Ideology 3 (le retour etc.)

The return of inequalities: first benchmarks The rise in socio-economic inequalities observed in most countries and regions of the planet since the 1980s and 1990s is one of the most worrying structural developments facing the world. at the beginning of the 21st century. We will also see that it is very difficult to envisage solutions to the other major challenges of our time, starting with climate and migration challenges, if at the same time we can not reduce inequalities and build standard of justice acceptable to the greatest number. Let's start by examining the evolution of a simple indicator, namely the share of the top decile (that is, the top 10% of the population with the highest incomes) in total income, in the different regions of the world. since 1980. In case of absolute social equality, this share should be equal to 10%; in the case of absolute inequality, it should be 100%. In practice, it is obviously always between these two extremes, but with considerable variations in time and space. In particular, there has been an upward trend in almost all countries in recent decades. If we compare the case of India, the United States, Russia, China and Europe, we can see that the share of the top decile was around 25% -35% of the total income in each of these five regions in 1980, and is around 35% -55% in 2018 (see Figure 0.3). Given its magnitude, it is legitimate to ask how far will such an evolution go: will the upper decile share reach 55% -75% of total income in a few decades, and so on? It should also be noted that the extent of the rise in inequality varies considerably across regions, including for the same level of development. Inequality has thus grown much faster in the United States than in Europe, and much more so in India than in China. The detailed data also indicate that this increase in inequality occurred especially at the expense of the poorest 50%, whose share in total income was around 20% -25% in 1980 in these five regions, and is more than 15% -20% in 2018 (even just over 10% in the United States, which is particularly worrying) 5. Figure 0.3 The rise of inequality in the world, 1980-2018 Reading: the share of the top decile (the top 10% of incomes) in the total national income was between 26% and 34% in 1980 in the different regions of the world. world; it is between 34% and 56% in 2018. The increase in inequalities is general, but its magnitude varies greatly according to the country, at all levels of development. For example, it is stronger in the United States than in Europe (EU), and stronger in India than in China. Sources and series: see piketty.pse.ens.fr/ ideologie . Looking at the longer term, the five major regions of the world shown in Figure 0.3 experienced a relatively egalitarian historical phase between 1950 and 1980, before entering a period of rising inequality since 1980 (see for example chart 0.6). The egalitarian phase 1950-1980 corresponds to political regimes that vary according to the region - communist regimes in China and Russia, and regimes that can be described as social democrats in Europe, as well as, to a certain extent, in the United States and India, under very different conditions, which we will have to study closely - but which had as a common point to promote relative socio-economic equality (which does not mean that other inequalities did not play an essential role). If we extend the perspective to other parts of the world, we find that there are even more unequal regions (see Figure 0.4). The top decile share, for example, accounts for 54% of total income in sub-Saharan Africa (and even 65% in South Africa), 56% in Brazil and 64% in the Middle East, which appears as the most unequal region in the world in 2018 (almost on par with South Africa), with less than 10% of total income for the poorest 50% 6. The origins of inequalities in these different regions are extremely varied: a heavy historical legacy linked to racial and colonial discrimination and slavery in some cases (particularly in Brazil and South Africa, as well as in the United States). United States), as well as more "modern" factors related to the hyper - concentration of oil wealth and its transformation into sustainable financial wealth in the Middle East, through international markets and a sophisticated legal system. The main commonality between these different regimes (South Africa, Brazil, Middle East) is that they are situated on the unequal border of the contemporary world, with a share of the top decile around 55% -65% of total income. Moreover, even if the historical data are imperfect, it seems that these regions have always been characterized by a high level of inequality: they have never experienced a "social-democratic" (and even less communist) egalitarian phase. To sum up: we have witnessed a rise in inequality in almost all regions of the world since 1980-1990, except in those that have never ceased to be highly unequal. In a way, the regions that have had relative equality between 1950 and 1980 seem to be moving towards the unequal border of the world, but with wide variations between countries. The elephant curve: serenely debating globalization The rise in inequality within countries since 1980 is a phenomenon that is now well documented and widely recognized as such. But the fact of agreeing on this statement obviously does not imply any agreement on the solutions: the crucial question is not so much the level of inequality but rather its origin and its pattern of justification. For example, we can quite consider that the level of monetary inequality was artificially and excessively low under the Russian and Chinese communist regimes in 1980, and since the rise in income disparities observed since the 1980s and 1990s has Neither has anything negative, and on the contrary, helped to stimulate innovation and growth, to the benefit of all, including the most modest, especially in China where poverty has declined sharply. Such an argument is potentially acceptable, but only if it is used with moderation and far-sightedness, after careful consideration of the evidence we have. Thus one can not justify any private capture of natural resources or former public enterprises by Russian or Chinese oligarchs of the years 2000-2020 (who have not always demonstrated a great individual capacity for innovation , except perhaps to imagine legal and fiscal arrangements to secure their appropriations) in the name of the fact that the monetary inequalities were in these two countries excessively weak in 1980. One could also advance the same argument for the cases Indian, European and the United States: the level of equality would have been excessive between 1950 and 1980, and it was necessary to put an end to it, in the name of the interest of the poorest. This argument, however, faces even greater difficulties than in the Russian and Chinese cases and, in any case, can not justify any increase in inequalities, whatever its size, without even taking the it is difficult to examine it. For example, US growth and European growth were stronger during the egalitarian period 1950-1980 than in the later period, characterized by rising inequality, which raises serious questions about the social utility of the latter. The greater increase in inequality observed since 1980 in the United States, compared to Europe, has not generated much additional growth, and in any case has not benefited the poorest 50%. , which experienced a total stagnation of their absolute standard of living in the United States, and a collapse of their relative level. Finally, the largest increase in inequality observed since 1980 in India, compared to China, was accompanied by a much lower growth, resulting in a form of double punishment for the poorest 50%: a less strong total growth, and a smaller share. However fragile these arguments, based on the idea of ​​over-compression of the income gap between 1950 and 1980 and a significant increase in inequality since 1980, must, however, be taken seriously, at least to a certain extent. point, and we will examine them thoroughly in this book. A particularly transparent and expressive way of representing the distribution of global growth since 1980 and the complexity of the developments involved is to link the position in the global income hierarchy with the scale of growth observed at this level of the hierarchy. We then obtain what we can call the "elephant curve" (see graph 0.5) 7. To sum up: income levels between the 60 percent and 90 percentiles of the global distribution (ie, those that do not belong to the bottom 60 percent