At first glance it seems not, but pandemics are a great social leveler. In March 2018, El gran levelador (The Gret Leveler) by Walter Scheidel, a book that can be obtained in kindle format for 2.73 euros. Its author, an Austrian historian who teaches at Stanford, argues that throughout history inequality has only receded as a consequence of four forms of rupture that have a great human cost: war with mass mobilization, the transformative revolution, the failure of the state and the lethal pandemic.
“This,” writes Scheidel, “I call the ‘four horsemen of equalization.’ Like their Biblical counterparts, their purpose was to ‘remove peace from the earth’ and ‘kill with the sword, with hunger, with slaughter, and with beasts of the earth ‘”.
Thomas piketty he found the same in his studies of capital. Inequality was only reduced during the great wars of the 20th century, a period characterized as “the great compression”. Bullets do not distinguish a general from a soldier. One of the hypotheses that emerges from the debate is that the fact that these four phenomena occur less and less frequently is what makes the world more and more unequal. Peace, prosperity, and the boring rule of law would be fertile ground (though not enough) for inequality.
Therefore, we should hope that the pandemic will catch up with us. The problem is that the leveling offered by the four horsemen is always downwards. War, revolution, anarchy and plague destroy wealth, therefore, all poorer, as in the egalitarian Venezuela of Mature. But we all know that statistical aggregates, those large numbers that validate these theories, have little to do with the common man’s narrative.
Indeed, the four horsemen equal a lot because many lose, but there is always a black marketer who fixes his mustaches. Following the Pareto rule, let’s say that 80% will be more equal, that is, less rich, and 20% will leave the chart at the top.
Starting in 2021, we Spaniards will be able to see how our oligarchy changes its skin, thanks to the new distribution of wealth that with the excuse of the pandemic is going to take place at the expense of everyone’s future. They have already warned of it Nacho Cardero and Esteban Hernández in El Confidencial, but I don’t know if we have realized the magnitude of what is going to happen. The government, which will be the sole administrator of the European funds, will be able to decide who will be successful and who will not, regardless of the market.
The great executives of the Ibex are already well fortified with consultants and lobbyists, while the rest of the large and medium-sized businessmen have been recruited through the CEOE, which is happy to be allowed to participate.
The unions are also on the hook. And Podemos, whose ranks are part of the famished legion that will swell the new Spanish elite, only has to reach out. And what role is reserved for you? You only have to put your grandchildren as collateral that someone will pay the debt. Street and keep pulling.
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