This article taken from Lettura # 488 of 4 April 2021 (the full number available in the archive of the supplement App).
The second half of the twentieth century tamed class conflict, tempering capitalism with democracy and welfare. With the turn of the century, the balance between these three elements began to falter. The reason lies essentially in the weakening of the container: the nation state. Globalization and the opening of markets have removed territorial borders and regulatory barriers. The delegation of powers and functions to international institutions and the European Union, budget constraints and structural reforms necessary to maintain system competitiveness have caused profound changes in the economic structure. The overall outcome of these processes was a sharp increase in inequalities and social insecurity.
As had already happened in the late nineteenth century, the social question 2.0 created a fertile ground for a new class conflict and the escalation of political conflict. Child of the industrial age, the working class has lost its centrality. The New Dangerous Class (as Guy Standing called it in a volume entitled Precarious, published by the Mill) today constituted by working poor and from the precarious, in fact: the ranks of the unsecured, the irregular, the expelled from the labor market. These are the losers of globalization (but also of the technological revolution) among whom poverty and exclusion are concentrated. And it is precisely these categories that are the privileged interlocutors (together with some fringes of the old working class and self-employment) of the populist and sovereign parties. The new social question must be given a rapid and adequate response, capable of reducing the massive gap of opportunities between winners and losers. But what answer, exactly? Is it possible to recreate – on a new basis and on a new scale – a balance between capitalism, democracy and welfare? There are two opposing orientations in the debate, one pessimistic and the other optimistic.
The volume just released by Michael Lind The new class struggle (Luiss University Press) an emblematic example of the first orientation. According to the author, a new class war is already underway (the original title speaks of Class War) which opposes a cosmopolitan, educated, metropolitan, rich social stratum (a ruling super-class), on the one hand, and two different strata of the dominated: those traditional middle classes that cannot keep up with globalization and an increasingly vast stratum of workers located on the fringes, if not completely excluded, from the dynamics of the new economy. From this opposition arose the wave of demagogic populism, which in some cases has already registered real revolts from below, even violent (think of the Yellow Vests in France).
At the origin of this war lies the rise of technocratic neoliberalism from above, a system of government imposed by the super-class, which promoted deregulation, the dismantling of national barriers, the relocation of businesses and the dumping social, the weakening of trade unions. In the face of these deleterious developments, which risk killing democracy, there is only one solution: to stop globalization, including migratory flows, and to restore the full sovereignty of nation states. In short, back to the twentieth century. Restoring the container to stipulate peace treaties between the super-classes and the subordinate strata: new social contracts based on the principles of democratic pluralism and on development agendas, aimed at favoring national economic interests.
Lind’s is largely a retrotopy, to use the language of Zygmunt Bauman. A project that looks backwards, which wants to stem change by rebuilding national tribes and resurrecting neo-corporatism and mercantilist economic policies. According to Lind, the super-classes themselves will promote this throwback. Two fears will convince them: that of insurrections from below, especially by outsiders, but also that of losing out in the great neoliberal competition between regional economic blocs.
What does the optimistic orientation support and what does it propose instead? One of the most complex versions is that formulated by Torben Iversen and David Soskice in the volume Democracy and Prosperity (Princeton University Press). According to the authors, the challenge of globalization should not be overestimated, because the economic-political system inherited from the twentieth century is structurally capable of self-correction. The capitalist class (what Lind calls the ruling super-class) is less cohesive than it appears, precisely because of the differentiated competitive pressures that come from market integration. To be successful in the new economy, businesses must then be supported by robust backgrounds of human capital, high-quality services, centers for the production of knowledge and innovation. In short, they need strong territorial anchors: and therefore of the State: they are by no means free to move when they want to run after lower labor costs and lighter regulatory contexts. On the contrary, their interest is to promote and co-finance public policies that cushion social changes, favor the formation of a qualified workforce, stimulate research and innovation.
If you manage it well, the opening of markets and new technologies can ensure prosperity and good employment for all. A functioning democracy must commit itself to achieving these objectives, on which social peace and political consensus and therefore the very survival of democracy depend. It is true that poverty has increased. But knowing how to read the data, middle-class income has actually continued to stay in line with growth rates. The second half of the twentieth century created a true symbiosis between capitalism, democracy and the welfare state. Today we are going through a phase of crisis, but the system has within itself the capacity to resist and reconfigure itself.
The scenario outlined by Iversen and Soskice reassuring and basically more plausible than Lind’s retrotopic one. Major change processes always tend to generate social issues and political turmoil. Since history is characterized by a certain degree of irreversibility, it is wiser to invest in the future and seek more advanced balances between the market, democracy and welfare than to pursue the restoration of the past. Iversen and Soskice overestimate for the self-correcting capacity of the current system. In fact, a lot of work has to be done to recover balance.
The polarization between a layer of catch-all and one of them is a real and very serious challenge (Lind is right about that). The ruling classes have always consolidated their position by monopolizing control over the various acquisition possibilities (increases in opportunities and wealth) within the company. The second great transformation we are experiencing today has undermined the state-national foundations of the twentieth-century class compromises, which arose as a response to the first great transformation (the industrial one) so well described by Karl Polanyi. The image of a knowledge-based society with benevolent businesses and quality services, widespread educational opportunities and engaging training. And perhaps it already exists on some lucky island in Northern Europe or California. But the path to get there is really long and tiring.
There are two main fronts on which to engage. The first is to protect the losing social strata, to free the Fifth Estate (as I called it in my recent essay, published by Laterza) from the gripes of precariousness and need. the agenda of the new welfare, made up of active protections, but also of massive social investments. This agenda is still unfinished, and it should be a priority of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans that the governments of the European Union are preparing in recent months. The second front is the removal of too many bottlenecks that hinder social mobility. The birth family is still the main vehicle of intergenerational transmission of advantages and disadvantages. The dynamics of globalization have greatly increased the importance of the place of birth and growth. It is no coincidence that both Lind and Iversen and Soskice speak of a growing gap between metropolis and province, between centers and territorial peripheries. We need deliberate policies to promote mobility, which take into account the different territorial situations.
The economic and social effects of the ongoing pandemic make the path more difficult. It is probable that the so-called return to normal after the defeat of the virus opens a new season of redistributive conflicts. But it won’t be a class war. The pandemic has changed the agenda and the culture of governments. In Europe, technocratic neoliberalism has been scratched in some of its main pillars (think of the suspension of the Stability Pact or the common debt to finance the Next Generation Eu plan) and is evolving towards a model of social liberalism that is more attentive to the needs of citizens and more respectful of that democratic pluralism of which Lind speaks. At the end of the tunnel we can glimpse the contours of those more advanced balances between capitalism, democracy and welfare towards which to strive, abandoning retrotopic nostalgia.
At the end of his book The great transformation, Karl Polanyi argued: The restoration of the past is impossible, as much as transferring our problems to another planet. And a little later he added: On the other hand, the collapse of the traditional system does not leave us suspended in the void; indeed, industrial society can afford to be both just and free. This statement also applies to the post-industrial and globalized society of this new century. But it is a possible future, not a necessary evolution. Which ultimately depends on the value options, the leadership skills, the concrete choices of those who occupy positions of responsibility in the economic, social and above all political spheres.
April 30, 2021 (change May 1, 2021 | 07:51)
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