of the planet's incomes, or 10 percent of incomes the highest), which roughly corresponds to the middle and lower classes of rich countries, have been largely forgotten by the global growth of the period 1980-2018, which, on the other hand, greatly benefited the other groups, placed below and above them, that is households in poor and emerging countries (the back of the elephant, especially between percentiles 20 and 40), and even more the richest households in rich and of the whole planet (the top of the trunk, beyond the 99th percentile, that is to say the 1% of the highest incomes in the world, and especially the 0.1% and 0.01% the most high, which benefited from growth of several hundred percent). If the global income distribution was in equilibrium, then this curve should be flat: all percentiles are expected to grow at the same pace on average. There would always be rich and poor, and there would always be strong individual mobility, ascending or descending, but the average income levels of the different percentiles would all advance at the same rate . Global growth would then be like "a rising tide that lifts all boats" , to use the Anglo-Saxon expression used in the post-war period to describe a growth benefiting in proportions comparable to all classes of income. The fact that one is so far from a flat curve shows the magnitude of the transformations in progress. Chart 0.5 The elephant curve of global inequalities, 1980-2018 Reading: The 50% of the lowest incomes in the world experienced a significant increase in their purchasing power between 1980 and 2018 (between + 60% and + 120 %); the 1% of the highest incomes in the world have grown even more (between + 80% and + 240%); intermediate incomes, on the other hand, experienced more limited growth. To sum up: Inequalities have decreased between the bottom and the middle of the global income distribution, and have progressed between the middle and the top. Sources and series: see piketty.pse.ens.fr/ ideologie . This curve is fundamental because it allows a better understanding of the difficult dialogue that sometimes characterizes the public debate on globalization: some marvel at the reduction of global inequalities and poverty that the tremendous growth of the least developed countries would allow, then that others are lamenting the massive rise in inequalities that would inevitably result from the excesses of global hypercapitalism . In reality, both discourses have their share of truth: inequality has declined between the bottom and the middle of the global income distribution, and has increased between the middle and the top of the distribution. These two aspects of globalization are equally real, and the question is not to deny one or the other, but rather to know how to preserve the good aspects of globalization. while getting rid of the bad ones. We will note in passing the importance of language, categories and the cognitive device used: if we described the inequalities by a single indicator, like the Gini coefficient, then we could have the illusion that nothing changes, precisely because we would not be able to see how developments are complex and multidimensional, and that we let several effects mingle and offset each other within a single indicator. This is why in this book I will not use this type of "synthetic" indicator. I will always take care to describe inequalities and their evolution by clearly distinguishing the different deciles and percentiles of income and assets concerned, and consequently the social groups at stake 9. In this case, some might be tempted to blame the "elephant curve" for giving excessive visual significance to the 1% or 0.1% of the world's population who have enriched themselves at the top of the distribution. Rather than foolishly stir envy and covetousness at such tiny groups, should we not rather rejoice at the growth observed at the bottom of the distribution? In fact, the most recent research has not only confirmed the relevance of this approach, but has even shown that the elephant curve was even sharper at its peak than was initially estimated. Thus, over the period 1980-2018, the share of total world income growth captured by the richest 1% of the world is 27%, compared with 12% for the poorest 50% (cf. graph 0.5). In other words, the upper part of the proboscis is certainly a small part of the population, but has appropriated a pachydermal share of growth, more than twice the share to the 3.5 billion people forming half the poorest in the world 10. This implies, for example, that a slightly less favorable growth pattern at the top of the pyramid would have allowed (and could allow in the future) a much faster reduction in global poverty. Here again, this type of data can guide the debate, but it is not intended to close it. Everything depends again on the origins of inequalities and their justification. The central question is how far is it possible to justify the growth of the summit in the name of the many benefits brought by the richest to the rest of society. If we really think that the increase in inequality still makes it possible to improve the income and living conditions of the poorest 50%, then it becomes possible to justify that the richest 1% concentrate 27% of the population. growth, or even more, for example 40%, 60% or even 80%. The analysis of the different trajectories, in particular the comparisons between the United States / Europe and India / China already mentioned above, does not plead much for this type of interpretation, since the countries where the summit has been most strongly enriched are not not those where the poorest have prospered more. These comparisons rather suggest that the share of world growth captured by the richest 1% could have been (and could in the future) be reduced to around 10-20%, or less, and thus allow a sharp rise in the share going to the poorest 50%. But these questions are important enough to warrant a detailed examination. In any case, it seems very difficult from the point of view of this data to claim that there is only one way to organize globalization, and that the proportion going to 1% must be necessarily and precisely 27% (as against 12% to the poorest 50%), neither more nor less. Globalization involves considerable distributional distortions that can not be ignored on the grounds that only total growth would matter. The debate on alternatives and the institutional and political choices that may affect this distribution of global growth must take place one way or the other. From the justification of extreme inequality We will also see that the highest fortunes in the world have experienced since the 1980s even stronger increases than the world's highest income shown in Chart 0.5. In all parts of the world, there is an extremely rapid increase in the highest heritages, from Russian oligarchs and Mexican magnates to Chinese billionaires to Indonesian financiers, Saudi property owners or American fortunes. Indian industrialists or European portfolios. Growth is occurring at rates that are much higher than the growth in the size of the world economy, in the order of three to four times faster than global growth over the period 1980-2018. By definition, such a phenomenon can not continue indefinitely, except to accept the idea that the share of billionaires in total global wealth gradually tends to 100%, perspective difficult to defend. Nevertheless, this divergence continued during the decade following the financial crisis of 2008, almost at the same pace as during the period 1990-2008, which suggests that we are facing a structural evolution of great magnitude of which we may not have seen the last 11. Faced with such dramatic changes, the justifying discourses of extreme wealth inequality often oscillate between different attitudes, sometimes taking astonishing forms. In Western countries, a very strong distinction is often made between Russian "oligarchs", Middle Eastern petrolotankers and other billionaires from China, Mexico, Guinea, India or Indonesia, which are often considered " do not really deserve their fortune, because it would have been obtained through relations with state powers (for example through the misappropriation of natural resources or various licenses) and would be of little use for growth; and on the other hand the European and Californian "entrepreneurs", preferably Californians, who are well-praised for singing the praises and endless contributions to global well-being, and to think that they should be even richer if the planet knew how to reward them as they deserve. Perhaps even we should extend our