The dehumanization of humanity

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(Credit: FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP / Getty Images)

Editor's Note: Roberto Rave is a political scientist with a specialization and postgraduate degree in international business and foreign trade from the Externado University of Colombia and Columbia University of New York. With studies in Management from the IESE University of Spain and an MBA candidate from the University of Miami. He is a columnist for the Colombian economic newspaper La República. He was chosen by the Republican International Institute as one of the 40 most influential young leaders on the continent. The comments expressed in this column belong exclusively to the author.

(CNN Spanish) - It is fashionable to speak against economic inequality. In innumerable books, opinion articles, forums, television debates, conferences and - in particular - political speeches, the subject is used, abused and exploited. For example, it was a central point of the World Economic Forum that took place from January 21 to 24 in Davos, Switzerland. There the great leaders of the world meet and important discussions are held on the future of the planet. This year's debates took place around environmental issues, in which the leadership of the young Gretta Thunberg draws attention, passing over real specialists. The commitment of many countries in the world to plant more than one billion trees was interesting and valuable. In addition, topics of international economic relevance were discussed, such as the cessation of the trade war between the United States and China, which has caused so much damage to Latin America and one of the causes for which the Latin America region had one of the lowest growths in the last decade: 0.1% of GDP.

In the context of the Davos forum, it is surprising to hear the word inequality in each discussion about the development of the world, almost always with a negative tone, especially when referring to Latin America.

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However, there are reasons to be optimistic. According to ECLAC figures “between 2002 and 2014, the poverty rate (regional average) was significantly reduced, from 45.4% to 27.8%, so that 66 million people overcame that situation. At the same time, the extreme poverty rate decreased from 12.2% to 7.8%. ” (https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/44969/5/S1901133_en.pdf). In fact and as I have been mentioning in my previous analyzes, the Brookings Institution study and analysis center states that every second approximately one person leaves extreme poverty in the world and five enter the middle class. In addition, their research indicates that, at the end of 2018, the poor ceased to be a majority and a little more than 50% of the world's population is located in the middle class and in the rich. The world is definitely better.

Inequality is not a problem in itself. It makes no sense for the debate to focus on saying that a number of people earn more than another. I could have it if we mention the lack of access to basic services and education, issues in which the Latin American region has undoubtedly been advancing. However, a large part of the population has become accustomed to living off the subsidy that is often economically unsustainable for the State and which also breaks the moral spirit of society, eliminating meritocracy from its language. Paraphrasing Margaret Tatcher who said well: The State has no more money than the money that people earn for themselves and for themselves. If the State wants to spend more money, it can only do so by borrowing your savings or increasing your taxes. It is not right to think that someone will pay for it. There is no public money, there is only taxpayer money.

The marches were the constant in the region in recent months, marches full of good reasons and often transformed into more costs for the State and therefore for its citizens, due to the great damage caused to public assets. I dare to affirm that none of the protesters live in a condition of extreme poverty. Those who unfortunately experience this difficulty are struggling day by day to survive, as mentioned by a street vendor with whom I talked in my hometown, Medellin. The marches are full of middle class people who have new demands for the State. This statement does not ignore the shameful expense caused by corruption nor the natural difficulty that results from bureaucratic burdens and the same pyramidal and hierarchical customs.

Davos has forgotten to discuss transcendental issues that arise from a considerable increase in opportunities for young people, also an increase in the quality of life and access to both basic and luxury goods, but which has caused a great problem, the result of own gaps to focus the discussion and referents on economic income. Suicide is among the leading causes of death among young people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization in 2016. https://www.who.int/es/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide

Technological advances are advancing by leaps and bounds and due to the progress of the world, many young people can enjoy the development brought by the fourth revolution. However, it is transcendental to humanize a revolution that improves the quality of life in its most material sense but which, in turn, can move humans away from their humanity, can make the world forget the importance of time and difficulty, sowing a world Abstract of prosperity and wealth that accompanied by the destruction of the social fabric and a stable family nucleus, can lead suicide to become the leading cause of death in the world.

Leaders must rethink the references they have created for a generation that does not know how to live slowly ... and does not know it because the rhythm that prevails lies in seeing the human being as a simple consumer, as a figure. Perhaps we humans are beginning to look at each other as figures, also eliminating the human and virtuous referents. This makes me think of a writing of the year 1911 that has touched me in a unique way "Ithaca" by Constantine Cavafis: "Ask that your path be long. Let numerous summer mornings be when, with pleasure, you happily arrive at bays never seen before. (…) Better to extend long years; and that in your old age you arrive at the island with how much you have earned on the road, without waiting for Ithaca to enrich you ... Ithaca gave you a beautiful trip. Without her you have not start the path. But nothing else could I give you. ”

More important than the arrival is the path, a path that we must live without the desire to achieve and show material success. The absence of these referents has jeopardized the model of freedoms that has given so much to humanity, since the dehumanization of humanity makes what demands effort and struggle undesirable and creates a universe of how quickly it abhors those who They have built their wealth with determination and time. In short, we are all different and nothing is more fair and natural than accepting those differences. The forced, the artificial and the intellectually dishonest is to insist that these differences do not exist. Economically they are just and necessary differences, when they are born from the honest effort that each one makes to move forward.