It was 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell, and two years later, the Soviet Union disintegrated. It was the end of the Cold War and, for many, also the anticipated end of a brief 20th century that had begun with the First World War, followed by the League of Nations and the International Labour Organisation. Already then, in 1919, it was said at the ILO: lasting peace is not possible without social justice.

In 1990, many were under the illusion that a new era with peace and without ideological conflicts was beginning.

Today, thirty-five years later, we must revisit that vision. Only now are we on the threshold of a new era, and we should see the past period as a transition to another world. The Western alliance is on the brink, genocide is taking place in the Middle East, war is raging in Europe, and there are several armed conflicts in Africa and Asia. Neoliberal globalisation is being challenged.

In Western Europe, vociferous calls for more armaments are endangering the most fundamental feature of Western societies: the welfare states that guaranteed social cohesion, limited inequality, little poverty, and universal rights for all citizens.

It is not the first attack on welfare states, but it could become the final one.

Hence, the importance of reiterating the indissoluble link between peace and social justice.

Class conflict

Social justice is, of course, closely related to class conflict. With growing inequality in the world, class conflict is more than ever the order of the day. The perverse wealth of a small group of billionaires undermines democracy and makes the very idea of society impossible. There is no longer a common world between the rich and the non-rich.

Neoliberal globalisation was based on precisely this inequality. Companies started producing where wages were lower and were then able to use free trade agreements to export goods from poor countries to rich ones. This inevitably led to the de-industrialisation - and consequent unemployment - of rich countries. And it simultaneously meant greater dependence of the North on the South. In other words, there was some development in the countries of the South, especially in Asia, but no increased power for those countries. In global institutions - UN, IMF... - Northern hegemony continued to rule.

In addition to this economic-political imbalance, there is a second problem that threatens peace. Climate change and biodiversity loss are the result of, among other things, polluting industries, unsustainable agricultural practices, and consumption habits in the North. Today, the World Bank states unequivocally that poverty eradication would greatly increase pollution.

The environmental problem is impossible to solve without focusing on its social dimension. No one will voluntarily and spontaneously revise their consumption habits if this also leads to less comfort. No industrialist will adapt his production to environmental requirements if this limits his profit possibilities. Today, the call is for a just transition, which means ensuring both sustainability and social justice.

A just transition

There are different ways of approaching a "just transition". Some work on climate change and ecology, others on social justice, others on geopolitics and the crucial need for peace, and, of course, not forgetting the unsustainable economic system of extractivism, productivism, free trade, debt, etc.

All these sectors can be entry points to a policy of what I like to call "stubborn coherence": start where you start, but you will not reach the goal if you do not tackle all the different sectors, not stopping after the first success, but continuing until you reach the goal, which implies that all the different sectors are really interrelated.

Peace is a great human endeavour. It can be a useful starting point for improving policies for social justice, ecological sustainability, and alternative economies.

The first contribution to peace should be to reconcile humanity with nature: modernity has placed humanity above and separate from nature, when it is clearly part of nature. This is the first element that needs to be addressed, as it is the greatest failure of modernity.

Today's militarisation and ongoing wars are a major source of pollution, often ignored. While too much attention is paid to small individual contributions (not using plastic straws, not travelling by plane...), the enormous contribution of the military to the destruction of our environment should be brought to the forefront.

Ongoing militarisation also requires enormous resources that in many, if not all, cases are taken away from social policies, such as social protection, pensions, and health care.

Peace is not possible without social justice: the ILO put it in the preamble of its 1919 Constitution! We also have the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which explicitly mentions the right to an adequate income. Preventing people from fighting over the resources they so badly need to survive is an important contribution to peacebuilding.

Peace is not possible in an economically competitive world where corporations strive to be the biggest and the best, destroying others and destroying nature in their quest for natural resources.... Peace cannot be achieved if large corporations are allowed to poison the earth with pesticides and rob people of their livelihood, which is at the same time a crucial element of social justice.

If we want to work for peace, we must ensure that tensions between individuals and groups cannot grow too high. This means that inequality will have to decrease. That requires social policies and, increasingly, also sound environmental policies. Already today, millions of people are leaving their homes because of climate change. Terrorism, the refugee crisis, migration flows: they cannot be reduced to a mere lack of social justice, but also to a failure to work for a world we can share.

It is true that the poor must be helped by all possible means, but the aim must always be to give them material and economic autonomy, i.e., sufficient income. This is contrary to the construction of an otherness into which the poor are often forced and with which they will never be able to escape from income poverty. Unfortunately, this is very much in line with the current approaches of the extreme right, in which social mobility has disappeared from the agenda.

We must bear in mind that, in working for peace, poverty is not the main problem. On the contrary, we must first and foremost combat the enormous inequalities that produce poverty and undermine democracies. Poverty reduction, as proposed by the World Bank, is entirely compatible with neo-liberalism. Therefore, fair tax policies are essential for a just transition to social justice and peace. The main objective should be to prevent poverty and make it illegal.

Peace is a matter of social cohesion, within and between countries. In most Western countries, cohesion has been built and maintained by welfare states based on universal citizens' rights. From Bismarck to Roosevelt and Beveridge, welfare states have been the main pillars of coherent and peaceful societies. With neoliberalism, and even more so with the emergence and growth of the extreme right, these welfare states are disappearing, leading to serious conflicts and even violence within societies.

Peace is also a matter of culture: developing a culture of peace, through education and the acquisition of knowledge, may be one of the best policies to promote peace throughout the world.

Peace, social justice, and sustainability are the fundamental pillars of a better world. One is not achievable without the others.