considerable moral debt towards them into a hard and fast financial debt, or by giving them our voting rights, which is not far from being already the case in many countries. Such a regime of justification of inequalities, which is both hypermeritocratic and Western- centered, illustrates the irrepressible need of human societies to give meaning to their inequalities, sometimes beyond the reasonable. In fact, this speech about the quasi-beatification of fortune is not without contradictions, for some abysses. Are we sure that Bill Gates and the other techno-billionaires could have developed their business without the hundreds of billions of public money invested in training and basic research for decades, and do we really think that their power commercial monopoly and private patenting of public knowledge could have flourished otherwise than with the active support of the existing legal and tax system? For this reason, the justification for these extreme inequalities often comes down to a less grandiloquent discourse, emphasizing above all the need for patrimonial stability and the protection of property rights. In other words, the inequality of fortunes may not be entirely correct, and not always useful, especially in the proportions observed, including in California, but its calling into question could open an endless escalation of which the most poor people and society as a whole would end up paying the price. This proprietary argument based on the need for sociopolitical stability and absolute (and sometimes quasi-religious) securing of property rights acquired in the past already played a central role in justifying the strong inequalities that characterized the prosperous homeowners' societies in Europe and the United States. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries . We will also find this eternal argument of stability in the justification of trifunctional and slave societies. We must also add to this today a speech about the supposed inefficiency of the state and the reputedly superior agility of private philanthropy, an argument that also played a role in previous periods, but which has taken on new dimensions in the past. 'contemporary period. These different speeches are legitimate and must be heard, to a certain extent, but I will try to show that they can be outmoded, based on the lessons of history. Learning from History, Learning from the Twentieth Century In general, we will see in this book that it is necessary to analyze current developments in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century, and especially to to draw lessons for the future, to place the history of unequal regimes and ideologies within a long-term historical and comparative perspective. The current inegalitarian regime, which can be described as neo - proprietor , bears traces of all previous regimes. It can only be properly studied if we begin by examining how the ancient trifunctional societies (based on the ternary structure of the clergy-nobility-third-state) were transformed into proprietary societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and then how the last decades collapsed in the twentieth century, under the blows of both communist and social-democratic challenges, world wars and independence, which ended centuries of colonial rule. All human societies need to give meaning to their inequalities, and the justifications of the past, if studied closely, are not always more foolish than those of the present. It is by examining all of them, in their concrete historical course, and by emphasizing the multiplicity of possible trajectories and bifurcations, that we can put into perspective the current inegalitarian regime and consider the conditions of its transformation. We will attach particular importance to the fall of the proprietorial and colonial societies in the twentieth century, a fall which has been accompanied by a radical transformation of the structure of inequalities and their system of justification, from which the present world is directly derived. The West European countries, starting with France, the United Kingdom and Germany, which on the eve of the First World War were more unequal than the United States, became less unequal in the twentieth century, First, because the compression of inequalities caused by the shocks of the years 1914-1945 was more massive, and then because the increase in inequalities since the 1980s was less marked than in the United States (see Figure 0.6) 12. We will see that the strong compression of inequalities that took place between 1914 and the years 1950-1960 is explained in Europe as in the United States by a set of transformations of the legal, social and fiscal system, the unfolding of which was in fact considerably accelerated by the wars of 1914-1918 and 1939-1945, the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and the crisis of 1929, but which, to a certain extent, were in intellectual and political development since the end of the nineteenth century, and of which it was It is possible to think that they would have occurred anyway, in a different form, in favor of other crises. It is the meeting of intellectual evolutions and event logic that produces historical change: some can not do anything without the others. We will find this lesson multiple times, for example when we analyze the events of the French Revolution or the transformations of the structure of inequalities in India since colonial times. Figure 0.6 Inequalities from 1900 to 2020: Europe, United States, Japan Reading: the share of the top decile (the top 10% of incomes) in total national income was about 50% in Western Europe in 1900- 1910, before declining to around 30% in 1950-80, then rising above 35% in 2010-2020. The rise in inequality has been much stronger in the United States, where the share of the top decile approaches 50% in 2010-2020 and exceeds the level of 1900-1910. Japan is in an intermediate position between Europe and the United States. Sources and series: see piketty.pse.ens.fr/ ideologie . Among the legal, fiscal and social transformations introduced during the twentieth century to reduce inequalities include the large-scale development of a progressive tax system on income and legacy inheritances, ie to say of a system of taxation weighing at much higher rates on the highest incomes and the higher patrimonies than on the lower incomes and patrimonies. This invention of large-scale modern tax progressivity was notably the case of the United States, which, at the time of the Young Age (1865-1900) and the great industrial and financial accumulations of the beginning of the twentieth century, was very concerned the idea of ​​becoming one day as inegalitarian as the old Europe, then perceived as oligarchic and contrary to the democratic spirit of the United States. This invention was also the work of the United Kingdom, which did not experience the same patrimonial destruction as France and Germany between 1914 and 1945, but which undertook, in a more peaceful political setting, to turn its back on its heavy an inegalitarian aristocratic and proprietorist past , particularly through the progressive income and inheritance tax. Regarding the income tax, it can be seen, for example, that the higher rate, ie the rate applied to the highest incomes, averaged 81% in the United States between 1932 and 1980; that is for almost half a century, and 89% in the United Kingdom, compared to "only" 58% in Germany and 60% in France (see Figure 0.7) 13. Note that these rates do not include other taxes (eg on consumption), and in the US case do not include state income taxes (which in practice are in the order of 5% or 10%). %, and add to federal tax rates). Obviously, these rates above 80%, applied for half a century, do not seem to have led to the destruction of American capitalism, quite the contrary. Chart 0.7 The top rate of income tax, 1900-2020 Reading: the top marginal income tax rate (applicable to the highest income) was on average 23% in the United States from 1900 to 1932, from 81% between 1932 and 1980, and 39% between 1980 and 2018. In these same periods, the higher rate was 30%, 89% and 46% in the United Kingdom, 18%, 58% and 50% in Germany, and 23%, 60% and 57% in France. Fiscal progressivity peaked in the middle of the century, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. Sources and series: see piketty.pse.ens.fr/ ideologie . We will see that this strong tax progressivity has largely contributed to reduce inequalities in the twentieth century, and we will analyze in detail how it was challenged in the 