wow-inequalities/02-data/intermediate/wos_sample/0e918167e0dfb57773b66e2eb0bec395-costas-anton/info.yaml

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2023-09-28 14:46:10 +00:00
abstract: 'Beyond the insidious and morally contemptible personality of the
authoritarian political leaders that have emerged in the last decade,
the political ``supply{''''} of populism responds to a real ``demand{''''}
for popular policies that exists in advanced societies. This demands a
rebalancing of economic policies in favour of the working classes, the
middle classes and the social groups that have not benefited from the
economic growth of the last decades.
This social demand responds to an objective cause: the increase in
inequalities and economic insecurity. Coinciding with the neoliberal
shift in social and economic policies that accompanied the shift to
conservatism in the late 1970s and with the hyper-globalization and the
change of skin that global corporate capitalism experienced from the
1990s onward, large groups of middle classes in developed countries saw
their jobs, their welfare, their opportunities, and the lifestyles of
the communities in which they lived disappear or deteriorate. The
Covid-19 pandemic has only accentuated these inequalities.
This malaise with inequality and economic insecurity is fertile ground
for political polarization and authoritarian political populism. In this
sense, inequality and economic insecurity have acted as a powerful
solvent of the glue that every liberal society needs to function
harmoniously, to make the market economy inclusive, and to prevent
democracy from falling into the chaos of authoritarian populism.
The challenge now is to rebuild that glue, as it was done after the
Great Depression of the 1930s and World War 11. This essay argues,
first, that this glue must come from a new post-pandemic social
contract. Secondly, that the core of that new social contract is in the
reform of the enterprise to correct the misallocation of surplus (value
added) between wages, top management salaries and dividends.
The correction of this malfunctioning distribution requires
investigating its causes. Here it is argued that there are two. On the
one hand, the bias that capitalism acquired from the eighties in benefit
of shareholders and to the detriment of workers, suppliers, customers
and communities. On the other hand, that corporate concentration and the
market power acquired by large corporations has led to stagnation of
real wages and the precarization of employment.
The malfunctioning of distribution is not, however, the only source of
inequality and economic insecurity. They also come from the
malfunctioning of pre-distribution. To the extent that technological
change has opened a gap between the capabilities and skills of the
population and the professional profiles needed by companies, this gap
brings about inequality of income and employment opportunities. On the
other hand, the redistributive mechanisms of the Welfare State, both
taxes and social programs, have seen their capacity to correct the
inequality produced by the economy reduced.
To respond to this inequality and economic insecurity, the political
offer of new social contracts is wide and varied: the neoliberal, the
extreme right, the extreme left and the radical progressive. All try to
respond to the problem of distribution, but they do so through different
paths, depending on whether they emphasize pre-distribution,
redistribution, or distribution. The historical experience of the 1930s
teaches us that not everyone is well reconciled with the future.
A new progressive social contract must be based on the recovery of the
fundamental role of the third pillar of prosperity: the Social Economy.
Its abandonment in recent decades in favour of the market and the State
is one of the causes of the inability of market economies to generate
good jobs now.'
affiliation: 'Costas, A (Corresponding Author), Univ Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Costas, Anton, Univ Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.'
author: Costas, Anton
author-email: acostas@ub.edu
author_list:
- family: Costas
given: Anton
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.7203/CIRIEC-E.100.18715
eissn: 1989-6816
files: []
issn: 0213-8093
journal: CIRIEC-ESPANA REVISTA DE ECONOMIA PUBLICA SOCIAL Y COOPERATIVA
keywords: Social contract; progress; democracy; Social Economy; pandemic
language: Spanish
month: NOV
number-of-cited-references: '15'
pages: 11-29
papis_id: 1a5fa39d9a605b09bf156d650042531b
ref: Costas2020newpostpandemic
times-cited: '2'
title: A new post-pandemic social contract. The role of the Social Economy
2023-10-01 08:15:07 +00:00
type: article
2023-09-28 14:46:10 +00:00
unique-id: WOS:000595937600001
usage-count-last-180-days: '1'
usage-count-since-2013: '15'
volume: '100'
web-of-science-categories: Economics
year: '2020'