Читать книгу The Uprising of the Pandemials - Federico Dominguez - Страница 11

To be a middle-class family meant being able to buy a house, own a car, eat out once a week, go on vacation every year, and send your kids to college. The middle class was living proof of the success of capitalism and liberal states. Property was inexpensive. Young people had access to a quality university education without having to take on unpayable debt. There was quality, accessible healthcare. All these goods and services make up the meritocracy basket and were the basis of this prosperity. It was a happy world where those who worked hard could access the benefits of the system. Between 1946 and 1980, the total income in America grew 95%. For middle-class Americans, these were the best years in the country’s history. During this period, after-tax income grew by a whopping 129% for half of the population with the lowest incomes. (4) This was the golden age for the middle class, not only in the United States but in most of the developed world.

Middle classes woke abruptly from this sweet dream in the early 1980s. On one hand, stalled incomes; on the other, a rise in the price of certain goods and services, rendering them less accessible. The technological revolution and automation had created stagnancy in the incomes of many workers. The after-tax income of the bottom half of Americans grew by 21% between 1980 and 2014, as opposed to the 113% increase for the top 10%. (5) Between 1980 and 2020, the American economy tripled and its GDP per capita practically doubled. (6) Globally, these have been excellent years for the economy, although the distribution of benefits has been highly uneven.

The cycle of economic prosperity that started after World War II reached its end in the early 1980s, but the increases in debt levels avoided its collapse. It did not affect the baby boomers, who had already purchased their homes and secure their pensions, with a state that covered their medical expenses. They had no need to protest. Nor did their children, who were born in the 1970s: they had acquired relatively reasonable debt to buy their houses and pay for their education. The problem arose for millennials, born during the 1980s and 1990s: they found that the debt they had to take on to access the same education and housing as their parents was becoming more and more expensive and unsustainable. In truth, the cycle had already ended by the early 1990s, but cheap debt avoided its utter collapse. This became clear during the crisis of 2008 when supporters of Donald Trump, Brexit, Bernie Sanders, Podemos, and Le Pen came forward, many of whom felt abandoned by the system. And lastly came the pandemic, the final blow to expose any of the system’s remaining flaws.

The cycle of growing inequality is in its final stages due to the social pressure and shifts in demographics, which I will address later. It will happen, whether under a liberal government or a left-wing administration. The pandemials have come to accelerate this process with their sense of justice and meritocracy. Depending on which kinds of policies governments adopt, we will either see a society that becomes poorer and more equal, or richer and more equal. But equality will undoubtedly play a central role.