1980s, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. and the lessons that can be drawn from these different historical experiences and national trajectories. For US Republicans led by Ronald Reagan, as for the British Conservatives led by Margaret Thatcher, both of whom came to power following the 1979-80 elections, the dramatic reduction in tax progressivity was the most emblematic measure of this. which was then called the "conservative revolution". This political-ideological turn of the 1980s had a considerable impact on the evolution of tax progressivity and inequalities not only in these two countries, but also on a global level, especially since this turning point was never really called into question. by successive governments and political movements in both countries. In the United States, the top rate of federal income tax has fluctuated around 30% -40% since the late 1980s; in the United Kingdom, the higher rate has hovered around 40-45%, with perhaps a slight upward trend since the 2008 crisis. In both cases, the levels observed over the period 1980-2018 are roughly twice as low as those applied during the years 1932-1980, that is to say around 40% and no longer around 80% (see graph 0.7). In the eyes of the proponents and advocates of this turning point, the dramatic reduction in tax escalation was justified by the idea that the top tax rates had reached disproportionate levels in both countries between 1950 and 1980. , they would have even softened Anglo-Saxon entrepreneurs, thus contributing to the catching up by the countries of continental Europe and by Japan (theme strongly present in the American and British election campaigns of the years 1970-1980). With the hindsight that we have today, more than three decades later, it seems to me that this thesis resists very little to the test of facts, and that the whole question deserves to be reconsidered. The catch-up period of the 1950-1980s can be explained by many other factors, starting with the fact that Germany, France, Sweden or Japan had a very slow growth in 1950 vis-à-vis Anglo-Saxon countries (and in particular the United States), so that it was almost inevitable that they would grow faster in the following decades. The strong growth of these countries may also have been favored by a number of institutional factors, particularly the relatively ambitious and egalitarian educational and social policies they put in place after the Second World War, which allowed for a catch-up particularly rapid education vis-à-vis the United States, and a clear overtaking of the United Kingdom, which was lagging behind in terms of training since the end of the nineteenth century, to which the country never really faced as much as he could. On the other hand, it must be emphasized that productivity growth in the United States and the United Kingdom was actually significantly higher during the 1950-1990 period than it was during the 1950s. 1990-2020, which raises serious doubts about the invigorating virtues of lowering higher tax rates. In the end, it is reasonable to assume that the lowering of fiscal progressivity decided in the 1980s largely contributed to an unprecedented increase in inequality observed in the United States and the United Kingdom during the period 1980-2018, to a collapse of the national income going to the lowest incomes, as well as to the rise of a feeling of abandonment of the middle and popular classes and the attitudes of withdrawal of identity and xenophobia which have manifested themselves so violently in these two countries in 2016-2017 with the referendum on the exit of the European Union ( Brexit ) and the election of Donald Trump . In any case, these experiences can be mobilized to rethink more ambitious forms of tax progressivity for the twenty-first century, for income and wealth, and for rich and poor countries, which were the first victims of tax competition and lack of financial transparency. The free movement of capital without control and without exchange of information between tax administrations has been one of the main vehicles for the perpetuation and international expansion of the conservative fiscal revolution of the 1980s and 1990s. It has had an extremely negative impact on the process of state building and legitimate taxation on the whole planet. In reality, it is also and above all the inability of post-war social democratic coalitions to respond to these challenges that we will have to question, and in particular their inability to extend the problem of tax progressivity to the future. Transnational scale and the concept of temporary private property (which would actually lead to a sufficiently progressive tax on the most important owners, who should then return each year to the community a significant fraction of their properties). This programmatic, intellectual and ideological limitation is one of the fundamental reasons for the exhaustion of the historic movement towards equality and the phenomenon of rising inequalities. From ideological glaciation and new educational inequalities In order to fully understand all the evolutions involved, we will also have to analyze the political-ideological transformations concerning other political and social institutions that allow the reduction and regulation of inequalities. This concerns in particular the question of the sharing of economic power and the involvement of employees in decision-making bodies and business strategies, an issue on which several countries (such as Germany and Sweden) have developed solutions since the 1950s. innovations that until recently have not been truly generalized and deepened. The reasons undoubtedly stem from the diversity of political and ideological trajectories peculiar to each country, the British Laborists and the French socialists, for example, having favored a nationalization-oriented program until the 1980s, before abruptly abandoning any prospect of this. type after the fall of the Wall and the end of communism. But they are also explained by the absence everywhere of a sufficient reflection on the passing of the purely private property. In fact, the cold war has not only produced the effect we know about the system of international relations. In many ways, it also contributed to a glaciation of thinking about the overthrow of capitalism, which the anti-communist euphoria following the fall of the Wall only reinforced, almost until the "Great Recession" of 2008. So it is only recently that the reflections for a better social integration of economic forces have really resumed their course. The same is true for the crucial question of educational investment and access to training. The most striking aspect of growing inequality in the United States is the collapse of the share of the poorest 50% in total income, from about 20% in 1980 to just over 12%. in 2018. A massive fall, starting from a level that was already not very high, can only be explained by a multitude of factors, starting with the evolution of social and wage rules (such as the sharp drop in real minimum wage since 1980) and very high inequalities in access to education. From this point of view, it is striking how much the chances of university access to the United States are determined by parental income. By matching students 'information and parents' tax returns, researchers were able to demonstrate that the probability of access to higher education (including short diplomas in two years) was in the 2010s from barely more than 20% of the 10% of young adults with the lowest parental income, and almost linearly more than 90% for young adults with the highest parental income (see Figure 0.8) 14. It must also be made clear that when they have access to one another, they are not entitled to the same higher education. The concentration of educational investment and funding on elitist sectors is particularly extreme in the United States, with a great deal of opacity on admission procedures and a virtual absence of public regulation. Chart 0.8 Parental income and university access: United States, 2014 Reading: In 2014, the rate of access to higher education (percentage of 19 to 21 year olds enrolled in a university, college, or other higher education institution) was barely 30% for the 10% poorest children in the United States, and more than 90% for the richest 10%. Sources and series: see piketty.pse.ens.fr/ ideologie . These results are striking, as they illustrate the considerable gap that sometimes exists between official meritocratic proclamations (which often insist on the importance of equal opportunity, at least on a theoretical and rhetorical level) and