Given the political changes in Latin America in recent years, French economist Thomas Piketty suggests in an interview with Efe that the countries of the region must have more transparency in their tax systems and in public spending to accelerate the movement for equity.
“We need to engage citizens. We need to have more transparency both in the tax system and in public spending (…) so that citizens can really see if we are moving in the right direction,” says Piketty, who participated in the There is Festival of Cartagena de Indias.
The economist, who published “A Brief History of Equality” (Planeta) last year, gave as an example what is happening in Colombia, where the Constitution says that the tax system must be progressive.
Read more: “I was full of dreams”: 11-year-old boy dies after eating candy at his aunt’s house
“But, in fact and in practice, it is not progressive and there is little transparency in this regard,” says the also professor at the École d’économie de Paris (EEP), a graduate of École Normale Supérieure and politically linked to the French socialists. .
Along these lines, he stated that he hopes that governments like Gabriel Boric’s in Chile will do well, since “Latin America is a place where there is a lot of inequality” and the problem should not only be addressed with his mention but also with concrete actions.
better but insufficient
In Piketty’s opinionAmerica is better off with Joe Biden as president than it was with Donald Trumpbut described that as insufficient because the current president does not have the real majorities in Congress.
This, in part, because he considers that there are congressmen who are from the Democratic Party but are closer “to the right” and, in his opinion, are corrupted by “private donations, private money.”
“I think there is a majority of public opinion in the United States that would really like to tax millionaires,” he said, adding that the Democrats are still far from that because they are “in favor of the private business interests“.
That is why he sees a need for a presidential candidate from the “left side of the party” who can convince “popular voters and the lower-class electorate” that “they are prepared to change their attitude toward big business” and will speak out.” about normal people” and their needs.
Piketty also spoke about US military tensions with Russia over the Ukraine crisis, which has skyrocketed in the last month due to the concentration of more than 100,000 Russian soldiers on the border with the latter country.
“We must think of new forms of sanctions against countries, which should be mainly against the elites and oligarchies and not against the people”it states.
He adds that there should be sanctions against “the top 10,000 or 5,000 richest Russians, including Putin himself”, although he considers that the oligarchs of the West will not do so because later that can be used against them.
“I think we should have a much better impact on the situation than trade sanctions that will harm the population or adding military to the issue, which is not going to work,” he says.
An inequality that breaks slowly
Much is said that there is a greater inclusion of women in the labor market, but their participation in world income was 31% in 1990 and grew in 30 years to just 35%, according to Piketty himself.
“If you look at the population that earns the most and has the best jobs (…) we see a minimal proportion of women,” express.
That is why she appreciates that more women are now seen in positions of popular election, but she considers that it should also be done in jobs in the private sector.
“We also have to look at the fact that there are entire occupational sectors that have traditionally been occupied by womensuch as sales in stores, cleaning services or jobs related to the elderly,” he says.
This type of work, he explains, has problems such as difficulties in organizing time or low wages when compared to traditionally male sectors such as industry.
That is why he sees the need for laws that try to give these jobs more structure and that “basically guarantee better wages and better organization of working time” for women.
Read more: 43 Kurdish guerrillas are killed in Syria in response to the murder of a Turkish soldier
#Piketty #calls #transparency #Latin #America #reduce #inequality