The revolt explodes everywhere. It began perhaps here, in Spain, with the outraged. I continue in Greece, continued with Brexit and Trump's election. He then went to France (and continues) and Italy (and continues). Before, with Arab springs or color revolutions. Now, in Hong Kong and Algiers, and it runs like a fire ravaging Latin America. When there are elections, rather than supporting the opposition, the one in power is punished. Frequently, “hung” parliaments come out or pacts are made against nature (as in Italy), or jargon, or Frankenstein governments. Some say it is capitalism and the market economy. Others talk about crisis of representative democracy. It is assured that the Beijing Consensus (state capitalism plus dictatorship) replaces that of Washington. Recent data show that as political mobilization grows everywhere, democracy deteriorates significantly. What happens?
Of course, many things, and each story is unique, but, like many others, I think we can look for some common thread. I will try, although I will focus on developed countries and the new populism.
The simplest explanation (because it is what we are used to) is the economic one. After all, we are all Marxists, although we do not know it: the causes of the malaise must be in the “infrastructure”, that is to say, unemployment, the precarious one, the poverty. And they are certainly right, although we don't know how much. Well, I think we go from materialistic explanations. ETA had no economic causes; neither jihadism, nor Catalan separatism, nor color revolutions (in the ex-Soviet block). We despise the strength of ideologies, nationalisms, religions, xenophobia, even the force of freedom. And there is no clear correlation between economic crisis and social protest; Just look at the data. I will not stop at it, but I will try a more complex analysis, although, like Marx (this time Groucho), I reserve the right to change my mind and do another analysis if the data changes (and they almost always do it).
one
I think that the first variable to consider is globalization itself, an unstoppable and accelerated phenomenon. Well, everything that unites separates. If (for example) I carry out an investigation with a team from Berlin and another from Los Angeles, I stop chatting with my university partner. What unites me in the distance separates me from the next. Globalization has united the world (at least certain worlds), but at the same time it has separated it internally. And if we lift the cognitive filter of the series of 193 States through which we perceive the world, what emerges below is a network of metropolitan networks, of large global cities, which are today the deep structure and generate more than 80% of the World GDP (by the way, almost all near the coast; empty Spain is no exception). Networks that unite above nations, but also separate them from within.
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It is not necessary to read the 1,200 pages of Piketty's new book to know that the consequence is that national societies are dualized, dividing between an urban minority connected in transnational production and information chains and the others, the left behind, the abandoned. On the one hand, a cosmopolitan, metropolitan elite, who speaks languages, is politically correct, has good education and good salaries, and it is the same to work in Madrid, London or Singapore. And on the other, the territorialized, without studies, with bad and precarious jobs in sectors in decline, politically incorrect, often rural, in any case marginal, outsiders to the world wide web. In many places the split is also between "whites" and native, indigenous, an ethnic split. And to some extent, also of gender, and poverty is feminized (and infantilized).
This split, almost universal (as the globalization that produces it, and as Piketty and Milanovic shows), has at least two consequences: an economic one, and another cultural / identity one, as important, if not more, as the previous one.
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The economic consequence is that it is increasingly difficult to jump from the territorialized to the globalized sector, and the social elevator has broken down; That is the dualization. It may have increased social inequality. Or not. It depends on the countries and whether it is measured in income or in equity, before or after taxes. And of course it has declined in the world as a whole. It may not even have increased absolute poverty (nor has it done so in the world). But the relative does. And those who had clear expectations for improvement are threatened today. Poverty or traditional inequality is supported; that's the way things are, and that's how they always have been. What is not supported is the frustration of expectations. Years ago, the talent available was far inferior to the talent demanded and the elevator worked; today it happens, in good measure, on the contrary and the University no longer guarantees anything. If a few have managed to prosper, I can wait my turn patiently, as is the case, for example, in China. But if the window is closed after spending hours in the queue, the frustration is enormous. This is what Albert Hirschman called the "tunnel effect": why does the tail next door walk and mine is stopped?
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But the economic consequences are doubled by social resentment, which leads us to the identity and cultural dimension (which the neomarxist Piketty despises). For the globalized are denationalized (and de-stateized), but the abandoned remain in their old national frames of reference and feel (almost always rightly) belittled by the enlightened elite, cosmopolitan and (also) rich, who consider them ignorant and backward, "Paletos", which he looks over his shoulder. The moral "supremacism" of the urban educated elites (supposedly meritocratic and always white collar ) stigmatizes and degrades the losers (almost always blue collar ), who react as always happens in these cases: asserting themselves in what is the object of rejection. And the politically incorrect becomes its flag (Trump is the archetype).
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The distinction between "caste" and "people" badly reflects that dualism, since neither the winners are from the right nor the losers from the left; On the contrary, we have jumped from a logic of classes (materialist) to a logic of identities and values (postmaterialist). Among the winners there are not a few successful young professionals or entrepreneurs, in dynamic economic sectors, together with large, medium (and even small) companies, which have launched (successfully) into the global market. They are enlightened, urban, and many vote for "progressive" formations, what Piketty calls the gauche brahmane (the new "caste"). And there are also many types of losers: they can be Aymara in Bolivia or manual workers of the United States rust belt . Or they may be an old civil servant middle class or Spanish farmers and ranchers, fed up with the "progre" culture of urban students that stigmatizes bulls, hunting or Holy Week processions and belittles and ignores the rural. Paradoxically, the illiberal is often a demand for freedom, since this new "populism" is, in large measure, a counter-cultural reaction, especially acute where the moral transition to a permissive and postmaterialist society has been more abrupt (it is the case of Spain), generating deep intergenerational and sectoral differences. Thus, this anticosmopolitan and renaissance reaction can jump both on the left (in Greece, in Chile), and on the right (in France, Germany, Poland, USA, Spain), although both seek the protection of the State and old borders. Kirchner or Corbyn (or Pablo Iglesias) are not that far from Le Pen, Orbán or Salvini (or Abascal).