the realities the most disadvantaged classes in terms of access to training. We will see that inequalities in access to and funding of education are a little less extreme in Europe and Japan, and that this may help explain the strongest divergence between high and low income observed in the United States. However, the issue of inequalities in educational investment and the lack of democratic transparency in this regard is an issue that concerns all countries, and is one of the most important social democratic failures, with those relating to the redefinition of property. The return of multiple elites and the difficulties of an egalitarian coalition More generally, we will attempt in this book to better understand under what conditions egalitarian political coalitions have managed to form in the mid-twentieth century to reduce inequalities from the past, why they have become exhausted, and under what conditions new egalitarian coalitions could emerge at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It must first be noted that coalitions redistributive type social democratic (at large) that have emerged in the middle of the twentieth century had a size that was not only electoral, institutional and political participation, but that was primarily intellectual and ideological. In other words, it is above all in the field of ideas that the battles were fought and won. It is certainly essential that these coalitions have also been embodied in particular parties and elections, whether it is a genuinely and explicitly " social democratic " party such as the SAP in Sweden or the SPD in Germany, both of which important responsibilities as early as 1920-1930, 15 or in the form of the Labor Party in the United Kingdom (which won an absolute majority of seats in the historic elections of 1945), the Democratic Party in the United States (in power of 1932 to 1952 under Roosevelt then Truman), or in the form of various socialist-communist alliances in France (in power in 1936 and 1945) and in many other countries. But beyond these specific incarnations, the fact is that the real seizure of power was primarily ideological and intellectual. They were coalitions of ideas based on programs of reduction of inequalities and profound transformations of the legal, fiscal and social system which finally imposed itself on all the political forces during the period 1930-1980, including the parties located further right on the political spectrum of the time. This transformation was naturally based on the mobilization strategies implemented by the social democratic parties (in the broad sense), but more generally on the involvement of large parts of the social body (trade unions, activists, media, intellectuals) and an overall transformation of the dominant ideology, which, throughout the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century, was based on the quasi-religious dogma of the market, inequality and property. The most important factor leading to the emergence of such coalitions of ideas and this new vision of the role of the state was the loss of legitimacy of the system of private ownership and free competition, first gradually in the nineteenth century. the twentieth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, because of the enormous concentrations of wealth generated by industrial growth and the feelings of injustice provoked by these developments, and then in an accelerated manner following the world wars and the crisis of the 1930s. The existence of a communist counter-model in the Soviet Union also played a vital role, on the one hand to impose an ambitious redistributive agenda on conservative actors and parties that often did not want it, and on the other hand to accelerate the process of decolonization in the European colonial empires and the extension of civil rights in the United States. But if we look at the evolution of the structure of the social democratic electorates (in the broadest sense) since 1945, it is striking to see how much they have changed, both in Europe and in the United States. United, under relatively close conditions, which is not obvious at first, given the very different historical origins of party systems on both sides of the Atlantic. In the 1950s-1970s, the vote for the Democratic Party in the United States was particularly high among the least educated voters and the voters with the lowest incomes and wealth (while the Republican vote was on the contrary more important among the voters). most graduates and the highest incomes and heritages). The same structure is found in France, in almost identical proportions: the Socialist, Communist and Radical parties attracted in the years 1950-1970 more votes among the least qualified and the most modest incomes and heritages (and conversely for the political parties). center right and right of various tendencies). This electoral structure began to change in the late 1960s and during the 1970s, and from the years 1980-2000 a structure significantly different from that of the 1950s-1970s, again almost identical to United States and France: The Democrat vote as the Socialist-Communist vote has become the highest among the most educated voters, while remaining weaker among the highest incomes. However, this could only last for a while: during the 2016 US presidential election, it was for the first time not only the most qualified but also the highest income who preferred to vote Democratic rather than Republican, hence a complete reversal of the social structure of voting compared to the years 1950-1970 (see Figure 0.9). Chart 0.9 The Transformation of the Political and Electoral Conflict, 1945-2020: Emergence of a Multiple Elite System or a Great Turnaround? Reading: in the years 1950-1970, the vote for the Democratic party in the United States and for the left-wing parties (socialists, communists, radicals, ecologists) in France was associated with the voters having the diploma and income levels the least high; in the years 1980-2000, he became associated with the most qualified voters; in the years 2010-2020, it is also becoming associated with the highest income earners (especially in the United States ). Sources and series: see piketty.pse.ens.fr/ ideologie . In other words, the decomposition of the post-war left-right structure, on which the reduction of inequalities in the middle of the twentieth century was based, and whose elections in the United States and France in 2016- 2017 show how advanced it is, a phenomenon that comes from far away, and that can only be properly grasped after a broad re-examination. We will see, moreover, that we find similar transformations with the Labor vote in the United Kingdom and the Social Democratic votes of various tendencies in Europe . The social democratic vote (in the broad sense) corresponded in the years 1950-1980 to the vote of the party of the workers; it became from 1990-2010 the vote of the party of graduates. We will see, however, that the highest patrimonies continue to be wary of social democratic, labor and socialist parties, including in the case of the Democratic vote in the United States (though in both cases less and less clearly). The important point is that these different dimensions of social inequalities (diploma, income, property) have always been related to each other, but only partially: in the years 1950-1980 as in the years 2000-2020, we can find many people whose position in the hierarchy of diplomas is higher than that of property, and vice versa . The important change that has taken place concerns the ability of political organizations and coalitions to unite or contrast these different dimensions of social inequality. Specifically, in the years 1950-1980, these different dimensions were politically aligned: people who held lower positions in the social hierarchy tended to vote for the same party or coalition, regardless of the dimension considered (degree, income, heritage), and being misplaced in several dimensions produced cumulative effects on voting. The structure of the political conflict was " classist, " in the sense that it contrasted the most modest social classes with the higher social classes , regardless of the dimension chosen to define class identity (identity which in practice is always deeply complex and multidimensional, which tends to complicate the formation of majority coalitions). On the other hand, from the years 1980-2000, the different dimensions of social inequality have ceased to be aligned. The structure of the political conflict corresponds to what can be described as a system of "multiple elites": a party or a coalition attracts the votes of the most qualified (the intellectual and cultural elite), while the other party or coalition seduces the votes of the highest patrimonies and to a certain extent of the highest incomes (the merchant and financial elite). Among the many difficulties posed by such a situation is the fact that all those who have neither a high degree of education, nor high heritage or income, are likely to feel abandoned with this structure of political conflict. This may explain why voter turnout has plummeted in recent decades among social groups with the lowest levels of education, income and wealth, while it was just as strong as for better-endowed groups. during the years 1950-1970. If we want to understand the rise of "populism" (a catch-all term often used by elites to disqualify political movements they feel insufficiently in control), it is useful to start by analyzing this rise in power of "elitism" within partisan structures. It can also be noted that this system of multiple elites is not totally unrelated to the old trifunctional regime, which was based on a certain balance between clerical and warlike elites, even if the forms of legitimacy obviously changed.

