The Political Dimension of Inequality | Article

A report recently released by OXFAM internationally and for Mexico leaves no room for doubt: the immoral process of wealth concentration has accelerated and deepened as a result of the economic and health emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, billionaires have historically increased their wealth while most have not only lost income, wages and jobs, but millions of families have been forced to sell some or all of their assets.

This issue of inequality has been approached primarily from an economic perspective, emphasizing the need for fiscal reform. In this regard, numerous and interesting models of reforms were presented that would allow for a progressive reform that would overcome the so-called “fiscal anemia of the state”.

However, what has not been discussed sufficiently and in sufficient depth is the urgency of building a political debate around inequality and the role of the state as an effective avenger of development, as provided for by our constitutional text, both in relation to the planning and implementation of government, and above all to the fulfillment of the human rights recognized in our Magna Carta.

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If we are to change structures that allow for the levels of inequality we have today, we will have to face the reality of the malign influence of powerful business groups in both constitutional and legal architecture and design. and the functioning of institutions and public policies and programs.

From this point of view, the current government of the Republic has missed a great opportunity to use all the democratic legitimacy with which it was invested to carry out deep reforms in this matter. On the contrary, he decided to apply a strange moral strategy, arguing that it is preferable to act in the direction of persuasion and “change of conscience” (whatever that means), rather than state coercion to reshape the fiscal structure of the state as a true rector. political and economic life of society.

President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech goes in the opposite direction: not only has he denounced the crude process of accelerating the concentration of wealth, he has even jeopardized the possibility of his re-election to change both the amount and the way taxes are collected in the United States of America.

The lesson of this type of decision, as well as those from other countries such as the Nordic countries, which are so highly regarded in the speech of the chief executive, is that they are not based on lottery, donations or moral conscience, as much as possible .A reliable wealth-creating state cannot be financed, but rather through the use of the ability and ability to collect, through progressive collection schemes that allow a fair redistribution of tasks and social benefits.

Former President Bill Clinton and his economic advisers made it fashionable in the 1990s to say, “It’s the economy, dumbass,” they used to say. But today it is clear that it is not the invisible hand of the market that can solve our greatest problems, but, above all, the ability and political will to recement the social pact, and with it the determination of what, how and to what extent each citizen, each company and in general each component of the nation-state contributes to the development process.

The principle of the separation of powers has, at least in our structure and constitutional design, the following function: to establish a parliamentary process of consensus decision-making on the expenditure budget of the Federation, which has never ceased to be the main instrument of economic policy. country policy; which means nothing more than the main instrument of the political decision of the state.

Unfortunately, the so-called transition to democracy has not led us to form political blocs in Congress that are capable of responsible dialogue on how to create a long-term process that will allocate the necessary resources to enforce the Constitution. On the contrary, from 1997, when there is a divided Congress, and until now, when the overwhelming majority scheme of the dominant party has returned, an almost mafia scheme of distribution of fiscal resources has been created. The state is in the interest of political groups and interests that have little or nothing to do with the right to holistic development that all Mexicans have.

It is clear that this administration will not exercise this power; but it is also clear that, given the state of affairs, the worsening and deepening of many of our problems and the historical lag, whoever becomes President of the Republic, as well as the Federal Congress, will have an inevitable responsibility to address the agenda of inequality, without shying away from the mandatory debate around the political dimension structures that allow the abhorrent conditions of social injustice and other injustices to be reproduced from generation to generation, to paraphrase the philosopher Julián Marias.

The fiscal pact is an unequivocal reflection of the social pact. A structure designed so that the richest, an infinite minority, pay very little; so that the vast majority of workers and middle-income workers bear the greatest tax burden; and for the poorest to be permanently dependent on benefits and social assistance programs, and not on decent work and access to a universal system of comprehensive social protection, is clearly not feasible, because this precisely reflects the predatory nature of the state, which, far from being the rector of development, being an equalizer of opportunities and powers, becomes an accomplice of those who monopolize not only wealth, but also the main spaces of representation, control, access and permanence in power.

The author is a researcher at PUED-UNAM.