Humankind & Resource Distribution—XV: Economic rights, responsibilities and institutional accountability

An equitable economic order cannot survive as an aspiration expressed in speeches or policy papers. Its durability depends upon institutions that make economic rights meaningful, assign responsibilities clearly and allow citizens to hold decision-makers accountable. The preceding instalment examined the foundations of such an order: productive access, fair taxation, responsible finance, labour protection and ecological stewardship. The next question is more demanding. How can these principles become rules that people can actually invoke, monitor and enforce?

A right is economically significant when it changes what a person can reliably do. A constitutional promise of education has limited practical value where a child cannot reach a functioning school, teachers remain absent or learning is not assessed. A promise of healthcare is similarly weakened when medicine is unavailable or treatment pushes a family into debt. Legal recognition matters, but effective enjoyment requires financing, administrative capacity, public information and remedies when institutions fail.

This distinction recalls Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach. Income is important because it helps people secure valuable freedoms, but identical incomes do not necessarily yield identical opportunities. Disability, location, gender, age and the quality of public services alter what money can accomplish. The relevant inquiry is therefore not simply whether public expenditure has increased, but whether the capabilities of those previously excluded have expanded.[1]

Economic rights should not be confused with a promise that every desired outcome can be guaranteed. Resources are finite, competing claims are real and institutions make mistakes. A credible framework specifies minimum obligations, progressive improvements and transparent priorities. It distinguishes immediate duties, such as non-discrimination and honest administration, from services whose expansion requires sustained resources. Without that distinction, ambitious declarations can become a substitute for measurable delivery.

Responsibilities begin with the state but do not end there. Legislatures must define entitlements and provide lawful financing. Executives must translate appropriations into services. Regulators must restrain abuses of market power.

Courts and independent review bodies must provide remedies within their lawful jurisdiction. Employers must honour contracts and safety standards; financial institutions must disclose risks and treat customers fairly. Citizens, too, have responsibilities to contribute according to law, respect shared resources and participate in oversight. Accountability requires knowing who owes what duty to whom.

Pakistan’s federal structure makes this allocation especially important. Education, healthcare, water supply, local infrastructure and social protection involve several layers of government. When outcomes deteriorate, responsibility can disappear into arguments over jurisdiction and funding.

A transparent assignment of functions, financing and performance reporting would make it harder for one authority to claim credit while another bears blame. Fiscal transfers should be examined not only for their amounts but for whether they help secure comparable minimum opportunities across regions.

The language of rights also needs an institutional counterpart in the public budget. Every promise entails a cost, and every budget expresses a choice among competing claims. Fiscal transparency allows the public to see the assumptions behind those choices, the beneficiaries of concessions and subsidies, and the liabilities transferred to future taxpayers. The International Monetary Fund’s Fiscal Transparency Code treats reporting, forecasting, budgeting and fiscal-risk disclosure as essential elements of sound public management.[2]

A government may announce substantial education spending while schools lack books, safe buildings or qualified teachers. Another may report large development allocations without identifying which districts receive the projects or whether the assets remain functional. Expenditure is an input, not proof of a result. Public accounts should therefore connect money authorised, money released, services delivered and independently verified outcomes. Procurement records, project completion reports and maintenance obligations should be accessible in forms that ordinary citizens and researchers can examine.

Information is itself a distributive resource. Those with political connections, professional advisers and financial sophistication can often discover public decisions before everyone else. Delayed statistics and opaque administrative practices create advantages that may be converted into private gains.

Reliable data on school attendance, learning, health access, land tenure, tax expenditure, procurement and regional investment can reduce these informational inequalities. But disclosure must protect personal privacy and avoid exposing vulnerable households to misuse of their data.

Measurement should be demanding without becoming mechanical. A single national poverty rate cannot reveal whether a remote district has functioning clinics or whether women can exercise property rights. Indicators must be disaggregated where feasible and accompanied by qualitative evidence.

Targets can encourage performance, but they can also encourage manipulation when officials are rewarded for reported numbers rather than independently observed improvements. Audits, household surveys, community feedback and periodic evaluation should test one another rather than depend upon a single reporting chain.

The governance of common resources offers a particularly clear illustration. Water, grazing land, forests and urban public spaces generate benefits that extend beyond individual ownership. Elinor Ostrom showed that communities can sometimes develop effective rules for shared resources when boundaries, participation, monitoring and graduated sanctions are suited to local conditions.[3] This does not eliminate the state’s role. It suggests that affected users must have meaningful participation in decisions whose costs they bear.

Labour rights raise similar questions about enforceability. A statutory minimum wage does not protect a worker whose employment is undocumented and whose complaint would cost the job. Occupational safety rules cannot work where inspection is arbitrary or compromised.

Collective bargaining, accessible dispute resolution and credible enforcement help turn legal language into bargaining power. The International Labour Organization’s decent-work framework connects rights at work with employment opportunities, social protection and social dialogue.[4]

Financial accountability deserves equal attention. When lenders profit from fees that borrowers cannot understand, or when connected enterprises receive preferential access to public guarantees, financial contracts can transfer risk without corresponding responsibility. Clear disclosure, effective supervision, transparent resolution of failing institutions and limits on conflicts of interest are necessary. The principle should be symmetrical: those who receive the gains of investment should not automatically pass its losses to the public.

None of this requires hostility towards enterprise. Predictable courts, impartial regulators, transparent taxes and enforceable contracts lower uncertainty for productive businesses. Small firms are often harmed most by inconsistent rules because they cannot purchase influence or maintain expensive compliance departments.

The World Bank’s governance research treats voice, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption as distinct dimensions requiring careful interpretation rather than a single verdict on institutions.[5]

Accountability also demands a place for correction. A policy that works in one province may fail in another because administrative capacity, geography or social arrangements differ. Independent evaluation should permit revision without treating every change as an admission of political defeat. Pilot programmes, published criteria and comparison of outcomes can reveal what works, for whom and at what cost. This is especially important when a reform transfers assets, changes subsidies or creates new financial obligations.

An economic constitution of shared welfare, understood as a practical set of institutions rather than a new written charter, would therefore rest upon three linked propositions. People must have intelligible claims to essential capabilities; public and private actors must carry identifiable obligations; and independent mechanisms must make both claims and obligations contestable. Rights without resources invite disappointment. Resources without accountability invite capture. Accountability without access to information becomes a ritual.

The measure of success is not the number of rights proclaimed or institutions established. It is whether a child in a neglected district learns, a worker can claim earned wages, a patient obtains necessary treatment, a farmer can defend secure tenure, and a small entrepreneur can compete without purchasing favour. These are concrete tests of whether economic freedom is becoming less dependent upon birth, wealth and proximity to power.

The next instalment will examine the democratic and local foundations of this transformation: why participation, decentralised decision-making and trustworthy public institutions are necessary to convert national economic commitments into everyday freedom.

Notes:

1. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (Oxford University Press, 1999); see also UNDP, Human Development Reports and the capabilities framework.
2. International Monetary Fund, Fiscal Transparency Code and Fiscal Transparency Handbook.
3. Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge University Press, 1990).
4. International Labour Organization, Decent Work agenda.
5. World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators: methodology and dimensions.

[To be continued]

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Dr. Ikramul Haq, Advocate Supreme Court, Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), member Advisory Board and Visiting Senior Fellow of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), holds an LLD in tax laws. He was full-time journalist from 1979 to 1984 with Viewpoint and Dawn. He also served Civil Services of Pakistan from 1984 to 1996.