Rethinking Fair Property, Fair Education, the Just Frontier We will try to understand thoroughly the origins and implications of this transformation of the structure of political and electoral divides since the 1950s-1970s. Let us say it straightaway: it is a complex evolution, which can be analyzed both as a cause and as a consequence of the rise of inequalities, and which would require many other works and materials than those I have. I was able to gather in this book to be apprehended in a completely satisfactory way. We can first of all see this evolution as the consequence of the "conservative revolution" of the 1980s and of the resulting social and financial deregulation, to which the Social Democrats have strongly contributed, having failed to have sufficiently thought an alternative model of organizing the world economy and going beyond the nation-state. For example, the former social democratic parties and coalitions have gradually abandoned any strong ambition in terms of redistribution and reduction of inequalities, in part because of growing tax competition between countries and the free movement of goods and capital ( that they themselves participated in setting up, without compensation in terms of new common tax and social rules), so that they lost the support of the less favored voters, and have increasingly focused their attention on the most graduates, who were the first winners of the ongoing globalization. We can also consider that it is the rise of racial and ethnoreligious divides , first in the United States as a result of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, and then in Europe when conflicts over migration and postcolonial issues began. to harden in the years 1980-1990, which caused the emergence of strong divisions within the popular classes, and which led to the gradual breakup of the egalitarian coalition of the years 1950-1980, with the gradual departure of part of the white or indigenous popular classes to xenophobic and nativist votes. According to the first explanation, the Social Democrats have abandoned the popular classes; according to the second, the opposite would have occurred. These different explanations may have their share of truth, but the analysis of the multiple trajectories and chronologies suggests that they can be included in the same factor: the incapacity of the social-democratic egalitarian coalition of the post-war period. deepen and renew his program and ideology. Rather than blaming liberal globalization (which did not fall from the sky) or the supposedly popular racism (which is nothing more spontaneous than that of the elites), it is more constructive to explain these evolutions by ideology. and in this case by the ideological weakness of the egalitarian coalition. This weakness concerns in particular the inability to think and organize the redistribution and tax progressivity at the transnational level, a question that was largely evacuated by the social democrats at the time of the redistributive nation-state triumphing over the after the war, and which they have never really grasped so far, especially within the framework of the European Union, and more generally at the global level. This also concerns the difficulties encountered in integrating into the reflection on social inequality the question of the diversity of origins, a question which, to tell the truth, had never really been posed before the 1960s-1970s, since people from different continental, racial or ethno-religious backgrounds did not cross each other in the same societies, except through interstate relations and colonial domination. Basically, these two weaknesses pose the same question: that of the boundary of the human community to which we are attached to organize collective life, and in particular to reduce inequalities and to build a standard of equality acceptable to the greatest number of people. . The general movement of contact between different parts of the world, in particular as a result of the progress of transport and communication technologies, makes it necessary to constantly review the framework of action, and to consider the question of social justice in an explicit framework. transnational and global. We will also see that the social-democratic program has never really thought about the conditions of a just property since the communist failure. The post-war social-democratic compromises have been hastily constructed, and the issues of progressive taxation, temporary ownership, and ownership diffusion (for example, through a universal capital endowment, financed by a progressive tax on property and inheritance), power sharing and social ownership within companies (co-management, self-management), fiscal democracy and public property have never been examined and tested in such a comprehensive and coherent that they could have been. The fact that higher education has ceased to be reserved for a thin elite, an excellent development in itself, has also transformed the conditions for a just education. At the age of primary and secondary education, there was a relatively simple egalitarian program in education: it was enough to devote the necessary means to bring the entire generation to the end of primary and secondary school . With higher education, it has become more complex to define an egalitarian goal. Ideologies purportedly based on equality of opportunity, but aimed in fact above all at glorifying the merits of the winners of the education system, have developed at a brisk pace, with consequences for particularly unequal and hypocritical distribution of places and resources (see Figure 0.8). upper). The inability of the social democrats to convince the underprivileged classes that they cared about their children and their education as much as their own children and elitist sectors (not surprising, since they have never really developed fair and transparent policy in this area) probably explains to a large extent why they became the party of graduates. I will try in the last part of this book to analyze on these different questions the lessons that can be drawn from the available historical experiences, and the institutional arrangements to address the conditions of a right property, an education. just and a fair border. These conclusions must be taken for what they are: a few imperfect, fragile and tentative lessons that can help shape the contours of participatory socialism and social-federalism based on the lessons of history. Above all, I want to emphasize what is one of the main lessons of the historical narrative that follows and which is the main theme of this book: ideas and ideologies count in history, but they are nothing without the logic of logic. events, concrete historical and institutional experiments, and often more or less violent crises. One point seems certain: given the profound transformation of the structure of political and electoral divisions since the 1950s and 1980s, it is unlikely that a new egalitarian coalition will ever emerge without a radical redefinition of its programmatic, intellectual foundations. and ideological. The diversity of the world: the essential passage through the long term Before returning to the thread of this review of recent developments and the present time, this book will begin by making a long detour through the history of unequal regimes. In particular, we will have to study the transformation of old trifunctional