Economists classify societies into income quintiles (fifths). This is the building: the poorest 20%, the next and even the richest in the attic. More than order or photography, I am concerned with the film, the evolution. And it is that those in the basement are worse every day and the rich are more so every day. And that growing inequality is the result of policies, of decisions.
This has gotten worse since the 2008 crisis, right?
Two things have happened. One is economic: the return on capital is greater than that on work, that is, if you have money and invest it, you get more than if you have a job and a payroll. Those who have money have more and more and those who have payroll have more and more problems. In terms of inequality and politics, we also have many people who miss the train, the wealth from above never reaches them. And it may happen that you have a job and cannot make ends meet.
In fact there are many poor workers…
They are putting surnames to things that do not have it, such as labor poverty, energy poverty… It’s poverty, period. And we have in Spain. And there are huge companies and fortunes that when they don’t pay their community fee, to follow the simile, the neighbors in the basement have leaks, they are worse off.
“They are putting surnames to things that do not have it, such as labor poverty, energy poverty… It’s poverty, period”
And the solution? Some say that lowering taxes without saying how to cover expenses and others only talk about raising them… Is it a left or right issue?
No. To everyone who makes the tax debate I would recommend a scalpel. It is fiscal surgery: carefully select who has to pay more and how much. And this is what we should be discussing. And it is that you cannot always lower taxes or raise them. When circumstances change, you have to change your mind.
The IMF and other organizations are now betting more on different recipes than those of 2008… They have learned something, right?
The international institutions have learned, while the parties here seem not to. Our economic right is to the right of the international economic right. We have parties that continue to prescribe the same as in 2008, which failed. And neither the IMF nor the World Bank nor the ECB nor the OECD recommend it. Here there are people frozen in time and space, the one on the right that is more rancid and hard. When recipes fail, you have to look for new solutions. The result of the two previous crises has been a brutal impoverishment, of the social base and of the country.
Inequality has widened but at the same time we do not see that the fire, following the simile, affects the entire building…
There are flames, not a general fire. The fire has started. If the flames start in the basement, they will eventually reach the attic. And the flames are several, but the first and fundamental is that the poor have stopped voting. Those who are in the lowest 20% in Spain do not vote and it happens in all cities: in Madrid, in Barcelona… Who votes? Who has more than 50,000 euros. And also suddenly, a populist party does not provide solutions but points to the culprits: women, immigrants, etc. and generates economic voodoo. And Vox wins in poor districts. When things like this happen, there comes a time when the Capitol is assaulted, like in the United States. The fire has started. The only thing we see for now is the smoke but either we put it out, that is, or we fix the basement, or sooner or later those flames will reach the attic.
“It is for the benefit of the rich to pay a little tax”
Could it be that employment curbs discontent?
The great extinguisher on the fire right now is that unemployment has not skyrocketed. The problem is that the employment that is created makes it possible to survive but not to live. Avoid the social revolution, which is subsistence, but does not guarantee a horizon of life. We have a problem of excessive precariousness, especially among young people, and we are beginning to have flames. Following the metaphor of the building: it is cheaper to repair the basement than shield the attic because inequality is ultimately insecurity because those who have nothing have nothing to lose and can fall into crime. It is cheaper and safer to repair the basement than to armor the attic. It is in the benefit of the rich to pay a little tax.
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Solutions?
There are two things that need to be repaired: the social elevator, which means a real tax reform. Payrolls no longer give more of themselves nor do SMEs. We have to ask the great companies and the great fortunes for more. And the second reform is educational: the great universities have become great social clubs. Harvard, for example, which was the aspiration of my generation, today does not have any students whose parents do not earn more than $155,000 or more. It is a club of the rich for rich children, great scholarship and access programs are needed because education is the great social leveler.