In a splendid work on the history of the Western world in the 18th century, Gonzalo Pontón dismantles the egalitarian myth of the Enlightenment and exposes some of its praised protagonists.
The title of his book, ‘The Fight for Inequality’, perfectly sums up capitalism’s addictive relationship with inequality. Although it is presented as an imperfection and unwanted effect of the system, in reality inequality constitutes an integral part, a genetic factor of the social project of capitalism since its beginnings. The enclosure and appropriation of common lands, which in England is considered a determining factor in industrialization, caused hunger among farmers and, above all, the shift of power to their new owners. The same thing happened later with the exploitation of fossil fuels, which, strictly speaking, should be considered common goods. A process that is now repeated with the appropriation of everyone’s data by cloud capitalism.
Capitalism is not very new in this aspect. Inequality has been an instrument of power for all social systems, as research by Word Inequality Lab has shown. Furthermore, all of them have built ideological alibis to legitimize their unequal order. In our time that function has been entrusted to meritocracy. The imagery of personal effort, which allows us to overcome inequalities, fits very well with the Judeo-Christian culture of guilt.
It should therefore not surprise us that maintaining and reproducing inequalities continues to be one of the great objectives of the economic powers and their political representatives.
The novelty perhaps lies in the fact that the individualization, fragmentation and social disintegration that digitalization fosters has increased the ways in which inequalities are manifested. And above all, it makes the construction of alternative proposals much more difficult.
Inequality has been ignored for decades by political agendas and social researchers, with some worthy exceptions. This forgetfulness has been one of the great successes of the ideological hegemony of neoliberalism – in reality ultra class interventionism. The imaginary of poor workers who, at the same time, are active consumers, thanks to the placebo of debt, made inequality disappear as a social category and political priority. One of the side effects – in this case positive – of the great recession was that inequality came out of the catacombs. And it has been identified not only as an effect, but also as a cause or trigger of the crisis. Today, fortunately, inequalities constitute the playing field for social conflicts and political battles.
This is one of the reasons for the aggressiveness of the right. They are aware that policies that promote equality not only achieve a more equitable distribution of resources, but are key in the fight for social power. Economic power, but also vital and emotional power. Patriarchy is about that.
One space in which the battle for power is very evident is that of pensions. Behind private systems there is not only big business, there is a struggle for economic power and, through it, political power. While in public systems the resources remain in the hands of the citizens through democratic institutions. In private systems, this immense capital remains in private hands that, through the capital markets, convert it into political power with which to “discipline” the democratic powers.
In Spain, the aggressiveness of the national right constitutes the reaction to the important, although still insufficient, policies of the coalition government to reduce economic inequality and promote equality in access to social and civic rights.
The economic growth of recent years has had, unlike other times, a positive impact on the reduction of inequalities. The labor reform has had an impact on this, promoting stability in employment and the recovery of the power of collective bargaining, which has led to improved salaries. Also the successive increases in the minimum wage.
The same can be said of the impact of the minimum vital income, the improvement of non-contributory and minimum pensions and the revaluation of contributory pensions. Its redistributive impact seems evident.
Although to a lesser extent tax policies have also contributed. In the absence of the essential tax reform, in recent years there has been a fine rain of measures that have contributed, through revenue, to improving its redistributive capacity. Although, in the rain, some measures have slipped in, justified by the impact of the crises and encouraged by published opinion, which have had clearly regressive effects.
The positive effects of egalitarian policies on the objectives of co-responsibility in diverse families are not minor. Or the advances in women’s rights and protection. Hence the irascible, even violent, response of the right in this area.
The addiction of the right to inequality has been confirmed by the autonomous governments of the PP. Behind their policies, which degrade public health or education services, there is not only the interest of promoting the businesses of crony capitalism. There is much more, it is about converting social segregation into access to goods that guarantee fundamental rights, into mechanisms that reproduce and increase social and political power.
The differences of up to ten years in life expectancy depending on social class that exist in Spain affect a human right, that of life, but it is also a matter of vital power of the first magnitude.
In relation to education, it is worth remembering Josep Fontana: “Education acts as a means of social separation, ensuring that the subaltern classes remain in the place that divine providence has assigned them.”
This is one of the objectives of the double educational network in the compulsory stage of education, to reproduce and sustain social inequalities as a mechanism of power. The economic asphyxiation of the Madrid Public Universities by Ayuso confirms this. We will be wrong if we think that behind this policy there is only crony capitalism.
To each egalitarian improvement in access to educational rights, the powerful respond with policies that create mechanisms of segregation, with which to maintain their power. They do it by seducing the so-called middle classes in order to gain legitimacy.
Inegalitarian policies also aim to encourage social disintegration as a power strategy. Very evident, for example, in the field of immigration. Their true motivation is not to avoid what they call migratory waves, which do not exist. Nor the danger of the great cultural replacement of our Catholic, apostolic and Roman civilization. They are only useful alibis to promote social disintegration.
Capitalism requires immigration to continue functioning. This will be the case and increasingly so in post-national societies, in which immigration no longer constitutes a specific flow but rather a structural factor of the globalized world.
We must be aware that the aggressive unequal offensive of the right aims to preserve and increase its social and political power. That is why it is key that progressive forces understand that our main task is the social structuring of interests and identities, based on equality policies.
#addicted #inequalities