societies into owners' societies, and how the meeting with the European proprietary and colonial powers affected the trajectories of non - European societies . I have already sketched the reasons for this indispensable passage by the long duration. This will allow us first of all to measure the political-ideological diversity of unequal regimes, as well as the multiplicity of possible trajectories and bifurcations. The different human societies have shown in history a great creativity to structure ideologically and institutionally social inequalities, and it would be wrong to see in these intellectual and political constructions a pure veil hypocritical and unimportant allowing the elites to justify their immutable domination. These constructions reflect conflicting struggles and visions, which to a certain extent all have a basis of sincerity and plausibility and from which useful lessons can be drawn. The question of the ideal organization of a large society is anything but simple, and it is not enough to denounce the regime in place to be certain that the one who will replace it will be more satisfactory. We must take seriously the ideological constructions of the past, first because they are not always more crazy than those of the present, and also because we have to analyze them from a distance and possibilities of distance we are often lacking with the present time. We will also see that many eminently contemporary debates have ancient roots, as with the discussions on progressive taxation and the redistribution of properties during the French Revolution. The study of this genealogy is necessary to better understand the conflicts to come and the solutions that can be envisaged. Secondly, and above all, this long detour through history is indispensable, as contact between different parts of the world has been a very gradual process. For centuries, the many societies of the planet had very few links. Then the meetings began to develop, through intellectual and commercial exchanges, as well as within the framework of interstate relations of power and relations of colonial domination. It is only since decolonization and independence, and in some ways since the end of the cold war, that the different regions of the world are truly connected to each other, not only in terms of economic flows and but also and especially from the point of view of human and cultural exchanges. In many countries, for example in European societies, there was almost no direct contact between peoples from different continental and religious origins until the 1960s. These reports began to take on new dimensions with postcolonial migration flows, and they had a considerable impact on the evolution of the structure of the ideological and electoral conflict in Europe. Other parts of the world, for example in India or the United States, in Brazil or in South Africa, have an older experience of encounters on the same soil of people who perceive themselves as radically different from each other, for racial, social or religious reasons, which has led to various trajectories punctuated at the same time by cross-fertilization, compromise and sometimes persistent antagonism. Only a vast historical review of these encounters and the unequal regimes that resulted from them can make it possible to consider moving on to the next stages of this long, common and connected history. The complementarity of natural language and mathematical language Before going further in this investigation, I would like to finally clarify a point of method. This book will use mainly natural language (which is not particularly natural, neither in the case of the French language, in which I write this book, nor in that of other languages), and in a complementary way mathematical and statistical language. For example, I will often use the notions of deciles and percentiles to measure the inequality of income or property, or the hierarchy of diplomas. In doing so, my intention is not to substitute decile war for class warfare. Social identities are and will always be flexible and multidimensional, and it is by using natural language that social groups in different societies can find the linguistic resources to designate professions and trades, assets and skills, hopes and opportunities. experiences they identify with. Nothing can ever replace natural language, neither to express social identities and political ideologies, nor to structure research in the social sciences and reflection on the just society. Those who are waiting for one day to be able to delegate to a mathematical formula, an algorithm or an econometric model, the care of choosing the "socially optimal" level of inequality and the institutions that will lead to it will be at their expense. It will never happen, and that's good. Only open and democratic deliberation, formulated in natural language (or rather the different natural languages, which is not a small detail), can offer the necessary nuances and finesses to consider such choices. However, the use of mathematical language, statistical series, charts and tables, occupies an important place in this book, and also plays a key role in political deliberation and in historical change. Let us repeat it: like all statistics, the historical series and other quantitative evaluations presented in this book are nothing but imperfect, temporary and fragile social constructs. They are not intended to establish "the" truth of figures or the certainty of "facts". From my point of view, statistics are primarily concerned with developing a language to establish orders of magnitude, and especially to compare in the most sensible way possible times, societies and cultures that consider themselves very far apart from each other, and which by construction can never be perfectly compared to each other. However, beyond the absolute uniqueness and the radical specificity of each society, it may be legitimate to seek, for example, to compare the concentration of property in force in the United States in 2018 with that of France in 1914 or United Kingdom of 1800. The conditions for the exercise of the right of property are certainly not the same in all three cases. Legal, tax and social systems differ in many ways, and the categories of assets held (land, urban real estate, financial assets, intangibles, etc.) are themselves very different. However, if we are aware of all these specificities and their importance, and if we always keep in mind the social and political conditions of the construction of the sources available, then that may make sense make such comparisons, for example by estimating the share of total properties held by the richest 10% and the poorest 50% in these different companies. Using statistical data in historical research is also the best way to measure the extent of our ignorance. The fact of bringing numbers immediately calls for other figures, which most often are not available, what is important to say and to note explicitly. This leads to specifying the comparisons that can be made and those that can not be done. In practice, there are usually some comparisons that make sense, including between societies that think they are exceptional and radically different from each other, and often refuse to learn from each other. One of the main objectives of social science research is to identify such comparisons, while clearly indicating all those that can not be done. These comparisons are useful because they can help draw lessons from different political and historical trajectories, analyze the effects of the legal or tax system, construct common standards of social and economic justice, and build institutional arrangements that are acceptable to all. the biggest number. Too often, the social sciences are content to say that every statistic is a social construct, which of course is always true, but not enough, because it amounts to giving up other essential debates, and in particular economic debates. This attitude sometimes reflects a certain conservatism, or at least a great skepticism about the possibility of drawing lessons from imperfect sources bequeathed by history. Yet it is by relying on statistical devices and mathematical constructions of various kinds that multiple historical processes of social and political emancipation have taken place. It is difficult, for example, to organize universal suffrage if censuses are not available to divide the constituencies and ensure that each voter has the same weight, as well as electoral rules to transform votes. in decisions. It is not easy to claim tax justice if a scale expressed as a tax