place the human being as the subject and purpose of
economic activity, rather than the private accumulation of wealth in general and capital
in particular.
In turn, the basic income or universal minimum income policy for the population is one
of the solutions to alleviate poverty. This idea is not new. Friedrich August von Hayek,
Austrian economist and later naturalized British philosopher, considered one of the
greatest representatives of the Austrian School of Economic Thought, was the
proponent of this idea when he published between 1973 and 1979 his Law, Legislation
and Liberty (Routledge, 1988). The neoliberal income transfer program of the Lula and
Dilma Rousseff governments in Brazil, Bolsa Familia, is an example of the application
of Hayek's basic income policy. Rutger Bregman's book "Utopia for Realists" (London,
New York: Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2017) shows that giving free money to everyone,
ie a universal minimum income program, would make it possible to alleviate or
eliminate poverty. Among the reasons he points out for this idea to come true is that

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distributing money decreases crime, improves the health of the population and allows
everyone to invest in themselves.
According to Bregman, a major challenge in implementing the basic income policy for
the poor is the fear that, by giving the minimum to survive, people would become lazy.
Bregman's belief is that the minimum income will be like venture capital for the people
giving everyone the opportunity to take risks. This will generate a wave of
entrepreneurship. Bregman advocates the utopia of money for everyone and not just for
the poor. In the book, Bregman cites a series of successful examples of how homeless
people, Indians, and populations in vulnerable regions developed by receiving money
without asking for anything in return. For him, it will be better with less bureaucracy
and setting requirements. The basic income program should be universal in expanding
to the rich and the middle class so that it becomes a right of all citizens, not a favor,
Bregman says. The theme of basic income or universal minimum income has been
gaining momentum in Silicon Valley, the main technological hub of the United States,
as production systems based on artificial intelligence and automation advance, raising
fears that they will eliminate a number of jobs. In the book, Bregman states that all the
great achievements of civilization, such as the end of slavery, universal vow, women's
rights, were utopias at some point that came true.
It can be said that the adoption of the Social and Solidarity Economy is undoubtedly the
solution that would allow, within the framework of capitalism, to tackle mass
unemployment that tends to grow dramatically in the future with the replacement of
skilled workers and not qualified by robots in the labor market. This is an important
alternative for including workers in the labor market, giving them a new opportunity to
work with a new mode of production where profit is no longer the main goal. Adopting
the basic income or universal minimum income policy for the poor is one of the
solutions to alleviate poverty as it would make it possible for the poor to have money to
meet their basic needs of food, health, housing, etc. It is important to note that poverty
is the condition of those who are poor, that is, those who do not have the basic
conditions to guarantee their survival with quality of life and dignity.
It should be noted that an individual acquires the condition of poverty when he does not
meet his basic needs because his income is not sufficient and he has no income because
he is unemployed or has no income because he is not able to perform any productive
activity. In short, poverty results from the fact that the individual does not have enough
money to meet his basic needs. The basic income policy for the poor would bring
numerous advantages such as reducing crime, improving the living conditions of the
poor and increasing the consumption of goods and services by the poor. The
government, the provider of the basic income for the poor, would have the benefit of
lower spending on police repression and the prison structure as a result of reduced crime
and homelessness and increased tax collection resulting of increasing consumption of
the poor.
It is important to note that the basic income thesis for the poor is widely questioned
because there is a widespread view that no one should have income without working.
However, it is a conception that should not be applied in a conjuncture such as the
current one in which the job offer does not meet the needs of the population and the
poor population grows vertically worldwide. There will be no social peace in countries

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that do not adopt the policies of social and solidarity economy and basic income for the
poor.
 Fernando Alcoforado, 79, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System,
member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional
Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of
strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the
books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem
Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000),
Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de
Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento
(Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos
Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the
Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe
Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável-
Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do
Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social
(Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática
Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas,
Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo
Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de
Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2019).