At the end of his tour in South America—not European South America like his Argentina, but the alien territories of Peru, Ecuador, and Paraguay—Pope Francis insisted on social disparities. At this point it’s his most famous enemy. His eminence contrasts both injustice and diffusion with inequality. He incarnates the opposition to the faith that the accumulation of wealth will reverberate throughout all of society in the end. The theoretical mechanism that triumphed with globalization was simple: inequality produces wealth, but “trickles down” to the entire society. It was Regan, Thatcher, and Bush’s creed as well as, paradoxically, the Chinese Communist Party’s, convinced that the enrichment of a few would favor not only the fortunate but the entire country. The crisis that exploded eight years ago has called this bedrock into question. Inequality is growing and becoming unbearable. It is public opinion—maybe not scientifically proven but generally perceived—that we’re witnessing an impoverishing of the middle class. The perception is proven by facts in Italy: income, unemployment, labor protections, and youth immigration. Conversely, the entry of developing nations into middle-income status is not proceeding as anticipated, neither in terms of quantity nor diffusion. Anyone that believed in a new economic stimulus from third world countries will have to think again. An important study conducted by PEW, the most famous think tank for social and market investigations, proves this. One of its recent studies starts from a necessary definition: what do we mean by “middle class”? The answer is a rational synthesis: a person that lives with a daily availability of money that ranges between $10 and $20. This means that in order to belong to the middle class, a typical four-person family counts on an annual net income between $14,600 and $29,200. In the ten years from 2001 to 2011, when the mass of data were calculated, the middle class has almost doubled globally. China’s contribution to the global growth was extraordinary, and likely the most important victory in the atavistic fight against underdevelopment. Today, the giant counts “only” 70-80 million poor. Important progress was also made in Eastern Europe and South America. On the contrary, the middle class was reduced in India, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central America. The permanence of low-income strata is another reason for concern. The global middle class has grown from 7% to 13% over the last decade, but 71% of the population still belongs to the two least privileged brackets, “poor” and “low-income”. Not surprisingly, you can deduce that the majority of the highest incomes are still concentrated in Europe and North America despite the ascent of certain countries in the Asia-Pacific. Therefore, the attempt to give greater importance to demographics seems to limp along. The promise of a generalized enrichment has only been partially realized. In the meantime, the cry against poverty and inequality is becoming a chorus. It remains to be seen whether Pope Francis’ egalitarian hopes will prevail or the logic of corporations who want a more crowded audience for their products, and therefore favor income growth to inject consumption.
Share