By the way, emigration is, more than cause, scapegoat for this renaissance, because again there is little correlation (macro) between foreign presence and xenophobia (eye: not in small cities). Neonationalism has more support in the interior of the United Kingdom than in London, in the American Middle West than on the coasts, in rural Lepenist France than in the cities, in the Ampurdán than in Barcelona.
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But to understand the intensity and generality of the revolts it is inevitable to mention a couple of technological variables that are radically changing the agora of politics.
First, the Internet, which allows the transfer and dissemination of cutting-edge technologies in the organization of revolts, from how to engineer a Molotov cocktail to how to deal with the police. Previously, local learning was necessary; Today just go to the web (deep or superficial) to find all kinds of manuals. A global learning for global revolts, which mimic. With few consequences for the rioters, by the way, because hyper-guarantee legal systems shield them from any negative consequences. The revolt is made at zero cost.
But even more important are social networks, with global penetration rates above 60%. Well, if we had to invent something to organize riots, we would invent social networks, and nothing that happens would have the intensity it has without them. Fantastic mechanisms to organize protests, prepare them, summon them and manage them during the same development, and that allow to add all kinds of discontent and “outraged”, frequently for different, even opposing causes. They are "moved" ( hirak , in Arabic), sometimes even performances or flashmobs , without clear leadership and without the slightest intention of transforming even into pressure groups. But behold, the same social networks are totally inadequate spaces for debate and dialogue, unable to generate agreements and consensus. On the contrary, they facilitate insult, aggression (again free, without cost) or lies, fake news , polarizing audiences that take refuge in their opinion bubbles. Almost at the antipodes of a Hamasmasian ideal dialogue situation. There is no space (no room) in that space to move from protest to proposal.
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So the new communication technologies have facilitated the protest, but, at the same time, they have hindered the proposal. But what about the possible political responses? Couldn't these accommodate the demands? Here we find the second big problem, because we have to add another consequence of globalization, perhaps the most important one and the one that undoubtedly endangers representative democracies. I allude to the fact that more and more problems are already global, transnational, and can only be addressed globally or, at least, in large political spaces (such as the EU or large countries: China, USA). The economy, of course, is already global (even more so in open and exporting economies), such as climate, emigration, security and terrorism, finances, crime, even diseases and pandemics, such as the current one. of the coronavirus. And I could go on. But the architecture of politics remains based on states that are sovereign in their territory, but incompetent beyond. And so, as globalization progresses and we leave the classic Westphalian world behind (we are out of state), a growing hiatus opens up between the needs of world governance to generate public goods and the territorialized architecture of politics. I suspect that the great problem of the 21st century is not that there are problems, there always are; is that we do not have global governance instruments to manage them.
The big problem of the 21st century is not that there are problems, but that we have no instruments of global governance
The consequence is that states cannot cope with the demands of the population. If the basis of democracy is " accountability ", it has jumped to a higher level, where it finds no interlocutors. That is why the European Union is so important, because it is the mechanism to deal with these global problems. But the paradox is that the EU is not (at all) a democracy, so we have (simplifying) democracies without the ability to respond and the ability to respond without democracy - and the same could be said of the UN, which is also not a democracy , and that has invented the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to generate a certain global governance. And hence also the urgency for the EU to truly become a United States of Europe, which can democratically manage the problems of European citizens.
So they are times of "outraged" mobilized and well organized, but of governments divided and disorganized. Times in which it is easy to organize the protest, but difficult and slow to prepare the response. We had invented social mediation systems; parties, trade unions, business organizations and collective bargaining should add discomfort and find ways of solution. But the parties represent the globalized, and the unions, the public sector; both lack credibility, many companies have denationalized (paradoxically: that's why they support separatism in Catalonia) and the state lacks levers. It is not surprising that national policy becomes symbolic and expressive, of "posturing" (low cost), since identities and "narratives" can be managed locally (even in Teruel). “Constructivist” and performative policy, which believes that the world can change by changing the language, while instrumental (non-expressive) policy jumps to the level and is decided in the EU or in global networks and markets.
When we talk about the need for a new social contract, we must think about it in economic and cultural terms
Times of change, of course. Global changes, huge, because the rise of China, India and other giants can not cause seizures, particularly in Europe, which was 25% of the world population a century ago and today is 7% (while Asia is 60 %). Neowestfaliano world but poseuropeo and, to a large extent, even post-western. But changes that, in the end, are manifested locally, "glocal" changes. We have no choice but to face them and it will not be an easy or fast task. In any case, when we talk about the need for a new social contract that sutures dualization, I suspect that we should not only think about it in economic terms, but also in cultural terms. Nothing forces us to be the first of the class in postmaterialism. As always, you have to listen more, and not just talk, do more political pedagogy, but give citizens less lessons.
Emilio Lamo de Espinosa. Emeritus Professor of Sociology of the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.
Emilio Lamo de Espinosa. Emeritus Professor of Sociology of the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.