Victor M. Toledo
D
in accordance with ecology Politically, the crisis of modern civilization is modulated by two phenomena, the depredation and the parasitism that a minority exerts on nature and on the rest of the human population. It is about the ecological crisis and the social crisis, indissolubly linked. In our previous installment ( the day, 1/18/22) we explore the first crisis (whose greatest expression is the climatic imbalance). Now we offer a tight synthesis of the second. Here again we make use of the most current and rigorous scientific research, which once again becomes subversive because it reveals a situation of brutal injustice. In the same way that it was groups of academics that revealed the climate crisis and other environmental disasters, in the case of social justice, the evidence also comes from international research teams. Although the number of studies on social inequality and the concentration of wealth are multiplying every day, the two most recognized sources on the subject are the World Inequality Lab, based in France, and the reports of Oxfam International.
The Laboratory on Inequality is an initiative of the French economist Thomas Piketty, author of the book Capital in the 21st century, translated into numerous languages, and other works, begun 25 years ago. The data and analysis of the laboratory, which today is directed by a collective, are based on the work of more than 100 researchers from a database. This vast network collaborates with statistical institutions, tax authorities, universities and international organizations to harmonize, analyze and disseminate comparable international data in a historical perspective.
The last report of this group ( World Inequality Report 2022) records the following: the richest 10 percent had 52 percent of income and 76 percent of wealth; the middle class of 39.5 percent and 22 percent, and the impoverished sector of only 8.5 percent and 2 percent. Note that this last segment represents no less than half of the human population, some 3.9 billion! When these figures are compared with those of the past, they are not only worse than at the beginning of the 20th century, when European empires reached their maximum dominance, but also with those of 1820. If today’s poor have 8.5 percent of the income globally, in 1820 they owned 14 percent, with the exception that those were just over a billion and today the dispossessed almost quadruple that figure. This scenario is confirmed by a contrary source: the Global Wealth Pyramid 2020 published annually by Credit Suisse with the aim of proudly and cynically celebrating the increase in billionaires in the world. According to the Swiss bank, the current picture is worse: the richest 12 percent have 84.8 percent of the world’s wealth; the middle class of 13.7 percent and the poor of only 1.3 percent. The idea that we live in an increasingly just world is a fantasy fueled by thousands of spokespersons. Scientific evidence unmasks the true situation.
For its part, the Oxfam International reports expose the harsh reality with hard data. For example, that every 26 hours a new billionaire emerges in the world, while inequalities increase. In his latest report, inequalities kill, the organization affirms that inequalities contribute to the death of at least 21 people a day, that is, one person every four seconds. These are estimates based on the number of deaths caused on a global scale by lack of access to health services, violence, hunger and the climate crisis. This has been accelerated in these two years of the covid-19 pandemic. The 10 richest men in the world more than doubled their fortune, which has gone from 700 billion dollars to 1.5 trillion dollars (at a rate of 15 thousand dollars per second, or what is the same, 1.3 billion dollars). a day) during the first two years of a pandemic that would have damaged the income of 99 percent of humanity and pushed more than 160 million people into poverty.
As can be seen, the current situation is dramatic and there is no way to justify it. Actions of social justice should now be urgent and mandatory for all governments in the world and international organizations (UN). However, the minorities that monopolize the wealth of the world (about 600 million) have so much power (political, military and information), that the above is unfeasible. Only the sum of conscientious citizens will make it possible to turn around what is the worst social inequality in history.
To the memory of Pablo Alarcón Chaires (1961-2022), a luminous, congruent and eternal fighter for social and environmental justice.