rate does not replace the tax collector's discretionary power. These scales must themselves be applied to magnitudes such as income or capital, which are abstract and theoretical concepts whose practical definition poses many difficulties, but which makes it possible to ensure that very different social groups accept to compare themselves to each other, at the price of complex socio-political negotiations and compromises in the concrete application of these categories to the social fabric and its subtle borders. In a few years time, it will be realized that it was not very credible to pretend to organize educational justice without giving itself the means to verify whether the disadvantaged social classes benefited from public resources at least equal to those granted to the most favored classes (and not much less, as is the case nowadays everywhere), and without explicitly and verifiably introducing social origins in the mechanisms designed to allocate resources. To fight against intellectual nationalism as if to escape the arbitrariness of the elite and to build a new egalitarian horizon, mathematical and statistical language, used with moderation and wisely, is an indispensable complement to natural language. Map of the book The rest of this book is composed of four parts and seventeen chapters. The first part, titled "Unequal Regimes in History," is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 presents a general introduction to the study of ternary (or trifunctional) societies, that is, societies organized around a tripartite structure into three functional groups (clergy, nobility, third state). Chapter 2 analyzes the case of the societies of European orders, based on a form of balance between the legitimacy of intellectual and warlike elites and specific forms of ownership and power relations. Chapter 3 examines the invention of the owners' societies, particularly through the break-up of the French Revolution, which attempted to establish a radical separation between the property right (deemed open to all) and the sovereign powers (now a monopoly). state), and which stumbled on the question of the inequality of property and its persistence. Chapter 4 analyzes the development of a society of hyperingalitarian owners in France in the nineteenth century and up to the First World War. Chapter 5 examines the different European variants of transition between trifunctional and proprietary logic , focusing in particular on the case of the United Kingdom and Sweden, which illustrates the multiplicity of possible trajectories, as well as the importance of collective mobilizations and politico-ideological bifurcations in the transformation of unequal regimes. The second part, titled "Slavery and Colonial Societies", consists of four chapters. Chapter 6 focuses on slave societies, which constitute the most extreme historical form of an unequal regime. I will focus in particular on the abolitions of the nineteenth century and the forms of compensation to the owners to which they gave rise. These episodes illustrate the strength of the regime of quasi-sacralisation of property that prevailed at the time, and of which the current world is in part. Chapter 7 examines the structure of inequalities in post- slave colonial societies , which are certainly less extreme than in the enslaved societies to which they have succeeded, but which have also left deep traces in the structure of contemporary inequality, both between countries and between countries. inside countries. Chapters 8 and 9 examine how the transformation of trifunctional extra-European societies has been affected by their encounter with the European colonial and proprietary powers , focusing first on the case of India (where the old statutory divisions have left unusually stubborn traces, partly because of their rigid codification by the British colonizer), and then placed in a wider Eurasian perspective (China, Japan, Iran). The third part, entitled "The Great Transformation of the Twentieth Century," consists of four chapters. Chapter 10 analyzes the fall of homeowners' societies in the twentieth century, as a result of the two world wars, the crisis of the 1930s, and the challenge of communism and independence, and even more collective and ideological mobilizations (especially social democrats and trade unions) in the late nineteenth century to rebuild an unequal regime more just than proprietary. Chapter 11 examines the achievements and limits of the social-democratic societies that emerged after the Second World War, and in particular the limitations that they had to rethink the conditions of a just property, to face the unequal challenge of higher education and to extend the question of redistribution at the transnational level. Chapter 12 examines communist and post-communist societies, both in their Russian, Chinese and East European variants, and the way in which post-communism has contributed to feed the recent inequality and identity abuses. Chapter 13 puts into perspective the current global inegalitarian hypercapitalist regime , between modernity and archaism, insisting on its inability to measure the unequal and environmental crises that undermine it. The fourth part, entitled "Rethinking the Dimensions of the Political Conflict", is composed of four chapters, in which I study the evolution of the socio-economic structure of the electorates of the different parties and political movements since the middle of the twentieth century, and prospects for future recompositions. Chapter 14 examines the conditions of historical formation and then the disappearance of an egalitarian electoral coalition, that is to say based on a redistributive platform that is convincing enough to bring together popular classes from different origins, starting with the case of France. Chapter 15 shows how the process of disintegration-gentrification-Brahmanisation of the post-war social-democratic coalition also occurred in the United States and the United Kingdom, suggesting common structural causes. Chapter 16 extends the analysis to other Western electoral democracies, Eastern Europe, India and Brazil. I study the formation of a real social-nativist trap at the beginning of the twenty-first century. I insist on how the current drifts of identity are fueled by the absence of an egalitarian and internationalist platform strong enough to counterbalance it, in other words the absence of a real credible social-federalism. Chapter 17 attempts to draw lessons from the historical experiences reported in previous chapters and parts, and to outline the contours of possible participatory socialism for the twenty-first century. I analyze in particular the forms that could take a right property , with two main pillars: on one hand, a real division of power and voting rights in companies, to establish social property and go to beyond co-management and self-management; and on the other hand, a highly progressive tax on property, to fund a significant capital endowment for each young adult and to establish a form of temporary ownership and permanent circulation of assets. I will also deal with the issue of fair education and the just tax, and the need to guarantee through educational transparency and citizen control educational justice such as tax justice. Finally, I will examine the conditions of a just democracy and a just border. The central question here is that of an alternative organization of the world-economy, making it possible to develop, thanks to social-federalism, new forms of fiscal, social and environmental solidarity, in the place of treaties for the free movement of goods and capital. which take place today of world governance. Some readers in a hurry may be tempted to go directly to the last chapter and the conclusion. I can not stop them, but I caution them that they will have difficulty understanding where I get from if they do not read the first four parts, at least by snatches. Others may consider the materials in the first two parts to be too old to be relevant to them, and to focus on parts three and four. I tried to put enough reminders and references at the beginning of each part and chapter so that the book could be approached in different ways. Everyone therefore has to choose his path, even if the straight line naturally remains the most logical progression. To ease reading, only the main sources and references are cited in the text and footnotes. Readers wishing to obtain detailed information on all historical sources, bibliographic references and methods used in this book are invited to consult the technical appendix available online.